After two failed attempts, and with just hours to go before a midnight deadline, House Republicans released another bill to fund the government until March 14 — but multiple hurdles remain to avert a government shutdown.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters after a closed-door GOP meeting that Republicans are “unified” around a plan to avoid a shutdown.
“There is a unanimous agreement in the room that we need to move forward,” Johnson said. “We will not have a government shutdown, and we will meet our obligations for our farmers who need aid, for the disaster victims all over the country and for making sure that military and essential services and everyone who relies upon the federal government for a paycheck is paid over the holidays.”
In addition to the federal funding, the latest GOP proposal includes $100 billion in aid to communities recovering from natural disasters, including 2023 wildfires in Maui and more recent, post-hurricane flooding in North Carolina.
The proposal also includes a one-year extension of federal farm policy and aid to farmers. It does not include any attempt to address the nation’s borrowing limit despite demands from President-elect Donald Trump.
House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters Republicans still plan to deal with the debt limit sometime in the future.
This third attempt to avert a shutdown comes as House Republicans have spent the week trying to balance President-elect Donald Trump’s policy demands with the realities of a razor-thin Republican majority in the House and a Democratic-controlled Senate.
The trouble for the speaker began when Trump and his top advisors, particularly Elon Musk, took to the web to trash a bipartisan deal. It died soon thereafter.
The latest House Republican plan was apparently developed without any input of Democrats. Any agreement to keep the government open, though, will ultimately need the support of Democratic senators, as well as President Biden. And Johnson will almost certainly need Democratic votes to pass the measure through the House, facing dissent among his own rank-and-file.
The latest congressional clash evoked a sense of deja vu on Capitol Hill from Trump’s first term, when he would often change his demands in real time and by surprise announcement on social media.
Republicans will continue to face similar challenges in the next Congress as they attempt to pass legislation with another razor-thin House majority and a Republican-controlled — but closely-divided — Senate.
This is a developing story that will be updated.