WASHINGTON — Congress has given itself another extension, this time until March 1, to hammer out the details of a new federal budget.

The House and Senate approved the stopgap spending plan Thursday, a day before the deadline, avoiding a partial government shutdown.

Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Ky., said Friday he was frustrated, but the temporary measure was better than nothing.

“The Republicans have shown their extremists have no interest in governing,” McGarvey said. “They like the chaos. They wanted a shutdown. And so, fortunately, the House Democrats were able to come in, and nearly 200 of us voted with about 100 Republicans to keep the government open.”

McGarvey, recently named a senior whip, said he hopes to continue working across the aisle in the coming weeks.

“All we're doing is keeping the government open, funded at last year's levels, while we wait for the House Republicans to accept our bipartisan offers, create a budget to the deal that's already been agreed to and fund the government through September 30th of this year,” he said.  

Ahead of the vote Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he wants the government to stay open, but he wouldn’t vote to keep the same spending level.  

“If you talk to people in business in Kentucky or people who have had a bad year, sometimes they spend 70% of what they spent last year," Paul said. "Sometimes, they have to really retrench to keep their business open. Government never does that, and so I think that's what government needs to do. We need to start spending about 95% of last year. Doesn’t mean government would shut down.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., voted for the stopgap spending bill, along with all of Kentucky’s members in the House, except for Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.

Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky. is out, recovering from a car accident last week.