Washington: With only hours remaining, the US House of Representatives voted Friday to prevent a government shutdown. Democrats joined Republicans in advancing a funding plan that would keep the lights on until the middle of March. A proposal that would keep government agencies operating through mid-March was handed to the Senate by lawmakers; however, the upper house has until midnight (0500 GMT) to act, failing which federal agencies will start to shut down.
The bill was presented by Republicans, who control the House, but nearly all Democrats voted in favor of it, while 34 of the party's backbenchers voted against it. "Democrats today reaffirmed our dedication to cooperation rather than conflict. Senior Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson wrote on X that "the American people deserve a government that works for them."
Senators who procrastinate will still cause the government to run out of money at midnight, causing up to 875,000 people to be placed on furlough and another 1.4 million to be forced to work for no pay.
The real question at hand, though, is how swiftly senators will move in the Democratic-led upper house, which is likely to follow the House. With Republicans and Democrats evenly split in both chambers, Congress's job of establishing government budgets is never easy. The most recent drama escalated as tech billionaire Musk, Trump's future "efficiency czar," and Republican President-elect Trump put pressure on his party to back out of a funding deal they had negotiated with Democrats.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson was at the last chance saloon, gathered with aides to keep federal agencies operating after two successive attempts to reach a resolution failed. Non-essential government operations will be suspended if the bill is not approved by the Senate. Workers in vital services, like as law enforcement, would keep on working but wouldn't get paid until government operations were restored.
At a time when millions of tourists are anticipated, many parks, monuments, and national sites would close. 'Let it begin' - The House-passed bill circumvents all of that by providing the government with a package of $110 billion in disaster help and financial relief for farmers, which funds the government through mid-March. With the exception of Trump's demand that the nation's self-imposed borrowing cap be suspended for two years, it is substantially the same as a bill that was soundly defeated in a vote on Thursday.
Musk posted, "So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?" seemingly in an attempt to rally conservatives against the agreement before the House vote. With concerns over how an unelected person can have such power, Democrats have turned their attention to attacking the world's richest man's influence over Republicans and his apparent hold over Trump.
Even Republicans are becoming more incensed over Musk's meddling after he blasted the initial funding deal in a barrage of tweets on his social media site X, many of which were grossly false. Georgia House Republican Rich McCormick told CNN, "Elon Musk doesn't have a vote in Congress as of the last time I checked." Now that he has power, he will exert pressure on us to take whatever action he believes would benefit him the most. However, I had 760,000 voters who trusted me to act in their best interests." Unless senators unanimously agree to waive usual procedure, the Senate's anticipated rubber stamp may take days under the upper chamber's norms.
Trump has made it apparent that if he does not get his way, he is prepared to see the government shut down. "If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration," he posted to social media. (This story was published from a syndicated feed and has not been edited by NDTV staff, with the exception of the headline.)
