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The US Congress has just 24 hours to find an agreement to keep the government open after the House voted on the budget bill on Thursday night despite the support of Donald Trump, who rejected the first version of the law on the day ago.
The 174-235 vote lifts the pace in the House Republic to pass a new bill, which will extend federal spending until March 14, send billions of dollars to communities devastated by natural disasters and freeze the debt ceiling for two years – something to come before the president-elect.
Earlier Thursday, when Speaker Mike Johnson introduced the latest version of the bill, Trump encouraged Republicans and Democrats to vote for it. “SUCCESS Washington!” he posted on his Social Reality platform
Democrats, however, immediately dismissed the proposal.
“The Musk-Johnson proposal is not serious,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters before the election, referring to billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk. “It’s funny. The extremist Maga Republicans are pushing us into government. ”
The bill fell well short of the two-thirds majority in the House it needed to pass, a sign of the big challenge Johnson and Republican leaders have ahead of them. A majority of Republicans, 38, voted against the measure.
The House and Senate will need to act quickly to pass the bill in order to get it to President Joe Biden for his signature before Friday night, after which the government will begin shutting down.
On Wednesday, Musk piled the pressure on Johnson and Republicans in a series of social media posts at his X platform on Wednesday, blasting the 1,500-page original bill as “bad” and full of unnecessary spending and other steps.
Trump then sent House Republicans into a frenzy when he came out against the bill, mainly because it didn’t raise the federal debt.
“At the behest of the richest man in the world, whom no one elected, the United States Congress has been thrown into chaos,” said Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, on Thursday. talk about Musk.
The legal crisis has put Johnson’s leadership in doubt, with far-right members such as Marjorie Taylor Greene to think Musk could replace him as Speaker.
This product highlighted Johnson’s weaknesses. Asked by NBC News on Thursday morning if he still trusted the Speaker, Trump said: “We’ll see.”
The first three-month bill to stop the loophole was negotiated between Republican and Democratic congressional leaders. It would have averted a government shutdown by keeping current spending levels through March 14, and spent billions of dollars on farmers and disaster relief. At that time, Republicans will have control of Congress and the White House.
It also contained unrelated provisions, including a salary increase for members of Congress, restrictions on technology investment in China and an easier way for the Washington Commanders American football team to remove the stadium. the game from Maryland to Washington, DC.
But the original bill did not affect the debt ceiling, which was expected to expire in the first few months of Trump’s second term. Trump has called it “Democrat debt” and threatened Republicans that he will raise primary opposition against them in the next election if they vote to support short-term spending without raising the debt.
“There’s not going to be anything acceptable unless the debt is paid off,” Trump said ABC News. “If we don’t get it, we will close the gap, but it will be a Biden close, because the close only goes to the person who is the president.”
In a sign of the targeted attacks that Trump and Musk have promised against Republicans who disobey their orders, Trump on Thursday singled out conservative House representative Chip Roy, who has been pushing for spending cuts, for criticize.
“Chip Roy is another ambitious, talentless guy,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I’m hoping the talented wrestlers are lining up in the Greater Texas District to follow Chip in the Primary. He won’t stand a chance!”
Roy responded with an X that he would oppose the legislation, however, prompting concerns among Republican budget hawks. “New bill: $110BB in deficit spending (unfunded), $4 TRILLION + debt increases with $0 in budget changes for cuts.”
The debt ceiling is a perennial problem for lawmakers, who suspended the borrowing limit until January 1 in an agreement reached last year. To borrow beyond that limit, the Treasury Department can use what it calls “extraordinary measures” to cover new costs without breaking the limit.
This could buy the government time before it has to worry about a possible default – a dangerous outcome for the world’s largest economy and the most important financial system.
