House passes bill to avert shutdown with hours to spare
WASHINGTON — The House on Friday approved legislation to avert a federal shutdown that was just hours away, with lawmakers extending funding into mid-March and approving $100 billion in disaster relief for parts of the nation still reeling from storms. The Senate was expected to quickly follow suit.
The House vote came after Republicans stripped out a provision demanded by President-elect Donald Trump to suspend the federal debt limit and spare him the usually politically charged task of doing so when he takes office. But that demand sparked a revolt by dozens of Republicans on Thursday and led to a major defeat on the House floor.
The measure that passed Friday, by a vote of 366-34, must still be approved by the Senate and sent to President Joe Biden to keep dollars flowing to federal agencies. Otherwise, funding will lapse at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. All 34 “no” votes were from Republicans; one Democrat, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, voted “present.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the majority leader, said he expected the Senate to act quickly on the legislation.
“Though this bill does not include everything Democrats fought for, there are major victories in this bill for American families,” Schumer said, citing “emergency aid for communities battered by natural disasters,” as well as no suspension of the limits on federal borrowing. He added that it would “keep the government open with no draconian cuts.”
The legislation also extends farm programs for one year and provides $10 billion in direct aid for farmers.
The vote in the House capped an extraordinary week of Republican chaos and dysfunction in which Johnson cut a deal with Democrats to avert a shutdown, only to see it torpedoed by Trump and Elon Musk, who demanded a different plan, which was then defeated by Republicans with help from Democrats.
After the vote, Johnson, who faced questions about his ability to continue as speaker next year after the tumult of the past few days, said he had been in constant contact with Trump and had talked with Musk as well.
“He knew exactly what we were doing and why,” Johnson said of the president. “This is a good outcome for the country.”
Still, the vote illustrated the limits of the president-elect’s power to keep fractious House Republicans in line. Trump failed in his effort to win a debt-limit suspension even after threatening primary campaigns against Republicans who voted for a stopgap bill that did not address it. The internal divisions over spending and debt foreshadowed potential difficulties for Republicans next year as they try to navigate their narrow House margin and accomplish an ambitious domestic agenda including complex tax and spending issues.
The government funding measure was a stripped-down version of an earlier proposal negotiated between Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate that was much more expansive and filled with policy priorities for both parties as well as a cost-of-living pay adjustment for members of the House and Senate.
But as soon as it was rolled out by Johnson on Tuesday, it ran into fierce criticism from members of his own party as a bloated legislative Christmas tree of the sort Johnson had pledged to avoid. Musk piled on with an onslaught of criticism on his social media platform X, and Trump warned Republicans not to support any deal without a debt-ceiling suspension. Johnson quickly withdrew the bill and never put it to a vote.
That outcome angered Democrats who savaged Johnson for reneging on the deal they had reached. It also meant that some of the provisions they sought on health care and trade, among other issues, would fall by the wayside. Democrats weighed opposing the stripped-down measure that Johnson hastily cobbled together Friday, but ultimately decided to back it rather than risk being blamed for a shutdown.
“House Democrats have successfully stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government crashing the economy and hurting working-class Americans all across the land,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader. “House Democrats have successfully stopped the billionaire boys club, which wanted a $4 trillion blank check by suspending the debt ceiling.”
To mollify both Trump and conservatives, House Republican leaders floated a pledge to cut spending and raise the debt limit in separate legislation next year. Republicans have been preparing to pass party-line legislation through a fast-track process called reconciliation — a procedure that leadership said Friday could be used next year to address Trump’s demand to raise the debt limit.
“House Republicans agree to raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion in the first reconciliation package, with an agreement that we will cut $2.5 trillion in net mandatory spending in the reconciliation process,” the proposal from the Republican leadership said.
Those promises will join cutting taxes, cracking down on immigration and allowing for more oil drilling on the GOP agenda for next year. Republicans in the House and Senate have been at odds over how to tackle their policy priorities, with some senators pushing for multiple party-line bills and House members demanding one huge effort.
The shutdown turmoil made it clear that even one such vote is likely to be a heavy lift for Republicans.
Congress had flirted repeatedly with shutdowns over the past two years with Republicans in control of the House and Democrats the Senate. But lawmakers pulled back from the brink each time, fearing fallout in the November elections.
With the elections over and the holidays coming the next two weeks, lawmakers had initially expected a fairly smooth path to funding the government into next year but instead found themselves enmeshed in one final episode of disarray to cap a tumultuous Congress.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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