The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives passed legislation on Friday that would avert a midnight government shutdown, defying President-elect Donald Trump’s demand to also green light trillions of dollars in new debt.
Next, the Democratic-controlled Senate would need to pass the bill to ensure the government will be funded beyond midnight when current funding expires.
The White House said President Joe Biden intends to sign it into law if they do.
The legislation would extend government funding until March 14, and provide $100 billion for disaster-hit states and $10 billion for farmers. It would not raise the debt ceiling — a difficult task Trump has pushed Congress to do before he takes office on January 20.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Republicans would have more power to influence government spending next year when they will have majorities in both chambers of Congress and Trump will be in the White House.
“This was a necessary step to bridge the gap, to put us into that moment where we can put our fingerprints on the final spending decisions,” he told reporters after the vote. He said Trump supported the package.
A government shutdown would disrupt everything from law enforcement to national parks and suspend paychecks for millions of federal workers.
The package, which passed by a bipartisan vote of 366-34, resembled a bipartisan plan that was abandoned earlier this week after an online fusillade from Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who said it contained too many unrelated provisions, such as a pay raise for lawmakers and a crackdown on pharmacy benefit managers.
Republicans struck most of those elements from the bill — including a provision limiting investments in China which Democrats said would have conflicted with Musk’s interests.
Trump has tasked Musk, the world’s richest person, with heading a budget-cutting task force, but Musk holds no official position in Washington.
