WASHINGTON – Early Saturday morning, the Senate approved a bill aimed at keeping the government open for an additional three months, which was sent to President Joe Biden to eliminate the risk of a government shutdown during the holiday season.
The result of the voting was 85 to 11.
The bill was passed hours earlier by the House, which is under Republican control. The White House announced that despite the final vote technically occurring after the midnight deadline to prevent a shutdown, Biden would sign the bill on Saturday, thereby preventing U.S. troops, Border Patrol agents, air traffic controllers, and millions of other federal workers from having to work without pay.
Emilie Simons, White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary, posted on X that agencies will not shut down and may continue normal operations.
The House voted 366 to 34, with all dissenting votes from Republicans and one member voting present. It capped off a tumultuous week that hinted at how the new Congress in January might handle a mercurial Donald Trump back in the White House.
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The package finances the government at existing levels until March 14, incorporates $100 billion for disaster relief and a one-year farm bill, and eliminates a debt limit extension that President-elect Trump had requested earlier in the week.
Am Mittwoch hatte Trump gedroht, gegen jeden Republikaner, der für ein Finanzierungsgesetz ohne Schuldenobergrenzenverlängerung stimmte, eine Vorwahl anzusetzen; on Friday, 170 members of the House from the Republican Party did exactly that.
We sincerely appreciate that this evening, with strong bipartisan support and an overwhelming majority of votes, we successfully passed the American Relief Act of 2025. After the vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) informed reporters, “This is a highly significant piece of legislation.” It finances the government, naturally, until March 2025. It was a high priority for us.
He promised that when Trump comes back next year and the Republicans take the Senate, things will be very different around here.
Late Friday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., described the Senate’s unanimous decision to bypass the usual obstacles and quickly pass the funding bill as “good news.”
Only three days ago, leaders of both parties in the House and Senate reached a deal to keep the government running, but Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk derailed the agreement by insisting at the last minute that it needed to extend or eliminate the debt limit to accommodate Trump’s agenda for next year.
A backup plan, reduced from the original deal and supported by Trump and Musk, failed spectacularly on the House floor, defeated by Democrats and 38 Republicans who opposed the debt extension.
This left Johnson, who is battling to retain his position as speaker, with limited viable choices. After a private meeting with ordinary Republicans that lasted over two hours on Friday, Johnson informed his party that he was moving ahead with Plan C: the same package proposed a day before but excluding Trump’s debt increase.
After leaving the private GOP meeting, Johnson informed reporters that a shutdown would not occur and that House Republicans are united.
According to Johnson, there will be no government shutdown, and we will fulfill our commitments to farmers in need of assistance, victims of disasters nationwide, and to ensure that military personnel and essential services, as well as everyone dependent on federal paychecks, receive their payments during the holiday season.
Johnson mentioned that he had conversations with both Trump and Musk on Friday. the speaker stated, I have had detailed conversations with President Trump, and he is fully aware of our actions.
As the House was casting votes, Musk seemed to back the plan by stating on his social media platform X that Johnson performed well in this situation.
According to another source familiar with his thinking, the president-elect had opted to remain silent on the bill. According to that source, Trump still preferred to tackle the debt ceiling, noting that Johnson should have heeded the President-elect’s advice on this a month prior. And in every subsequent conversation.
The source added that Trump might be open to accepting a victory on a funding arrangement that reduces a considerable portion of what he considered to be pork. This process provided Trump’s team with an understanding of where the votes are in both parties regarding the debt limit next year.
According to various lawmakers, in order to circumvent Trump’s eleventh-hour demand for an increase in the debt ceiling, Republicans have agreed to commit to reducing government expenditures by over $2 trillion and to include a likely debt increase in a reconciliation package next year.
Some Republicans question whether the debt limit agreement is worth the paper it’s printed on.
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., remarked, “They call that a gentleman’s agreement, I think.” And there are no gentlemen up here, bro.
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