US Senate passes government funding bill to avoid shutdown

The US Senate has rushed through the final passage of a bipartisan plan that would temporarily fund federal operations and disaster aid.

Facing a government shutdown deadline, the restructured bill dropped President-elect Donald Trump’s demands for a debt limit increase into the new year.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had insisted Congress would “meet our obligations” and not allow federal operations to shutter ahead of the Christmas holiday season.

But the day’s outcome was uncertain after Trump doubled down on his insistence that a debt ceiling increase be included in any deal — if not, he said in an early morning post, let the closures “start now”.

The House approved Johnson’s new bill overwhelmingly, 366-34. Almost three dozen conservative House Republicans voted against it.

The Senate worked into the night to pass it, 85-11, just past the deadline. At midnight, the White House said it had ceased preparations for a shutdown, which would have sent millions of employees — and members of the military — into the holiday season without pay cheques.

President Joe Biden, who has played a less public role in the process throughout a turbulent week, was expected to sign the measure into law on Saturday.

“This is a good outcome for the country,” Johnson said after the House vote, adding he had spoken with Trump and the President-elect “was certainly happy about this outcome, as well”.

The final product was the third attempt from Johnson, the beleaguered House speaker, to achieve one of the basic requirements of the federal government — keeping it open.

It raised stark questions about whether Johnson will be able to keep his job in the face of angry Republican colleagues and work alongside Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who called the legislative plays from afar.

The drastically slimmed-down 118-page package would fund the government at current levels until March 14 and add $100bn (£79.5bn) in disaster aid and $10bn (£7.9bn) in agricultural assistance to farmers.

Gone is Trump’s demand to lift the debt ceiling, which Republican leaders told lawmakers would be debated as part of their tax and border packages in the new year.

Republicans made a so-called handshake agreement to raise the debt limit at that time while also cutting $2.5 trillion (£2 trillion) in spending over 10 years.

It is essentially the same deal that flopped the night before in a spectacular setback — opposed by most Democrats and some of the most conservative Republicans — minus Trump’s debt ceiling demand.

But it is far smaller than the original bipartisan accord Johnson struck with Democratic and Republican leaders — a 1,500-page bill that Trump and Musk rejected, forcing him to start over.

By Lisa Mascaro, Farnoush Amiri and Matt Brown, Associated Press