US Government shutdown looms as House rejects GOP funding bill

The federal government moved closer to a weekend shutdown Thursday, after the House overwhelmingly voted down Speaker Mike Johnson’s new plan to extend the deadline despite support from President-elect Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk.

The GOP proposal would have extended federal operations into mid-March, sent more than $100 billion to natural-disaster survivors and suspended the country’s borrowing limit for two years. But it needed the support of two-thirds of the House to pass, and it went down by a 235-174 vote, with one member voting present. It wasn’t clear Thursday night what the next move will be.

Johnson spent the day negotiating the new plan with his fellow Republicans, after Trump and Musk rallied the GOP on Wednesday against a bipartisan proposal that Johnson had worked out with Democrats earlier.

Democrats - furious over Musk’s push to get the GOP to abandon the previous deal - refused to cooperate on Thursday with Johnson, who needed their support for the measure because some hard-line Republican lawmakers still opposed the new plan.

“One or two puppet masters weigh in and extreme MAGA Republicans decide to do the bidding of the wealthy, the well-connected, the millionaires and billionaires, not working-class people all across America,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) said on the House floor. “The bill that is before us today is just part of an effort to shut down the government.”

Johnson called the result of the vote “very disappointing” and told reporters that Republicans would come up with “another solution.”

“It is, I think, really irresponsible for us to risk a shutdown over these things that they have already agreed upon,” he said. “I think you need to be asking them the questions about that.”

Only two Democrats supported the legislation, with 197 of them opposing it. But 38 Republicans also voted no - an indication of how difficult finding an alternative solution before the shutdown deadline may be for the GOP leader.

The bipartisan legislation the House GOP scrapped Wednesday was substantially similar to the bill that Johnson tried to advance Thursday, though he dropped some provisions unrelated to spending and added - at Trump’s request - a suspension of the debt limit.

In rejecting both measures, Republicans cast doubt on Johnson’s ability to maintain the speaker’s gavel in next year’s Congress. Johnson must run for the position again when the new House is sworn in on Jan. 3, and enough GOP members have questioned his leadership, both publicly and privately, that he may lack the support he needs.

It also reanimated year-old intra-Republican debates over spending. Conservative hard-liners ousted Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy (R-California), in October 2023 over similar issues. When Johnson took office, he pledged to tighten Congress’s belt and prevent year-end “Christmas tree” measures - named for all the legislative ornaments that often adorn must-pass funding legislation in late December.

“A year and a half ago, Kevin McCarthy was substantially removed because of a debt ceiling debate that had the largest cut in spending, functionally, in U.S. history,” Rep. David Schweikert (R-Arizona) told The Washington Post. “And here many of the same people who complained about that are about to vote for one with no constraints at all.”

Though Trump and Musk hailed the revised legislation that Johnson unveiled a few hours before the vote, hard-liners called the changes insufficient.

“You never have any ounce of self-respect,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) admonished his own party from the House floor.

As liberals gathered in a closed-door meeting before the vote, Jeffries rattled off a list of items that Johnson had removed, including funding for community health centers and pediatric cancer research, according to two people familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the scene.

At each item, lawmakers rose and shouted, “Hell no!”

Though Democrats were angry about what was suddenly out of the bill, there wasn’t much in the legislation that they oppose. The party broadly supports raising the debt limit and preventing government shutdowns. The policy provisions in the bill text are the same policies from the bipartisan measure Johnson floated earlier in the week. Democrats were largely frustrated over how Republicans abandoned their previous agreement and were skeptical of the debt limit suspension, fearing the GOP would use it to ease passage of a massive tax cut bill in 2025.

“You vote no, you’re voting to shut down the government. If you vote no, you’re voting to deny aid to people hit with disasters,” Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma) said on the House floor. “If you vote no, you’re voting against helping American farmers and ranchers at a difficult time. And if you vote no, you’re voting to strip important provisions that are being extended into next year. Why? Because you don’t want to give the next president enough time to get organized.”

“Put on your big boy pants,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Florida) retorted. “Pass your own bill. We’re only here because you guys can’t agree amongst yourselves.”

Republicans ended the day without a clear path toward a different funding bill. After the vote was gaveled closed and business ended in the chamber for the day, lawmakers mostly slumped in their chairs on the House floor instead of bolting for the exits.

Members of the archconservative House Freedom Caucus - who almost universally opposed the bill - huddled around Johnson. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minnesota), the majority whip, ran his hands through his parted gray hair.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado), who voted for the bill, turned to Rep. Cory Mills (R-Florida), who voted against it, and - loud enough to be heard in the press gallery - snarked, “Congratulations.”

Besides adding the debt limit suspension, which Trump cheered, the Thursday proposal dropped several provisions that had been in the bipartisan version Johnson negotiated with Democrats. One would have aimed to lower prescription drug costs by banning a practice by pharmacy benefit managers, a middleman between patients and insurance firms, called “price spreading,” in which managers keep a portion of the charges for prescription medications. Another would have transferred the land near RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., from the federal government to the District, paving the way for municipal leaders to try to lure the NFL’s Washington Commanders there.

Johnson’s new proposal also dropped language authorizing $190 million for research into paediatric cancer and a provision that would have allowed year-round use of the corn-based gasoline additive E15.

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Mariana Alfaro and Paul Kane contributed to this report.

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