Stopgap bill to fund federal government passes House

After two failed attempts to pass a bill to fund the US government, the US House passed a stopgap bill to fund the federal government until March.

The vote was 366 versus 34, with one member present in the voting. All 34 votes against the bill were cast by Republicans.

House Republicans agreed among themselves on a new proposal early Friday. After a lengthy meeting with Republican lawmakers, House Speaker Mike Johnson said they had agreed to a new proposal to fund the government.

“There is consensus in the room that we need to move forward,” Johnson told reporters. “But I am hopeful that we will move forward. We will not have a government shutdown.”

A last-ditch effort to avoid a government shutdown came when Republicans in Congress failed on Thursday to pass a spending bill that was backed by President-elect Donald Trump. That bill would have increased the debt ceiling, which Trump had sought at the last minute.

Dozens of Republicans voted against Thursday’s bill and only two Democrats supported it.

Both houses of Congress – the Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-controlled Senate – must approve the measure to pass the bill and avoid a shutdown. President Joe Biden said Friday that he supports the bill and will sign it.

According to media reports, the new plan is the same bill that failed on Thursday, except for the suspension of the debt limit. That means it would include a clean short-term expansion of government funding, billions of dollars in disaster relief, and billions of dollars in aid to farmers.

Problems for Johnson began this week when he abandoned the bipartisan funding deal he struck with Democrats after Trump and billionaire Elon Musk criticized the plan.

Without a funding extension, government funding technically ends at midnight on Friday. But most of the effects of the shutdown won’t take effect until Monday.

The White House on Friday urged Republicans to avoid a government shutdown, echoing the call by Democratic lawmakers.

In the event of a shutdown, many government employees would be furloughed, but those who provide essential services would continue to report to their jobs.

But none of those federal employees will be paid until Congress passes a new spending bill.

Active-duty members of the military and federal law enforcement are among those who will continue to work but will not be paid until Congress approves a new spending plan.

The threat of a shutdown is looming just before Christmas. While about 59,000 of the Transportation Security Administration’s 62,000 employees are considered essential and will continue to work without pay during the shutdown, the TSA said the shutdown could still cause delays at airports.

The longest US government shutdown in history lasted 34 days from December 2018 to January 2019, when then-President Trump refused to sign any appropriations bill that did not include several billion dollars for a wall on the US border with Mexico. Were. This move hurt his approval ratings.

Some information in this report has been received from Reuters and The Associated Press.