WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed legislation Saturday that averts a government shutdown heading into Christmas, finally ending days of unrest in Washington after Congress passed a bipartisan budget plan just past the deadline and had rejected Donald Trump’s main demand in the US. negotiations.
The deal funds the government at current levels through March 14 and provides $100 billion in disaster aid and $10 billion in agricultural aid to farmers.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had urged lawmakers to “meet our obligations” and not allow federal operations to close. But the outcome at the end of a tumultuous week was uncertain after Trump insisted the deal would include an increase in the government’s borrowing limit. If not, he had said, let the closures “begin now.”
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Johnson’s revised plan was approved by a vote of 366 to 34 and passed by the Senate after midnight by a vote of 85 to 11. By then, the White House said it had halted preparations for the shutdown.
“There will be no government shutdown,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Johnson, who spoke to Trump after the vote in the House of Representatives, said the compromise was “a good outcome for the country” and that the newly elected president was “certainly happy with this outcome as well.”
The end product was the third attempt by Johnson, the beleaguered speaker, to achieve one of the basic demands of the federal government: keeping it open. The difficulties raised questions about whether Johnson will be able to keep his job despite angry Republican colleagues and work with Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, who called the legislative plays from afar.
The House is scheduled to choose the next speaker on January 3, 2025, when the new Congress convenes. Republicans will have an extremely slim majority, 220 to 215, leaving Johnson little room for error as he tries to win the gavel.
House Republican Andy Harris of Maryland criticized Republicans for the budget shortfalls in the bill and said he was now “undecided” about the leadership of the Republican Party. Others also note dissatisfaction with Johnson.
Still, Trump’s last-minute demand to limit debt was almost an impossible ask, and Johnson had almost no choice but to sidestep that pressure. The speaker knew there wouldn’t be enough support within the slim Republican majority alone to pass any financing package, because many Republican deficit hawks prefer to cut the federal government and don’t want to allow more debt.
Instead, Republicans, who will have full control of the White House, House of Representatives and Senate in the new year, with big plans for tax cuts and other priorities, are showing that they must routinely rely on Democrats for the voices needed to keep up with developments. routine administrative actions.
The federal debt is about $36 trillion, and the spike in inflation following the coronavirus pandemic has pushed up the government’s borrowing costs so much that debt service will exceed national security spending next year. The last time lawmakers raised the debt limit was June 2023. Instead of increasing the limit by a dollar amount, lawmakers suspended the debt limit until January 1, 2025.
There’s no need to raise that limit now because the Treasury Department can start using what it calls “extraordinary measures” to ensure America doesn’t default on its debt. Some estimate that these accounting maneuvers could push the default deadline to the summer of 2025. But Trump wanted to avoid that, because an increase would be necessary while he was president.
Republican leaders said the debt ceiling will be discussed in the new year as part of the tax and border packages. At the time, Republicans struck a so-called handshake deal to raise the debt limit while cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over 10 years.
It was essentially the same deal that flopped Thursday night — minus Trump’s debt question. But it is much smaller than the original 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 packed with a long list of other bills — including much-derided pay raises for lawmakers — but also other measures with broad bipartisan support that now have a tougher path to becoming law.
Trump, who has not yet been sworn in, is showing the power but also the limits of his influence over Congress as he intervenes and orchestrates matters from Mar-a-Lago alongside Musk, who heads the government’s new Department of Efficiency . .
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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves, Mary Clare Jalonick, Darlene Superville and Bill Barrow contributed to this report.
