Bipartisan Senators Plan Spending Backup Amid Political Divide.

Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray and her Republican counterpart, Sen. Susan Collins, are working to establish a bipartisan funding framework for government spending bills for the fiscal year starting in October. However, the House Republicans' demands for steep federal spending cuts in a must-pass bill to lift the debt ceiling have left talks on both the debt limit and government funding at a stalemate. If Murray and Collins succeed in the next few weeks, they’d achieve a bipartisan feat unseen in years, allowing the upper chamber to move forward with a dozen annual spending bills and help avoid a government shutdown that triggers at the end of September.