Washington — Connecticut Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, both Democrats, were among the majority in the Senate to approve a budget deal Wednesday that avoids another government shutdown and rolls back across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester.
“This bipartisan budget bill, although far from perfect, helps create certainty and stability necessary for job creation and economic growth, and ends unnecessary, self-inflicted crises,” Blumenthal said in a statement.
Like many Democrats, however, Blumenthal decried the lack of an extension of unemployment benefits in the budget bill. On Dec. 28, those who’ve drawn unemployment benefits for more than 26 months will stop receiving payments.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, was the only member of Connecticut’s five-person House delegation to vote against the budget bill last week, largely because it would not extend long-term unemployment benefits.
With the Senate’s 64-36 vote on the budget agreement, it goes to President Obama, who is expected to sign it into law.
“I’m pleased that with tonight’s vote in the Senate, for the first time in years, both parties in both houses of Congress have come together to pass a budget,” Obama said in a statement. “It’s a budget that unwinds some of the damaging sequester cuts that have harmed students and seniors and acted as headwinds our businesses had to fight…All told, it’s a good first step away from the shortsighted, crisis-driven decision-making that has only served to act as a drag on our economy.”