Government funding bill clears Congress and averts a shutdown

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing a government shutdown deadline, the Senate rushed through final passage early Saturday of a bipartisan plan that would temporarily fund federal operations and disaster relief, ditching the president-elect. Donald Trump’s demand for a debt limit increase into the new year.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson had insisted that Congress would “fulfill our obligations” and not allow federal operations to close ahead of the Christmas holidays. But today’s outcome was uncertain after Trump doubled down on his insistence that a debt ceiling increase is included in any deal — if not, he said in an early morning post, then let the closings “start now.”

The House overwhelmingly approved Johnson’s new bill, 366-34. The Senate worked into the night to pass it, 85-11, just past the deadline. By midnight, the White House said it had suspended shutdown preparations.

“This is a good result for the country,” Johnson said after the House vote, adding that he had spoken with Trump and the president-elect, “was certainly happy with this result as well.”

President Joe Biden, who has played a less public role in the process through a turbulent week, was expected to sign the measure into law on Saturday.

“There will be no government shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

The final product was the third attempt by Johnson, the beleaguered House speaker, to achieve one of the basic demands of the federal government — to keep it open. And it raised sharp questions about whether Johnson will be able to keep his job, in the face of angry GOP colleagues, and work with Trump and billionaire allies Elon Muskwho called the legislative plays from afar.

Trump’s last-minute demand was almost an impossible ask, and Johnson had little choice but to sidestep his push for an increase in the debt ceiling. The speaker knew there wouldn’t be enough support in the GOP majority to pass a funding package, since many Republican deficit hawks prefer to cut the federal government and certainly wouldn’t allow more debt.

Instead, Republicans, who want full control of the White House, House and Senate next year with big plans for tax cuts and other priorities, are showing that they must routinely rely on Democrats for the votes needed to keep up with the routine operations of govern.

“So is this a Republican bill or a Democratic bill?” mocked Musk on social media ahead of the vote.

The drastically slimmed-down 118-page package would fund the government at current levels through March 14 and add $100 billion in disaster relief and $10 billion in farm aid to farmers.

Gone is Trump’s demand to raise the debt ceiling, which GOP leaders told lawmakers would be debated as part of their tax and border packages in the new year. Republicans made a so-called handshake deal to raise the debt limit at the time while also cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over 10 years.

It’s essentially the same deal that flopped the night before in a spectacular setback — opposed by most Democrats and some of the most conservative Republicans — minus Trump’s debt ceiling demands.

But it falls far short of the original bipartisan deal Johnson struck with Democratic and Republican leaders — a 1,500-page bill that Trump and Musk rejected, forcing him to start over. It was stuffed with a slew of other bills — including much-mocked pay raises for lawmakers — but also other measures with broad bipartisan support that now have a more difficult path to becoming law.

House Democrats were cool with the latest effort after Johnson abandoned the hard-fought bipartisan compromise.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said it looked like Musk, the richest man in the world, was going after Trump and the Republicans.

“Who’s in charge?” she asked during the debate.

Still, Democrats cast more votes than Republicans for the bill’s passage. Nearly three dozen conservative Republicans voted against it.

“House Democrats have successfully prevented extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government, crashing the economy and hurting working-class Americans across the nation,” says the House Democratic leader. Hakeem Jeffries said after the vote, referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

Trump, who has not yet been sworn into office, is showing the power but also the limits of his influence with Congress as he intervenes and orchestrates affairs from Mar-a-Lago alongside Muskwho heads the new Department of Government Efficiency.

The incoming Trump administration promises cut the federal budget and lay off thousands of employees and counting on the Republicans for a big tax package. And Trump isn’t afraid of shutdowns like lawmakers are after triggering this longest government shutdown in history in his first term in the White House.

“If there is going to be a government shutdown, let it begin now,” Trump wrote early in the morning on social media.

More important to the president-elect was his demand to push the thorn debt ceiling debate from the table before he returns to the White House. The federal debt limit expires on Jan. 1, and Trump does not want the first months of his new administration to be bogged down with tough negotiations in Congress to lift the nation’s borrowing capacity. Now Johnson will be on the hook to deliver.

“Congress must get rid of, or perhaps extend to 2029, the ridiculous debt ceiling,” Trump wrote — adding to his call for another five-year debt limit increase. “Without this, we should never make a deal.”

Government workers had already been told to prepare for a federal shutdown that would send millions of employees — and members of the military — into the holiday season without paychecks.

Biden has been in discussions with Jeffries and Schumer, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “The Republicans blew up this deal. They did and they have to fix this.”

As the day wore on, 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 House Republicans at a lunch meeting for a show of hands as they tried to choose a way forward.

It wasn’t just the shutdown, but the speaker’s job on the line. The speaker’s choice is the first vote in the new Congress, which convenes Jan. 3, and some Trump allies have pegged Musk as the speaker.

Johnson said he spoke with Musk ahead of the vote on Friday and they talked about the “extraordinary challenges of this job.”

___

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves, Mary Clare Jalonick, Darlene Superville and Bill Barrow contributed to this report.