House lawmakers voted on Friday to avoid a government shutdown, passing a government funding bill with just hours to spare before the midnight deadline.
The final vote was 366 to 34, with one Democratic lawmaker voting present. House Democrats provided significant cover for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who lost 34 Republicans on the measure. The Senate is expected to send the bill to President Joe Biden’s desk shortly. While federal agencies have already begun shutdown planning, there is some wiggle room if funding lapses for only a few hours. Anything longer and everything from pay to servicemembers to holiday travel could be affected.
Trump downplayed the stakes of a shutdown, but it likely would have affected the transition of power and some planning for his inauguration. If the bill is signed into law, government funding will run through March 14, giving President-elect Donald Trump a little breathing room once he retakes office next month.
Republicans denied Trump’s request to suspend or even eliminate the debt ceiling, which would have resolved a thorny political issue in advance of a likely GOP effort to extend Trump’s 2017 tax law. According to Punchbowl News, Johnson said Republicans have agreed to address the nation’s borrowing limit next year when the GOP will retake entire control over Washington.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his fellow Democrats ultimately backed a deal stripped of many of the incentives initially included to garner more support among his party.
Elon Musk and other conservative activists rose in opposition to the initial bipartisan bill earlier this week, effectively killing it. Trump then urged Republicans to pass a pared-down funding bill and an extension of the debt ceiling. On Thursday night, 38 House Republicans and nearly every House Democrat voted against that plan, raising the stakes as a shutdown approached.
The episode illustrated that significant divisions remain among Republican lawmakers that even Trump can struggle to paper over. Trump has ambitious plans for his second term, including the potential of using a special procedural power known as reconciliation to ram through tax extensions and border security measures. He’ll only be successful if the GOP can remain almost entirely united.
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