The US House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly rejected a Republican-led funding bill aimed at averting a government shutdown, with federal agencies due to run out of cash on yesterday evening and cease operations starting this weekend.
The contentious legislation would have kept the government open through mid-March and suspended the country’s borrowing limit for US president-elect Donald Trump’s first two years in office.
However, dozens of debt hawks in the Republican ranks — unhappy about allowing the national debt to rise unchecked for half of Trump’s term — rebelled against their own leadership to sink the package.
Photo: AFP
It marked a defeat for the Republican leader, who with tech billionaire Elon Musk — his incoming “efficiency czar” — had thrown his weight behind the plan.
With party leaders announcing no further votes in the House on Thursday, the race to keep the lights on and prevent 875,000 non-essential workers being sent home over Christmas without pay is set to go down to the wire.
“We will regroup and we will come up with another solution, so stay tuned,” Republican US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson — who led the negotiations — told reporters.
The bill was supposed to fix a mammoth bipartisan package that Trump and Musk sabotaged on Wednesday amid conservatives’ complaints about unrelated items in the text ballooning its overall cost.
The retooled version was considered under a fast-track method that required two-thirds support, but Democrats refused to help Republicans overcome their rank-and-file rebels and it failed to win even a straightforward majority.
“The... proposal is not serious, it’s laughable. Extreme MAGA Republicans are driving us to a government shutdown,” Democratic US House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said ahead of the vote.
The White House described it as a “giveaway for billionaires.”
Republicans would likely try again with a more pared-down bill, although the party leadership offered no clear path forward, telling reporters they would have to meet to discuss a Plan C.
Democrats, who control the US Senate, have little political incentive to help Republicans and Jeffries has insisted they would only vote for the bipartisan package, meaning Trump’s party would have to go it alone on any further efforts.
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