The U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree is up outside the building where GOP leaders are furiously scrambling to find a way to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the day on Friday.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
The House voted 366 to 34 to approve a short-term spending bill to fund the government until March 14. The timing leaves the Senate just hours to act before a midnight deadline to prevent a government shutdown.
In addition to the federal funding, the latest GOP proposal includes $100 billion in aid to communities recovering from natural disasters, including 2023 wildfires in Maui and more recent, post-hurricane flooding in North Carolina.
The proposal also includes a one-year extension of federal farm policy and aid to farmers. It does not include any attempt to address the nation’s borrowing limit despite demands from President-elect Donald Trump.
The vote follows days of chaos and negotiations after Trump and his adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, undermined a bipartisan agreement that was reached earlier this week. That left House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., trying to balance Trump’s policy demands with the realities of a razor-thin Republican majority in the House, Democratic-controlled Senate and a fast approaching deadline.
“Having gotten this done now, as the last order of business for the year, we are set up for a big and important new start in January,” Johnson said Friday. “We can’t wait to get to that point.”
The bill now heads to the Senate, where Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer hopes “to get it passed as soon as possible.”
“As I have said, the only way to keep the government open is through bipartisanship,” Schumer said in a statement.
The White House also backed the agreement Friday, with Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre saying in a statement: “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.”
The latest congressional clash evoked a sense of deja vu on Capitol Hill from Trump’s first term, when he would often change his demands in real time and by surprise announcement on social media.
Republicans will continue to face similar challenges in the next Congress as they attempt to pass legislation with another razor-thin House majority and a Republican-controlled — but closely-divided — Senate.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
