President Barack Obama has signed a short-term bill that ends the 16-day partial government shutdown and raises the debt ceiling.
On Wednesday, October 16, the U.S. Congress approved the bill to end the partial government shutdown. The bill cleared the House on a 285-144 vote, with all House Democrats and 87 Republicans voting in favor of the bill. 144 Republicans voted against it.
The bill comes after two weeks of turmoil and pulls back the world's biggest economy from the brink of a debt crisis.
"We can begin to lift this cloud of uncertainty and unease from our businesses and from the American people," said Obama. "Hopefully next time it won't be in the 11th hour. We've got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis."
The result will come as a relief to several federal workers. The director of Office of Management and Budget told federal workers, a majority of whom had been idle for the past 16 days, to be ready to return to work on October 17 morning.
Per World Bank President Jim Yong Kim "the global economy dodged a potential catastrophe."
The eleventh-hour deal, however, only offers a temporary solution and does not completely resolve the basic issues pertaining to spending and deficits, which have divided Republicans and Democrats.
The deal will fund the government for a few months till January 15 and raises the $16.7 trillion U.S. debt ceiling till February 7. This suggests that a strong possibility exists that another budget battle and government shutdown may happen early next year.
"We think that we'll be back here in January debating the same issues," John Chambers, managing director of Standard and Poor's rating service, told CNN. "This is, I fear, a permanent feature of our budgetary process."
However, President Obama believes that America will not go through all this political turmoil again in a few months. When asked the question as he left the podium, Obama responded with a "No."
