At the deadline to avoid a government shutdown, the Senate quickly approved in the early hours of Saturday a bipartisan plan that would temporarily fund federal operations and disaster relief, but it dismisses President-elect Donald Trump’s demands to increase the debt ceiling for the new year.
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The President of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, insisted that Congress "will fulfill our obligations" and will not allow federal operations to shut down before the holiday season. However, the outcome of the day was uncertain after Trump reiterated his insistence that an increase in the debt ceiling be included in any agreement. Otherwise, the closures "start now," as he stated in a morning post.
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The House of Representatives approved Johnson's new bill by an overwhelming majority, 366 to 34. The Senate worked late into the night to pass it, 85-11, just after the deadline had passed. At midnight, the White House announced that it had halted preparations for the shutdown.
"This is a good result for the country," Johnson said after the vote in the lower chamber, adding that he had spoken with Trump and that the president-elect "was certainly happy with this result as well."
President Joe Biden, who has played a less public role in the process during a turbulent week, is expected to sign the law on Saturday.
"There will be no government shutdown," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The final product was Johnson's third attempt, the embattled House Speaker, to achieve one of the federal government's basic requirements: keeping it open. It raised serious doubts about whether Johnson will be able to keep his position in the face of his Republican colleagues' anger, and work alongside Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, who have set the pace for legislative moves this time.
Trump's last-minute demand was almost impossible to meet, and Johnson had little choice but to evade his pressures to increase the government's debt ceiling. Johnson knew there wouldn't be enough support within the Republican majority to pass any funding package, as many Republicans prefer to cut the federal government and certainly wouldn't allow more debt.
On the other hand, the Republicans, who will have full control of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate next year, with big plans for tax cuts and other priorities, are showing that they must routinely rely on Democrats to secure the necessary votes to keep government operations running.
"Is this a Republican or Democrat bill?" Musk mocked on social media before the vote.
The drastically reduced 118-page package would fund the government at current levels until March 14 and add $100 billion in disaster relief and $10 billion in agricultural assistance for farmers.
Trump's demand to raise the debt ceiling has been eliminated, which Republican Party leaders told lawmakers would be discussed as part of their tax and border plans in the new year. Republicans reached an informal agreement to raise the debt limit at that time while cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over 10 years.
It is essentially the same agreement that failed the night before in a spectacular reversal, with the opposition of most Democrats and some of the most conservative Republicans, except for Trump's demand on the debt ceiling.
But it is much smaller than the original bipartisan agreement that Johnson reached with Democratic and Republican leaders, a 1,500-page bill that Trump and Musk rejected, forcing him to start over. It was filled with a long list of other bills, including the highly criticized pay raises for lawmakers, but also other measures with broad bipartisan support that now face a tougher path to becoming law.
The House Democrats received the latest effort with little enthusiasm after Johnson reneged on the hard-negotiated bipartisan commitment.
Representative Rosa DeLauro, the lead Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said it seemed like Musk, the world's richest man, was making decisions for Trump and the Republicans.
"Who is in charge?" he asked during the debate.
However, the Democrats contributed more votes than the Republicans for the approval of the bill. Nearly three dozen conservative Republicans voted against it.
"The House Democrats have successfully stopped the extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government, collapsing the economy, and harming hard-working Americans across the country," said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries after the vote, referring to Trump's slogan "Make America Great Again."
Trump, who has not yet taken office, is showing both the power and the limits of his influence in Congress as he intervenes and orchestrates matters from his Mar-a-Lago estate alongside Musk, who is leading the new Department of Government Efficiency.
The next Trump administration promises to cut the federal budget and lay off thousands of employees, and relies on Republicans for a large fiscal package. Trump is not scared of shutdowns like lawmakers are, having caused the longest government shutdown in history during his first term in the White House.
"If there is going to be a government shutdown, let it start now," Trump posted early in the morning on social media.
More important for the president-elect was his demand to remove the thorny debate over 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 difficult negotiations in Congress to raise the nation's borrowing capacity. Now Johnson will be obliged to comply.
"Congress must get rid of, or perhaps extend until 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling," Trump posted, increasing his demand for a new five-year debt limit increase. "Without this, we should never close a deal."
Government workers had already been told to prepare for a federal shutdown that would send millions of employees and military members into the holiday season without paychecks.
Biden has held conversations with Jeffries and Schumer, but White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated, "Republicans blew up this deal. They did, and they need to fix this."
As the day progressed, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell stepped in to remind colleagues "how damaging it is to shut down the government and how foolish it is to bet that your own side won't take the blame for it."
At one point, Johnson asked the House Republicans in a midday meeting to raise their hands as they tried to choose the way forward.
It wasn't just the shutdown, but the position of the Speaker of the House that was at stake. The election of the Speaker is the first vote of the new Congress, which convenes on January 3rd, and some of Trump's allies have proposed Musk for Speaker.
Johnson said he spoke with Musk before Friday's vote and they discussed the "extraordinary challenges of this job."