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US President Joe Biden signed a funding bill on Saturday, averting a Christmas-time government shutdown after negotiations in Congress went down to the wire overnight.

- Agencies

WASHINGTON:

Last-minute legislative wrangling was brought about by incoming president Donald Trump, who along with influential billionaire Elon Musk, pressured Republicans to abandon an earlier bipartisan funding compromise. Lawmakers then spent several days trying to hammer out another deal, with massive halts to government services hanging in the balance.

With the Friday midnight deadline already expired by minutes, senators dropped normal procedure to fast-track the new package to a vote, funding the government to mid-March.

"This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted," Biden said in a statement. "But it rejects the accelerated pathway to a tax cut for billionaires that Republicans sought."

The Democrats run the Senate, so there was never much doubt that the new funding package would get a rubber stamp after the party was crucial in helping the Republican majority in the House pass the bill earlier in the day on Friday.