Vice President-Elect J.D. Vance - AP Photo/Matt Rourke
We've been reporting on the government funding battle.
After a push from President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP cut out a lot the pork. presenting a clean bill that included disaster relief and funded the government to March.
But as we reported earlier, the bill failed to pass. So that leaves the Speaker Mike Johnson with having to come up with a Plan C.
38 Republicans voted no, along with most of the Democrats.
Musk placed the blame for the failure squarely on Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
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Elon Musk @elonmusk
Shame on @RepJeffries
for rejecting a fair & simple spending bill that is desperately needed by states suffering from hurricane damage!
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Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal
🚨🇺🇸 DEMS REJECT TRIMMED SPENDING BILL AFTER GOP KILLED THEIR VERSION
After Trump and Elon rallied opposition to the original 1,547-page package, Republicans offered a streamlined 116-page alternative—cutting congressional pay raises and stadium projects.
Their response to a cleaner bill?
Chanting "Hell no!"
The slimmed-down bill would've kept government open through March while providing $110B in disaster aid.
But with their original deal scrapped, Democrats chose payback over compromise.
Now two million federal workers face holiday uncertainty as both sides play shutdown chicken.
Source: Fox, The Guardian
The fault is now squarely on the Democrats. If they wanted to pass disaster relief without the pork, there was their chance. So they can't talk.
Vice President-elect JD Vance had a pretty spicy response.
The Democrats just voted to shut down the government, even though we had a clean CR because they didn't want to give the president negotiating leverage during his first term or during the first year of his new term. And number two, because they would rather shut down the government and fight for global censorship bullshit. They've asked for a shutdown and I think that's exactly what they're going to get
Now, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) gave the rationale for why some of the Republicans voted no.
It’s not the number of pages that matter - it’s what’s in those pages.
This CR had the same level of spending today as it did yesterday, but the debt ceiling was suspended, meaning there was no limit on the debt. I don’t trust Congress or the government to spend responsibly without any limits.
I cannot in good conscience vote to continue Joe Biden spending levels months into Trump’s presidency.
If we did a very short CR that took us to Jan. 20th only or if we had single subject votes on the spending measures inside the bill - there likely would have been a lot more support.
We are $36 trillion in debt. We have to get this right. It’s now or never.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) who voted "no" wants one bill for each item.
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Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie
This isn’t complicated.
Separate the bills and vote on them individually.
one vote on the clean CR
one vote on the debt limit
one vote on disaster relief
one vote on farm bailouts
Radical right? Individual bills for each issue.
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RELATED ARTICLE
House Republicans in time crunch to finalize spending deal with just hours until shutdown
By Cami Mondeaux | The Washington Examiner
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson - AP Photo/Matt Rourke
House Republican leadership is in a race against time to finalize some sort of spending deal before the clock strikes midnight and a government shutdown is scheduled to take place, halting funding for several government agencies.
GOP leaders met behind closed doors on Thursday night after their latest funding bill failed to pass the lower chamber due to objections from House Democrats and over 30 members of the Republican conference. Now, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) must return to the drawing board to craft some sort of spending agreement that can appease his right flank while also gaining the approval of President-elect Donald Trump.
“We will regroup, and we will come up with another solution. So stay tuned,” Johnson told reporters after the vote failed.
However, Johnson emerged from his office hours later with no new proposal — and a narrowing timeline to get a deal passed before the deadline.
When asked if there would be another bill ready for the House floor by Friday, Johnson merely said: “We’ll see.”
Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) assured they would “keep trying.” Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) told reporters that lawmakers would “work through the night to figure out a plan moving forward.”
After scrapping their initial funding bill that was negotiated by both parties in the House and Senate, House Republican leaders put forward their own proposal that sought to keep the government open while also including a demand from Trump to suspend the debt ceiling for two years — a provision that caught many lawmakers off guard, especially deficit hawks in the House who are staunchly opposed to raising the debt limit.
The House shot down the Trump-backed CR, with 38 Republicans joining nearly all Democrats in opposing the measure.
Conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus held their own closed-door meeting on Thursday night to concoct a new funding proposal, emerging with a plan to present options to the speaker on Friday to negotiate a new deal.
“We haven’t landed on anything yet,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) said. “I think we want to give them a couple — two to three options that we would be willing to vote for.”
It’s not entirely clear what those proposals would include. But it’s likely none would involve a provision related to the debt ceiling.
Instead, Burlison said the House could deal with the debt ceiling when they return in early January before Trump is inaugurated, satisfying the president-elect’s demand to relieve him from dealing with it.
By omitting the debt ceiling, some Republicans say it could appease enough conservatives to support the bill.
“What’s thrown everybody into [disagreement] is the debt ceiling,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) said. “Throwing that in there at the last minute, you can’t do.”
Another idea being floated by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is to separate the main components of the funding package into separate bills and hold votes on each portion. That would mean individual votes on the clean stopgap spending bill, the debt limit suspension, disaster relief, and farmers’ assistance.
Burlison and Norman both said they’d support that move, although it’s not clear if it’s been considered by House GOP leadership.
Republicans will continue their negotiations on Friday, and House Democrats are also scheduled to hold a caucus meeting in the morning — their third such gathering in the last 24 hours. Democrats have said they would vote against any spending bill other than the original continuing resolution finalized earlier this week.
The absence of an agreement makes it all the more likely the government will shut down, as a spending agreement must be passed by both chambers of Congress and signed by the president to avoid one.
