WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives passed a government funding bill on Friday to avoid a partial government shutdown — but still, a brief spending lapse ensued as the Senate missed a midnight deadline to vote on the measure.
The Senate was poised to vote on and pass the spending package early Saturday after the 366-34 House vote ended two days of high drama — after President-elect Donald Trump and incoming Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk objected to what they called a bloated initial package.
Republicans supported the third version of the package overwhelmingly, with just 34 opposing it, while no Democrats voted against it, with just one voting “present.”
At least 38 House GOPers shot down a similar bill Thursday night, but Speaker Mike Johnson emerged from marathon deliberations on Friday afternoon to announce he had “a unified Republican conference.”
“We will not have a government shutdown,” Johnson (R-La.) promised, “and we will meet our obligations for our farmers who need aid, for the disaster victims all over the country, and for making sure that military and essential services and everyone who relies upon the federal government for a paycheck is paid over the holidays.”
The 118-page bill — less than one-tenth the length of the original edition’s 1,547 pages — will fund the government at current levels until March 14, 2025.
It also provides $100 billion in disaster relief for hurricane-hit states and farmers while also extending agricultural and other food subsidies in the so-called “farm bill” for one year.
It includes more than $25 million to the US Marshals Service and Supreme Court to help guard the homes of justices — as well as other curiosities like a $3 million handout to the Department of Agriculture for “verifying and validating the methodology and protocols of the inspection of molasses” at US ports.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who helped tank Thursday’s stopgap spending bill, reopened a line of communication with Johnson to negotiate the bill, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) confirmed after exiting his caucus’ closed-door meeting on the package.
Jeffries supported the final package, arguing its provisions were good enough and hailing the final decision to reject Trump’s Thursday request to scrap the federal debt ceiling, which regularly triggers congressional crises.
Musk also backed the final bargain, tweeting: “The Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances. It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces. Ball should now be in the Dem court.”
Scrapped provisions include a 4% raise for members of Congress, a proposal to restrict pharmacy benefit managers from billing insurance more than they pay for drugs and outlawing the distribution of AI-generated non-consensual pornography.
It also struck funding for the renovation and relinquishment of Robert F. Kennedy Stadium to city officials in Washington, DC.
All but two Democrats in the lower chamber voted down the earlier version of the bill on Thursday, which would have funded the government until March 2025 and included a provision to suspend the US debt ceiling until January 2027.
Trump had called for the abolition of the debt limit the same day, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk helped pressure GOP lawmakers to kill a costlier funding measure on Wednesday that hadn’t included the provision.
“The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge. It doesn’t mean anything, except psychologically,” Trump, 78, told NBC News.
“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling. Without this, we should never make a deal,” he threatened Friday morning on his Truth Social. “Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President.”
But in a side deal, the House GOP majority has agreed to raise the debt limit in the next Congress by $1.5 trillion via budget reconciliation, sources said.
The conference also vowed to cut another $2.5 trillion in federal spending as part of that process, which will be able to bypass the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Rep. Thomas Massie floated breaking the funding package up into separate bills — a proposal that he said was later scrapped once GOP leadership re-engaged with their Democratic colleagues.
“Johnson flipped his decision after the meeting when he spoke to [Hakeem Jeffries and realized he could get Democrat votes to pass all the legislation as one bill,” Massie (R-Ky.) claimed on X, later adding that he would “vote no on this deal” and vowing a “reckoning” in the new Congress.
“So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?” Musk asked in response, fueling more tension ahead of the vote.
“How about the House add campaign finance reform to the CR so Republicans and Democrats alike can stop being so scared about what a billionaire man-child thinks before they vote on anything around here,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) fired back on X in an apparent dig at the tech titan.
Other Democrats lampooned their Republican colleagues for deferring to “President Musk” ahead of both Thursday’s vote.
A senior congressional Democratic aide said that Johnson had to navigate an incredibly difficult landscape.
“I think he just knew that people would blame him and the GOP — but he was juggling all that with wanting to keep the gavel, while being hit with asteroids launched by Elon Musk,” the aide said.
Massie and far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) voted with nine Republicans and to try to vacate Johnson’s speakership in May — but a majority of House GOP and Democratic lawmakers helped quash their insurgency.
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