Looking at a Government shutdown With the deadline passed, the Senate early Saturday quickly passed final passage of a bipartisan plan that would temporarily fund federal operations and disaster relief, ditching the president-elect Donald Trump’s Calls for the debt limit to be raised into the new year.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson had insisted congress would “fulfill our obligations” and not allow federal operations to close before the Christmas holiday season. But the outcome of the day was uncertain after Trump once again insisted that a Debt ceiling The increase should be included in any deal — if not, he said in an early morning post, the closures should “start now.”
The House of Representatives approved Johnson’s new bill by an overwhelming majority (366 to 34). The Senate worked into the night to pass the resolution 85-11 shortly after the deadline. At midnight, the White House said it had halted preparations for the shutdown.
“This is a good result for the country,” Johnson said after the House vote, adding that he had spoken to Trump and that the president-elect “was certainly pleased with this result as well.”
president Joe Bidenwho has played a less public role during a turbulent week in the process, was expected to sign the measure into law on Saturday.
“There will be no government shutdown,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The end result was the third attempt by Johnson, the embattled House speaker, to fulfill one of the federal government’s basic demands – to keep it open. And it raised strong questions about whether Johnson can keep his job and work with Trump and his billionaire ally in the face of disgruntled GOP colleagues Elon Muskwho called the legislative bodies from afar.
Trump’s last-minute demand was nearly impossible, and Johnson had almost no choice but to sidestep his push for a debt ceiling increase. The speaker knew there wouldn’t be enough support within the GOP majority to pass a funding package, as many Republican deficit advocates favor cutting the federal government and certainly wouldn’t allow more debt.
Instead, Republicans, who will have full control of the White House, House and Senate next year and have big plans for tax cuts and other priorities, are showing that they routinely have to rely on Democrats to get the votes they need. to keep up with the routine operations of governing.
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“So is this a Republican bill or a Democratic bill?” Musk teased on social media before the vote.
The dramatically scaled-down 118-page package would fund the government at current levels through March 14 and add $100 billion in disaster relief and $10 billion in agricultural aid for farmers.
Gone is Trump’s demand to raise the debt ceiling, which GOP leaders would advise lawmakers on as part of their tax and border packages in the new year. Republicans reached a so-called handshake agreement to raise the debt limit while cutting spending by $2.5 trillion over 10 years.
It’s essentially the same deal that collapsed the night before in a spectacular setback – opposed by most Democrats and some of the most conservative Republicans – minus Trump’s demand for a debt ceiling.
But it is far smaller than the original bipartisan agreement Johnson struck with Democratic and Republican leaders – a 1,500-page bill that Trump and Musk rejected, forcing him to start over. It was replete with a long list of other bills — including much-derided pay raises for lawmakers — but also other measures with broad bipartisan support that now have a more difficult path to becoming law.
House Democrats reacted calmly to the latest attempt after Johnson abandoned the hard-fought bipartisan compromise.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said it looked like Musk, the world’s richest man, was calling the shots for Trump and Republicans.
“Who’s in charge?” she asked during the debate.
Still, Democrats in the House of Representatives cast more votes than Republicans to pass the bill. Nearly three dozen conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against it.
“House Democrats have successfully stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from overthrowing the government, crashing the economy and harming working-class Americans across the country,” the House Democratic leader said Hakeem Jeffries said, referring to Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
In the Senate, almost all of the opposition came from Republicans — with the exception of independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said Musk’s interference was “not democracy, it’s oligarchy.”
Trump, who has not yet been sworn into office, is showing the power but also the limits of his influence in Congress by intervening and orchestrating affairs from Mar-a-Lago muskwho heads the new Ministry of Government Efficiency.
The new Trump administration promises this Cutting the federal budget and laying off thousands of employees and is relying on the Republicans for a large tax package. And Trump isn’t afraid of shutdowns, like the lawmakers who triggered the lockdown longest government shutdown in history in his first term in the White House.
“If there is going to be a government shutdown, let it begin now,” Trump posted on social media early this morning.
More important for the elected president was his demand to push this forward delicate debate about the debt ceiling from the table before returning to the White House. The federal debt limit expires on January 1, and Trump does not want the first months of his new administration to be burdened with tough negotiations in Congress to increase the country’s borrowing capacity. Now Johnson has to deliver.
“Congress must abolish the ridiculous debt ceiling or perhaps extend it until 2029,” Trump posted, increasing his call for a new debt ceiling increase by five years. “Without this, we should never make a deal.”
Government workers had already been told to prepare for a federal shutdown that would lay off millions of employees – and Military personnel – without a paycheck during the holiday season.
Biden has held talks with Jeffries and Schumer, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “Republicans have blown up this deal. That’s what they did and they need to fix the problem.”
As the day dragged on, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell chimed in, reminding his colleagues “how damaging it is to shut down the government and how foolish it is to bet that your side won’t will take the blame for it.”
At one point, Johnson asked House Republicans at a lunch meeting for a show of hands as they tried to decide the path forward.
Not only was the closure at stake, but also the speaker’s job. The speaker’s election is the first vote of the new Congress, which convenes Jan. 3, and some Trump allies have nominated Musk to be speaker.
Johnson said he spoke with Musk before Friday’s vote and they discussed the “extraordinary challenges of this job.”
