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The House voted to kill a funding bill on Thursday night, giving Congress just 24 hours to find a way to keep the government open, despite Donald Trump vetoing the first version of the bill a day earlier. agreement.
House Republicans voted 174 to 235 to advance the race to approve a new bill that would extend government spending through March 14, provide billions of dollars to communities devastated by natural disasters and extend debt The cap is suspended for two years – a key U.S. priority.
Earlier Thursday, Trump urged Republicans and Democrats to vote for the bill as Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled the latest version of the bill. “Washington success!” he posted on his Truth Social platform
Democrats, however, immediately blasted the proposal.
“The Musk-Johnson proposal is not serious,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters, referring to Trump’s billionaire adviser Elon Musk. “This is ridiculous. Extreme MAGA Republicans are forcing a shutdown of our government.
Some Republicans also expressed opposition, with 38 voting against the measure.
The House and Senate need to quickly approve the bill in order to send it to President Joe Biden for his signature before a Friday night deadline before the government shuts down.
Trump rejected the original spending bill negotiated by Johnson, leaving House Republicans scrambling and the president-elect calling the bill “unacceptable.” The president-elect additionally asked lawmakers to include measures to raise the government’s debt ceiling.
In a series of social media posts on his X platform on Wednesday, Musk put pressure on Johnson and Republicans, criticizing the original 1,500-page bill as “horrible” and bloated with unnecessary spending and other measures.
The legislative crisis has called Johnson’s leadership into question, with members of the far right such as Marjorie Taylor Greene arguing that Musk could replace him as speaker.
The quip highlighted Johnson’s vulnerability. Asked Thursday morning if he still had confidence in the speaker, Trump said: “We’ll see.”
The first three-month stopgap bill was negotiated by Johnson and Democrats, whose support he needed to pass. It would avoid a government shutdown by maintaining current spending levels until March 14, when Republicans take control of Congress after their November election victory and spend billions on farmers and disaster relief aid.
It also contains unrelated provisions, including raising pay for members of Congress, limiting technology investment in China and providing an easier path for the Washington Commanders football team to move its stadium from Maryland to Washington, D.C.
But the original bill did not touch the debt ceiling, which is expected to expire in the first months of Trump’s second term. Trump called it a “Democrat trap” and threatened Republican members that if they voted for short-term spending measures without raising the debt ceiling, he would send primary challengers against them in the next election.
“There’s not going to be any approval unless the debt ceiling is lifted,” Trump told ABC News. “If we don’t get it, then we’re going to have a shutdown, but it’s going to be a Biden shutdown because a shutdown only suits the president himself. ”
Trump and Musk have pledged to launch targeted attacks on Republicans who fail to comply with their directives, and Trump on Thursday singled out Chip Roy, a conservative House representative who has been seeking to cut spending.
“Chip Roy is just another ambitious guy with no talent,” Trump said in a post on the Truth social networking site. “I hope some talented challengers are gearing up in the great state of Texas to go after Chip in the primaries. He won’t stand a chance!
Roy responded on X that he would oppose the legislation no matter what, echoing the concerns of Republican fiscal hawks. “New bill: $110BB in deficit spending (unpaid), debt ceiling increase of over $4 trillion, structural reform cuts of $0.”
The debt ceiling has been a long-standing issue for lawmakers, and an agreement reached last year suspended the borrowing limit until Jan. 1. To borrow above that limit, the Treasury can use so-called “extraordinary measures” to cover new spending without breaching the cap.
That could buy governments time and avoid worrying about a potential default — which would be catastrophic for the world’s largest economy and most important financial system.
