Obama, foes, ink deal to avert govt shutdown

"Tomorrow, I am pleased to announce, that the Washington monument, as well as the entire federal government, will be open for business," Obama said in his address.

A dramatic eleventh-hour deal staved off a damaging US government shutdown Friday, busting a rancorous budget stalemate between President Barack Obama's and his newly empowered Republican foes.

Party leaders clinched the agreement, including some US$38.5 billion (S$48.4 billion) of extra spending cuts, after a intense political bargaining, barely an hour before the federal government effectively ran out of money at midnight (0400 GMT).

"Some of the cuts we agreed to will be painful ... and I would not have made these cuts in better circumstances," Obama said at the White House after a long day of suspensful negotiating averted a potential political crisis.

"But beginning to live within our means is the only way to protect those investments that will help America to compete for new jobs," said the president.

A shutdown would have seen around 800,000 federal employees temporarily laid off, paychecks for frontline combat soldiers delayed and national parks and monuments closed.

ORIGINAL SOURCE

Content used in this blog remain the property of their respective owners.