WASHINGTON -- The House took emergency steps yesterday to keep vital federal programs from going broke while Congress is absent next month, removing the threat that people would lose their unemployment checks or chances to get a low-interest housing loans while legislators are on vacation.
The bill, passed 363-68, includes the transfer of more than $14 billion from the general treasury fund to endangered federal trust funds for unemployment benefits and highway projects.
The bill has three parts: bolstering the federal unemployment-insurance trust fund and the highway trust fund and increasing lending authority for the Federal Housing Administration, a major source of low-interest housing loans. All three programs could run out of money in August without congressional action.
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