The US House of Representatives has rejected a temporary government funding bill proposed by Republicans, bringing the threat of a shutdown closer.
Reuters writes about this.
The bill did not receive enough votes to pass. 235 people voted contra — 197 Democrats and 38 Republicans — and only 174 voted pro.
The bill included a plan to extend government funding for three months, $110 billion in disaster and farmer aid, and a two-year suspension of the national debt limit, all of which were demanded by the US President-elect Donald Trump.
This bill was proposed instead of a large bipartisan package, which was opposed the day before by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who was nominated to head the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance called the bipartisan deal a “gift to Democrats”. The White House warned that Trump and Vance were persuading Republicans to reject the bipartisan deal to continue funding the government, which threatens to shut it down.
Trump rejected the original version of the bill because Congress left it up to him to decide whether to raise the debt limit instead of including it in the text of the bill. Karin Jean-Pierre, a press secretary for current US President Joe Biden, said that Biden supports a bipartisan deal to keep the government running, but "not this gift to billionaires that Republicans have proposed to pass at the last minute".
The US fiscal year ended on September 30, but the 2025 budget has not been adopted. The government can operate fully thanks to funding from the temporary resolution (CR), which expires at midnight on December 20. That is, as early as December 21 at 12:01, the US government is threatened with a shutdown.
- This could be the first shutdown since December 2018, when Donald Trumpʼs first term lasted 34 days. The US government has shut down 21 times since 1976.
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