House Passes Funding Bill — And Biden Endorses — Hours Before Government Shutdown

20 Dec 2024 by Antonio Pequeño IV · Forbes

Topline

The House approved a new funding bill Friday which President Joe Biden endorsed just hours before a government shutdown was set to go into effect, an outcome President-elect Donald Trump suggested he was fine with so long as it happens on Biden’s watch.

Trump approved of the latest funding measure after opposing the last one. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty ... [+] Images)Getty Images

Key Facts

The House voted 366-34 for the bill, with no Democrats opposed and all of the “nay” votes coming from Republicans.

The bill will move to the Senate for a vote.

The White House said President Joe Biden supports the bill even though it “does not include everything we sought.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., proposed the new bill designed to temporarily fund the federal government and provide disaster aid, according to the Associated Press, which noted the plan does not include the debt limit increase demanded by Trump this week.

House Republicans were initially committed to pushing separate bills that would have included an individual vote on a government funding measure designed to avoid a shutdown, but Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., later noted Johnson flipped his decision after “he spoke to Hakeem Jeffries and realized he could get Democrat votes to pass all the legislation as one bill.”

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday, President-elect Donald Trump implied he is fine with a government shutdown as long as it doesn’t bleed into his own term, saying, “If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under ‘TRUMP.’ This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!”

The House voted 235-174 against the previous spending bill brought forth Thursday, with 38 Republicans crossing the aisle and voting “no” alongside Democrats.

The bill sought to maintain government funding until March 14 and suspend the debt ceiling for two years, and received support from Trump, who urged both Republicans and Democrats to vote for the bill.

Earlier this week, Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk blasted a Tuesday funding bill backed by Johnson that never reached a vote, with Trump saying it would “give sweetheart provisions for government censors” and provide Congress with a pay increase while “Americans are struggling.”

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Chief Critics

Democrats said after finishing a closed-door meeting Thursday they were “united” in opposing that day’s bill, according to the Times. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters the “Musk-Johnson proposal is not serious” and called it “laughable,” provoking a response from Musk, who said he did not author the bill and that Democrats “deserve to lose bigtime in the midterms” if they turn reject it and a government shutdown materializes.

When Might The Government Shut Down?

If a spending bill fails to pass by midnight Friday night, the government would partially shut down. In the event of a shutdown, Medicare applications could cease, hundreds of thousands of federal employees may be furloughed and the number of available air traffic controllers and TSA agents could drop, potentially creating travel delays during the holidays. However, essential services are expected to continue as they have during previous government shutdowns, when power grid maintenance, border protection and in-hospital medical care continued operations.

Key Background

One of Trump’s main hangups with prior spending proposals was rooted in the debt ceiling, which was not included in the first bill pitched this Tuesday. The president-elect has sought to suspend or outright eliminate the debt ceiling, which is adjusted to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its debt. Several fiscally conservative Republicans have opposed raising the debt ceiling, according to The Wall Street Journal, though Trump recently blasted Republicans who pushed against changes to the debt ceiling, threatening them with primary challenges in the next election. Musk, who is one of Trump’s biggest backers, repeatedly criticized the previous spending bill in several posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday, saying it “should not pass” and was “one of the worst bills ever written.”

Tangent

While Trump has not commented of the Thursday bill’s failure to pass, he reiterated his criticism about the debt ceiling in a Truth Social post saying: “Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling.” The president-elect noted that no deal should be made without this condition and added: “Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President.”