The House passed a government spending bill Friday evening to avoid a government shutdown set to ensue at midnight, but now the clock is ticking for the Senate and President Joe Biden.
The continuing resolution (CR) that was passed by the House extends government funding until March and provides over $100 billion dollars in relief funds to hurricane victims, farmers and more.
However, the Senate must now vote to approve the bill and President Joe Biden must sign it into law to avoid a lapse in federal spending set to occur just after midnight Friday.
Both are expected to approve the CR, though if they don’t do it quickly enough federal funding may run out and the government could, at least momentarily, enter into a partial shutdown.
The 118-page bill passed with bipartisan support in the House, 366 – 34, after Republican Speaker Mike Johnson negotiated with his Democratic counterpart Hakeem Jeffries over the details in multiple conversations on Friday.
The 11th-hour passing of the GOP spending deal late Friday came after President-elect Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk demanded Johnson capitulate to their policy priorities during his negotiations.
Johnson originally proposed a 1,547-page CR, but that was quickly derided by many in the GOP and most notably by Musk, who used the bully pulpit of his X app and his 200 million followers, to ridicule Johnson’s plan until the speaker went back to the drawing boards.
After deliberating with Trump’s team Johnson then produced a 116-page bill backed by the president-elect and Musk. But that went down in flames with a 174 to 235 vote on Thursday after nearly every Democrat and 38 House Republicans voted against it.
All day Friday Johnson and many House Republicans were sequestered in private meetings to discuss the best path forward. Many were unsure how the final vote was going to go.
But the speaker’s last gambit, coming just hours before federal funding expired, ultimately was a success.
‘The Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances,’ Musk posted on X Friday evening in approval.
‘It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces,’ his post continued.
On Friday morning, Speaker Mike Johnson said entering the U.S. Capitol that he expects votes.
‘We’ve got a plan,’ he claimed, but the details on how they would move forward successfully to avoid a shutdown remains unclear.
He gave another update Friday afternoon insisting the House will pass a spending deal with provisions to help farmers and disaster relief.
‘We will not have a government shutdown,’ he said.
Democrats were blasting Republicans Friday for scrapping the bipartisan deal worked out over weeks of negotiations and any move to include the debt ceiling.
But Jeffries reportedly indicated to his Democratic members that they ‘will live to fight another day’ and instructed his party to support Johnson’s plan.
The spending bill will now also need to pass in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
If the bill is passed by the upper-chamber then it would then be based to President Joe Biden.
Once Biden signs the bill it will become law and the government shutdown will officially be avoided.