WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden signed legislation Saturday that averts a government shutdown, passing a deadline for Congress to approve a temporary funding plan and rejecting President-elect Donald Trump’s core debt demands. This brought an end to several days of chaos. package.
The deal funds governments at current levels through March 14, and provides $100 billion in disaster relief and $10 billion in agricultural assistance to farmers.
“This agreement represents a compromise and means neither side got everything they wanted,” Biden said in a statement. “It means the government can continue to operate at full capacity. It is guaranteed,” he added. That’s good news for the American people. ”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) had insisted that lawmakers were “doing their duty” and would not allow a shutdown of federal operations. But the outcome at the end of a turbulent week was unclear as President Trump insisted the deal included raising the government’s borrowing limit. If not, he said, “start now” with closures.
Prime Minister Johnson’s amendment was approved by a vote of 366-34, and was passed in the Senate by an 85-11 vote shortly after midnight. By then, the White House announced it had halted preparations for a shutdown.
“There will be no government shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.N.Y.) said.
Prime Minister Johnson, who met with President Trump after the House vote, said the compromise was “a good outcome for the country” and that the president-elect was “certainly pleased with the outcome.”
The final product was the third attempt by Mr Johnson, the embattled speaker, to achieve one of the federal government’s fundamental requirements: staying open. The challenge raises questions about whether Mr. Johnson will be able to keep his job in the face of angry Republican colleagues and work with Mr. Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who has been calling for Congressional action from afar. A question arose.
The House of Representatives is scheduled to elect the next speaker on January 3, 2025, when the new parliament convenes. The Republican majority is now razor-thin at 220-215, leaving little margin for error for Mr. Johnson in his bid to win the speaker’s gavel.
House Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland criticized Republicans for the deficit spending included in the bill and said Republican leadership is currently “undecided.” Others have indicated they are similarly dissatisfied with Mr Johnson.
But President Trump’s last-minute debt limit request was a near-impossible demand, and Johnson had little choice but to avoid the pressure. The Chairman said that there would not be enough support within the minority Republican Party to pass any funding measure, as many deficit hawks in the Republican Party favor cutting the federal government and will not allow further debt growth. I knew.
Instead, Republicans, who will take full control of the White House, House and Senate in the new year with a big plan for tax cuts and other priorities, will have the votes they need to keep their policies in place. This shows that we must always rely on the Democratic Party for this purpose. Routine governance tasks.
The federal debt stands at about $36 trillion, with soaring inflation following the coronavirus pandemic raising borrowing costs for the government and next year’s debt payments expected to outstrip national security spending. It’s an outlook. The last time lawmakers raised the debt ceiling was in June 2023. Lawmakers suspended the debt ceiling until January 1, 2025, rather than raising it by $1.
There’s no need to raise that cap now because the Treasury can start using so-called “extraordinary measures” to keep the U.S. from defaulting on its debts. Some believe that such accounting maneuvers could push the default deadline to the summer of 2025. But President Trump wanted to avoid that because it would require an increase during his presidency.
Republican leaders said the debt ceiling would be discussed in the new year as part of tax and border policy. At the time, Republicans struck a so-called handshake deal that would raise the debt ceiling while cutting spending by $2.5 trillion over 10 years.
It was essentially the same agreement reached Thursday night, minus President Trump’s debt demands. But it is much smaller than the original agreement Mr. Johnson struck with Democratic and Republican leaders, a 1,500-page bill that Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk vetoed and had to start over. The bill was packed with a long list of other bills, including a much-derided pay raise for lawmakers, but now others with broad bipartisan support have a tougher path to passage. The bill was also included.
Mr. Trump, who has not yet taken office as president, intervenes and coordinates political affairs from Mar-a-Lago with Mr. Musk, who heads the new Department of Government Efficiency, so his influence on Congress is both strong and limited. It shows. .
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