Senate votes to avoid a government shutdown: $460 billion package heads to President Joe Biden's desk to fund six agencies and Congress has just two weeks before another spending deadline

The Senate passed a $460 billion spending bill, teeing up President Joe Biden to sign the massive package into law to narrowly avoid a government shutdown.

After a late night for lawmakers at the State of the Union, the Senate passed the funding package.

Now, the package will head to Joe Biden's desk, where he is expected to sign it into law to keep the government's lights on. Had the bill not been passed, several federal agencies would have run out of money. 

The deal brought together funding for Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy-Water, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-VA and Transportation and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under one vote.

The bill passed through the House 339-85 earlier this week, with 132 Republicans voting yes, 83 voting no, and all but two Democrats voting for it.

Details of the package were released late Sunday, giving lawmakers under a week to ready through the 1,000+ page document. 

The spending plan only covers the first six agencies of government, which have a funding deadline of Friday. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was the architect behind the massive spending deal 

President Joe Biden is expected to sign the government funding bill into law this evening

Members of the House's Freedom Caucus and like-minded senators decried the $12 billion and 605 pages of earmarks in the bill. 

The issue of earmarks came to a head on Friday as the Senate Republican conference was split the on the billions in additional spending. 

'In 2010, the GOP rejected earmarks—the corrupting, special-interest currency long used to 'buy' votes in Congress for huge spending bills,' Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, exclusively told DailyMail.com in a statement Friday.

'The minibus is full of them: a classic Washington spending spree that does nothing to fix the Democrats’ border crisis.'

'Republicans should not reward Joe Biden for failure.' 

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said earmarks are a vice for politicians. 'These earmarks are, you know, it's like cocaine,' he said, adding its as 'addictive as cocaine' for politicians. 

'It's disappointing that Republicans are going along with Democrats on this spending bill,' Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., posted on X. 'They're going along with hundreds of earmarks.'

'This is a real step backwards, and I will oppose it with every fiber of my being.' 

House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, R-Va., posted on X: 'It is not JUST the nearly 7000 earmarks for $13 billion, it is that these pork spending projects are used to buy votes for the bad bills that are plunging us trillions more into debt.' 

'It is embarrassing for any Republican to defend it.'

More conservative Senators came out against the $12 billion for earmarks in the funding package, saying the conference should reinstate an earmark ban

Many conservative members opposed the package as they did not see it as being fiscally responsible enough amid a growing $34.5 trillion national debt.

Though Speaker Mike Johnson - who choreographed this funding approach - has touted that the deal makes 'deep cuts' to the EPA (10%), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) (7%) and FBI (6%).  

Most of the FBI cuts, however, are because last year now-retired Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., earmarked $600 million for a new FBI headquarters in Alabama.

Other policy provisions in the bill would provide additional funding to the FAA to supervise the production of Boeing 737 Max aircrafts - after several alarming safety incidents in recent months - while another would prohibit U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve sales to China.

Amtrak, the long beleaguered American railway operator, would also get an additional $2.4 billion in funding.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he was 'proud' of the product that will keep the 'government open without cuts or poison pill riders.'

A Democrat memo summarizing the bill touted how the measure rejected GOP policies prohibiting 'the promotion or advancement of critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) measures.

The new funding details came after Congress passed a fourth short-term funding bill late last week, just one day before a government funding deadline.

Another bunch of federal funding deadlines come March 22 for the six remaining government agencies, but Congress is expected to lump together those bills in one to two votes.

The remaining six bills that need to be passed before March 22 are for the Departments of Defense, Financial Services, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education, State-Foreign Operations and the Legislative Branch.