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After two failed attempts, the U.S. House of Representative on Friday passed a stopgap spending bill to fund the federal government through March.
The vote was 366 to 34, with one member voting present. Republicans cast all 34 votes against the bill.
Republicans, who control the House, reached an agreement among themselves on a new proposal earlier Friday. It would fund the government through March and provide $100 billion for disaster aid and $10 billion for farmers. It would not raise the debt ceiling, reports VOA.
“We’re excited about this outcome,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said after the vote, adding that he had spoken with President-elect Donald Trump, who “was certainly happy about this outcome, as well.”
The Democratic-controlled Senate must also approve the measure to avoid a government shutdown. President Joe Biden said Friday that he supported the bill and would sign it.
“This was a necessary step to bridge the gap, to put us into that moment where we can put our fingerprints on the final decisions on spending,” Johnson told reporters after the vote.
The last-ditch effort to avoid a shutdown came after Republicans failed Thursday to pass a spending bill that Trump backed. That bill would have raised the debt ceiling, which Trump had demanded at the last minute.
Dozens of Republicans voted against Thursday’s bill, and only two Democrats supported it.
The new plan was the same bill as the one that failed Thursday, except without the debt ceiling suspension.
Problems began for Johnson this week when he abandoned a bipartisan funding deal he had reached with Democrats after Trump and billionaire Elon Musk lambasted the plan.
Even though the House passed the bill, government funding technically runs out at midnight Friday. But most of the impact of the shutdown wouldn’t begin to take effect until Monday, by which time the Senate and Biden will likely have acted. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate would move quickly.
The White House on Friday echoed calls from Democratic lawmakers in urging Republicans to avoid a government shutdown.
In the event of a shutdown, many government workers would be furloughed, but those who provide essential services would continue to report to their jobs.
But none of those federal workers would be paid until Congress passed a new spending bill.
Active-duty members of the military and federal law enforcement are among those who would continue to work but not be paid until Congress approved a new spending plan.
The threat of a shutdown comes right before Christmas. While about 59,000 of the Transportation Security Administration’s 62,000 workers are deemed essential and would continue to work without pay during a shutdown, the TSA said a shutdown would likely still cause delays at airports.
The longest U.S. government shutdown in history lasted 34 days from December 2018 until January 2019, when then-President Trump refused to sign any appropriations bill that did not include several billion dollars for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. The ploy hurt his approval ratings.