US House Passes Bill To Avert Shutdown, Senate Vote To Follow

Republicans in the House narrowly approved a bill to avoid a government shutdown Friday night, hours before a deadline that would have made US shutdown troops, Border Patrol agents, air traffic controllers and millions of other federal employees go without pay over the holidays.

It passed by a vote of 366-34, and all Republican members opposed it with one member abstaining. It marked the culmination of a chaotic week in the House that presaged how the new Congress in January would confront a temperamental Donald Trump in the White House. There was a two-thirds vote because the bill was brought before the House on a fast-track schedule.

The United States bill now goes to the Senate, which will need to pass before 12:01 a.m. to avoid a shutdown.

It authorizes government spending at present levels until March 14, provides $100 billion in disaster assistance and a one-year US House Bill to avert shutdown— and eliminates a debt limit extension that President-elect Trump had called for earlier this week.

Trump had threatened to primary "Any Republican" on Wednesday who supported a funding bill without a debt limit extension; 170 House Republicans did so on Friday.

Three days ago, congressional Republicans reached a compromise to keep the lights on in the government, only for Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk to blow it off at the last minute by claiming it was necessary to increase or eliminate the debt limit in order to allow for Trump’s agenda next year.

An offshoot — cut from the initial package, signed by Trump and Musk — then went up in flames on the House floor, blown up by Democrats and 38 Republicans who opposed the debt extension.

The president-elect himself had decided not to speak about the bill, according to another insider. That source added that Trump wanted to continue raising the debt ceiling and that Johnson "should have listened when the President-elect told him this last month.”