House passes revamped government funding extension hours before shutdown deadline

House Republicans and Democrats coalesced around the GOP’s revamped legislation to avert a partial government shutdown on Friday, hours ahead of the government funding deadline. 

The stopgap measure to extend current government funding levels through March 14 passed 336-34, with all of the opposition votes coming from Republicans.

Republicans opted to revive House Speaker Mike Johnson’s failed government funding extension after hours of back-and-forth discussions behind closed doors and intervention from President-elect Donald Trump. 

The latest offering stripped away the two-year suspension of the federal government’s debt limit, instead punting those negotiations into early next year. Mr. Trump had previously demanded that the debt-ceiling extension be dealt with before he took office, but backed off because of a lack of support among fiscal conservatives. 

But major points of the bill, including $100 billion for disaster aid, $10 billion for economic assistance to farmers and a one-year extension to the farm bill, remained. The 34 dissenters mainly took issue with those funds not being paid for with offsetting spending cuts. 

Mr. Johnson told reporters after the vote that he had been in “constant contact” with Mr. Trump, including a conversation nearly an hour ahead of the floor vote that also included tech-billionaire and government efficiency advisor Elon Musk. 

“[Trump] knew exactly what we were doing and why, and this is a good outcome for the country,” Mr. Johnson said. “I think he certainly is happy about this outcome as well.”

House passage of the bill eased concerns that a partial shutdown was inevitable. The bill headed to the Democrat-led Senate, where it needed to pass by midnight to halt a fast-encroaching partial shutdown.

A good sign for the bill’s passage in the upper chamber came in the midst of the House floor vote, when the White House announced that President Biden intended to back the legislation. 

“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,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. 

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, soon followed with a statement saying he was “confident the Senate will pass it as well.” 

“We hoped to get it passed as soon as possible,” he said. 

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, Alabama Republican, told The Washington Times that he expected Senate passage of the bill would run close to the midnight deadline. 

“And then Schumer will jump up and say ‘We saved the day,’” Mr. Tuberville quipped. 

Senators were glad that the House finally landed on an acceptable deal after days of drama. 

But the solution in the House did not please everyone, namely the 34 Republicans who voted “no” because they either wanted the disaster aid to be paid for, they dislike stopgap funding bills, or both. 

Rep. Chip Roy, Texas Republican, voted against the bill, but said that the debt-limit agreement paves the way to cut into the deficit down the road. 

“You know, there are things we could do the same, things we could do differently, but at the end of the day, got to a debt-ceiling-slash-spending-cut arrangement, and ultimately delivered on this and a better product than the 1,550-page bill we started with,” he said. 

After hours of negotiation behind closed doors on Friday, Republicans committed to a plan to raise the debt limit and cut spending early next year through the budget reconciliation process. 

Though still in flux, the working plan surrounding the debt limit would involve a $1.5 trillion increase in the statutory borrowing limit, followed by $2.5 trillion in mandatory spending cuts.

The original funding plan from Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, was the product of bipartisan negotiations with House and Senate Democrats — a point that ultimately led to its demise earlier this week at the behest of Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk. 

That led to a scramble from Mr. Johnson and Republicans to find an alternative solution, and to meet Mr. Trump’s demand for a suspension, or outright termination, of the debt limit. 

It also put into question whether Democrats would support the latest package, after spending the last few days pressing Mr. Johnson to bring back their bipartisan funding extension agreement, and lamenting Republicans for bending the knee to Mr. Musk, who spent the better part of Tuesday raging against the bill. 

Democrats huddled minutes before the House was set to vote, awaiting for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, to lay out a plan. 

Lawmakers leaving the Democratic caucus meeting said that both the White House and Mr. Schumer supported the new package, and that stripping out the debt-limit provision was a “big win.” 

Rep. Jim Himes, Connecticut Democrat, said that the sense inside of the room was that “the smart thing to do is just to take the win.”

“[There’s] a lot of good stuff in this, keeps the government open,” Mr. Himes said. “Elon Musk’s lack of influence was demonstrated. Republican chaos was demonstrated. So it’s not the bill we would have wanted, but it’s a ‘yes’ for me anyway.”

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Democrat, also celebrated Democrats denying Mr. Trump his demand for a two-year extension of the debt limit.

“That was a $4 trillion item that came out of nowhere to essentially fund a tax giveaway for special interest that nobody saw coming just two days ago,” he said, referring to GOP plans to extend trillions of dollars worth of tax cuts next year.

Republicans, however, complained that Democrats ultimately agreed to the same bill, minus a clean extension of the debt limit that their party would typically support. 

“Their stubbornness, their hypocrisy, was all about not giving Trump a little room on the debt ceiling,” New York GOP Rep. Nick LaLota said. “Folks on the other side of the aisle who feign to be bipartisan, who are in the Problem Solvers Caucus and other entities that claim to be about good governance, are full of s—-.”