The Senate has approved a two-year budget deal following passage by the House last week. The deal eases across-the-board spending cuts, but does not extend unemployment benefits for some 1.3 million people, which are set to expire next week. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, who crafted the bipartisan deal with Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, called it a step forward.

Sen. Patty Murray: “The Bipartisan Budget Act puts jobs and economic growth first by rolling back those automatic and harmful cuts to education and medical research and infrastructure investments and defense jobs for the next two years. If we didn’t get a deal, we would have faced another continuing resolution that would have locked in those damaging automatic cuts, or worse, a potential government shutdown in just a few short weeks.”

The bill’s passage reduces the chances of another government shutdown at the beginning of the year. Congress will have until January 15 to approve a series of spending measures under the new 2014 limit of more than $1 trillion.