A short-term budget agreement passed by Congress early Saturday morning averted a government shutdown after a chaotic week in the U.S. House.
In the process of passing the three-month agreement to continue funding the federal government until March 14, lawmakers also extended the 2018 farm bill for another full year. The agreement also provides more than $110 billion in disaster relief to areas still recovering from hurricanes, wildfires and floods.
This makes the second time Congress has passed a one-year extension of the farm bill, having done so in the last months of 2023. By the time this extension expires in 2025, it will have been in place seven years.
The stopgap passed the Republican-controlled House 366-34 Friday night, with 34 Republicans voting against it. The Senate took up the bill shortly after midnight Saturday and passed it, 85-11. The House measure required a two-thirds majority vote due to its fast-track provisions. President Joe Biden expressed his intention to sign the bill.
Debate over the government funding turned sideways early in the week when President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk, Trump’s newly tabbed appointee for government effectiveness, told Republicans to shoot down a 1,500-page bipartisan funding bill, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana).
Johnson then crafted a 116-page bill to keep government moving for three months, and included Trump’s demand to lift the debt limit ceiling through Jan. 30, 2027.
But that request fell flat Thursday night after a 174-235 defeat. Thirty-eight Republicans could not support the debt ceiling measure, and joined Democrats in handing Trump and Musk their first legislative defeat, even though Inauguration Day is still a month away.
Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) then worked to resurrect the same slimmed down proposal from Thursday night, but with the debt ceiling restriction still in place, contrary to Trump’s wishes, but still with the streamlined cuts from Wednesday’s initial plan.
“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,” Johnson said in a statement Friday.
The legislation’s passage ends the 118th Congress as lawmakers are returning back for the Christmas recess.
