US Senate passes two-year bipartisan budget bill

The US Senate has passed a two-year federal budget bill – a decision that will ease automatic spending cuts and avert a government shutdown in January.

The proposal was outlined by a cross-party budget committee, set up after the 16-day government shutdown in October.

President Obama must first sign the bill into law, then the Senate and House of Representatives Appropriations committees will turn their attention to crafting a more than one trillion-dollar fiscal spending bill for 2014. This will be used to implement the budget deal before current spending authority ends on January 15.

It is hoped the bipartisan bill will help to set the wheels in motion for rebuilding what is being called a “broken budget process.”