U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks to members of the press at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 20, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House finally approved a stopgap spending bill Friday night that will keep the government open for a few more months, after a raucous 48 hours that served as a preview of what President-elect Donald Trump’s second term in office might look like.
The short-term spending package, the third version of a bill to be released this week, will give Congress until mid-March to negotiate agreement on the dozen full-year government funding measures and provide about $100 billion in natural disaster assistance.
It passed following a 366-34 vote with one Democrat voting “present.” The bill now goes to the Senate, where leadership will likely try to pass it before a midnight funding deadline, though that will take the agreement of all 100 lawmakers, or at least the ones still around Capitol Hill with the holidays nearing.
The legislation did not include any language either raising or suspending the debt limit, rejecting a demand by Trump that it be addressed. Congress and Trump will have to deal with that next year when they control the House, Senate and the White House.
The 118-page bill will extend programs in the five-year farm bill through September, giving the House and Senate more time to broker a deal, even though they are already more than a year late.
The package would not block members of Congress from their first cost-of-living salary adjustment since January 2009, boosting lawmakers’ pay next year from $174,000 to a maximum of $180,600.
It does not include a provision considered earlier this week that would have allowed the year-round sale of E15 blended gasoline nationwide in what would have been a win for corn growers and biofuels.
The White House announced during the House vote that President Joe Biden supports the legislation.
“While it does not include everything we sought, it includes disaster relief that the President requested for the communities recovering from the storm, eliminates the accelerated pathway to a tax cut for billionaires, and would ensure that the government can continue to operate at full capacity,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wrote. “President Biden supports moving this legislation forward and ensuring that the vital services the government provides for hardworking Americans – from issuing Social Security checks to processing benefits for veterans — can continue as well as to grant assistance for communities that were impacted by devastating hurricanes.”
Appropriators at odds
House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., urged support for the bill during floor debate, saying it would avoid a partial government shutdown, provide disaster aid and send economic assistance to farmers.
“Governing by continuing resolution is never ideal, but Congress has a responsibility to keep the government open and operating for the American people,” Cole said. “The alternative, a government shutdown, would be devastating to our national defense and for our constituents and would be a grave mistake.”
Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, spoke against the bill and criticized GOP negotiators from walking away from the original, bipartisan version released Tuesday.
She rejected billionaire Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, seemingly calling the shots as if he were an elected lawmaker.
“The United States Congress has been thrown into pandemonium,” DeLauro said. “It leads you to the question of who is in charge?”
Trump, Musk objections
Democrats and Republicans had an agreement earlier this week to fund the government, provide disaster aid, extend the agriculture and nutrition programs in the farm bill, extend various health care programs and complete dozens of other items. But Trump intervened, preventing House GOP leaders from putting that bill on the floor for an up-or-down vote.
Trump and Musk were unsupportive of some of the extraneous provisions in the original bill and Trump began pressing for lawmakers to address the debt limit now rather than during his second term.
House Republicans tried to pass their first GOP-only stopgap bill on Thursday night, but failed following a 174-235 vote, with 38 GOP lawmakers voting against the bill. That bill included a two-year debt limit suspension, but that was dropped from the version passed Friday.
Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said Friday before the vote that the GOP was united on its plan forward.
“We have a unified Republican Conference. There is a unanimous agreement in the room that we need to move forward,” Johnson said following a 90-minute closed-door meeting. “I expect that we will be proceeding forward. We will not have a government shutdown. And we will meet our obligations for our farmers, for the disaster victims all over the country, and for marking sure the military and essential services and everyone who relies on the federal government for a paycheck is paid over the holidays.”
A total of 34 House Republicans voted against the bill. No Democrats voted against passage.
How a shutdown works
The House and Senate not agreeing on some sort of stopgap spending bill before the Friday midnight deadline would have led to a funding lapse that would likely have led to a partial government shutdown just as the holidays begin.
During a shutdown, essential government functions that cover the protection of life and property continue, though no federal workers would have received their paychecks until after the shutdown ends. That loss of income would have extended to U.S. troops as well.
“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under “TRUMP,” the president-elect posted on social media Friday morning. “This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!”
In a separate post that went up just after 1 a.m. Eastern, Trump doubled down on his insistence that any short-term spending bill suspend the debt limit for another four years or eliminate the borrowing ceiling entirely.
“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling,” Trump wrote. “Without this, we should never make a deal. Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President.”