House passes short-term spending package — just hours before government is set to shut down

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump scored a victory early Saturday when Congress passed a slimmed-down bill to keep the government functioning — after killing a much larger spending package.

The original 1,547-page bill was whittled down to 118 pages and passed the Senate 37 minutes after a midnight Friday deadline. The fleeting lapse in federal spending authority did not cause a government shutdown.

The House overwhelmingly passed the bill 366-34, followed by the Senate’s 85-11 approval — after Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk objected Thursday to what they called a bloated initial funding package.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks to the media, following a meeting with fellow Republicans on the day where a potential government shutdown looms during the holidays. REUTERS

Among the provisions nixed in the new compromise bill: No more 4% raises for members of Congress and no reauthorization for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which has been accused of pushing online censorship.

Reams of extraneous policy provisions were removed from the final version, including line-items to outlaw the distribution of AI-generated non-consensual pornography and to relinquish the Robert F. Kennedy Stadium to city officials in Washington, D.C.

The package funds the government at current levels until March 14, 2025, and includes $100 billion in hurricane relief funds and $10 billion in aid to farmers.

Republicans supported the third and final version of the package overwhelmingly, with just 34 fiscal hawks opposed in the House, while no Democrats voted against it.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the bill was an important pivot point ahead of Trump’s return to the White House next month.

Johnson said Republicans had reached an agreement on their side about the spending bill. AFP via Getty Images

“This is America first legislation because it allows us to be set up to deliver for the American people. In January, we will make a sea change in Washington,” Johnson said after the bill passed the lower chamber.

“President Trump will return to DC and to the White House, and we will have Republican control of the Senate and the House. Things are going to be very different around here. This was a necessary step to bridge the gap.”

The bill didn’t include all of Trump’s asks, including his last-minute bid to eliminate the debt ceiling to limit Democratic leverage during his presidency, and it cut some GOP-backed items in the initial massive bundle, such as reducing what pharmacy benefit managers can bill.

The bill sets up another spending debate in less than three months as Musk and VIvek Ramaswamy spearhead efforts to identify spending cuts to reduce the deficit during Trump’s second term.

The legislation includes more than $25 million to the US Marshals Service and Supreme Court to help guard the homes of justices — as well as other curiosities like a $3 million handout to the Department of Agriculture for “verifying and validating the methodology and protocols of the inspection of molasses” at US ports.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who helped tank Thursday’s stopgap spending bill, supported the final package, arguing its provisions were good enough and hailing the final decision to reject Trump’s request to scrap the federal debt ceiling, which regularly triggers congressional crises.

Donald Trump speaks at a news conference at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on December 16, 2024 in Palm Beach, Florida. Getty Images

Musk also backed the final bargain, tweeting: “The Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances. It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces. Ball should now be in the Dem court.”

President Biden committed to quickly sign the bill to avoid a shutdown.

All but two Democrats in the lower chamber voted down the earlier version of the bill on Thursday, which would have funded the government until March 2025 and included a provision to suspend the US debt ceiling until January 2027.

Trump had called for the abolition of the debt limit the same day, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk helped pressure GOP lawmakers to kill a costlier funding measure on Wednesday that hadn’t included the provision.

“The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge. It doesn’t mean anything, except psychologically,” Trump, 78, told NBC News.

“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling. Without this, we should never make a deal,” he threatened Friday morning on his Truth Social. “Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President.”

But in a side deal, the House GOP majority has agreed to raise the debt limit in the next Congress by $1.5 trillion via budget reconciliation, sources said.

The conference also vowed to cut another $2.5 trillion in federal spending as part of that process, which will be able to bypass the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.

Rep. Thomas Massie floated breaking the funding package up into separate bills — a proposal that he said was later scrapped once GOP leadership re-engaged with their Democratic colleagues.

The White House cast blame on Republicans who tanked the first iteration of the bill. Getty Images

“Johnson flipped his decision after the meeting when he spoke to [Hakeem Jeffries and realized he could get Democrat votes to pass all the legislation as one bill,” Massie (R-Ky.) claimed on X, later adding that he would “vote no on this deal” and vowing a “reckoning” in the new Congress.

“So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?” Musk asked in response, fueling more tension ahead of the vote.

“How about the House add campaign finance reform to the CR so Republicans and Democrats alike can stop being so scared about what a billionaire man-child thinks before they vote on anything around here,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) fired back on X in an apparent dig at the tech titan.

Other Democrats lampooned their Republican colleagues for deferring to “President Musk” ahead of both Thursday’s vote.

A senior congressional Democratic aide said that Johnson had to navigate an incredibly difficult landscape.

“I think he just knew that people would blame him and the GOP — but he was juggling all that with wanting to keep the gavel, while being hit with asteroids launched by Elon Musk,” the aide said.

Massie and far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) voted with nine Republicans and to try to vacate Johnson’s speakership in May — but a majority of House GOP and Democratic lawmakers helped quash their insurgency.