The House of Representatives passed a huge stopgap spending bill Thursday to keep the government functioning through the end of September, sidestepping any threat of a government shutdown.

The bipartisan vote in the Republican-controlled House follows approval earlier this week in the Democrat-controlled Senate and sends the measure President Barack Obama to be signed into law.

The measure would fund the day-to-day operating budgets of every Cabinet agency through Sept. 30, provide another $87 billion to fund overseas military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and maintain a pay freeze for federal workers.

The House passed the bipartisan 2013 measure by a sweeping 318-109 vote. The Senate had approved the measure on Wednesday after easing cuts that threatened intermittent closures of meat packing plants starting this summer and reviving college tuition grants for active-duty members of the military. The cuts were mandated by sharp automatic spending cuts that took effect at the beginning of the month and will lead to furloughs for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

Passage of the spending measure bill does not end the raging budget battles that have gripped Congress for months, with Washington as divided as ever over how to rein in deficit spending without hurting the economy. The vote merely allows Congress to move on from the current budget year and resume the bigger battle over future spending.

The House and Senate have spelled out drastically different budget blueprints for next year and beyond, an annual rite that defines each party's federal spending priorities. The dueling House and Senate budget plans appeal to core partisans in the warring parties that are gridlocked over persistent budget deficits.

President Barack Obama is exploring the chances of forging a middle path that blends new taxes and modest curbs to government benefit programs.

The House also passed its budget plan Thursday, which promises a balanced budget by the end of a decade with spending cuts alone. But its deep cuts to programs for the poor like Medicaid and food vouchers and its promise to abolish the so-called ``Obamacare'' health care program are nonstarters with Obama, who won re-election while campaigning against prior Republican budgets. It passed on a mostly party-line 221-207 vote.

The long-term Republican budget plan was authored by Paul Ryan, the party's failed vice presidential nominee. It offers slashing cuts to domestic agencies, while exempting the Pentagon and federal Social Security pensioners.

The Senate budget, which is still being debated, would mix spending cuts and tax hikes. It would leave significantly larger deficits but stabilize the national debt as a share of the economy. Economists say that is essential to avoiding a debt crisis that European nations have experienced.

The U.S. debt has reached at $16.6 trillion, while the annual deficit is finally starting to shrink, the Treasury Department said recently. Higher taxes and an improving economy are expected to hold the deficit below $1 trillion for the first time since Obama took office.

Budget negotiations will be complicated by the $85 billion in annual across-the-board spending cuts, known as the sequester. The cuts were designed to be so crude that they would force both sides to reach a long-term spending agreement, but they failed to do so, triggering the sequester on March 1.

That leaves the government with little flexibility in implementing the cuts, which are set to continue for a decade, unless a long-term budget deal is reached at last.

While that lasting deal has eluded Washington, Obama hasn't given up on a so-called grand bargain and has continued negotiating with Republicans, even making a rare visit last week to Congress.

Obama has indicated he is willing to cut spending on big entitlement programs beloved by Democrats, in exchange for raising taxes by closing loopholes in the tax code. Republicans oppose any more tax increases. (AP)