House lawmakers from both sides of the aisle joined together to reject Speaker Mike Johnson’s latest stopgap funding package Thursday night, with one day to spare before a partial government shutdown is set to begin.
The House voted 174-235 against the package under suspension of the rules, which requires two-thirds support from those present and voting for passage. Thirty-eight Republicans bucked leadership and President-elect Donald Trump, a staunch proponent of the revised bill.
Going to the Rules Committee to report out a rule for floor debate that could be adopted on a simple majority had been GOP leaders’ next move. But leadership quickly put the kibosh on that idea after the bill’s outright defeat on the floor.
The much skinnier temporary spending package dropped most unrelated legislative riders but has a key addition: It would suspend the statutory debt limit, currently set to be reinstated Jan. 2, for two years until Jan. 30, 2027.
That was the top demand expressed by Trump, who quickly endorsed the new bill after a marathon series of meetings were held in the speaker’s office on Thursday.
“Speaker Mike Johnson and the House have come to a very good Deal for the American People,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
But the slimmer bill appeared doomed to defeat shortly after it was unveiled, with key Republicans as well as Democrats coming out in opposition. That didn’t bode well to begin with given the measure was taken up under suspension of the rules.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., had come out against the revised version even before it was drafted, arguing that Johnson should stick to the deal they originally struck. Democrats are also in no mood to help Trump avoid a debt ceiling fight next year, which could make it easier for Republicans to pass the hefty tax cut package Democrats oppose.
Just two Democrats supported the new bill: Reps. Kathy Castor from hurricane-ravaged Florida, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, from a Trump-supporting Washington state district. Ohio’s Marcy Kaptur voted “present.”
“The Trump-Musk-Johnson proposal is laughable,” Jeffries said as he headed into an afternoon Democratic caucus meeting, referring to Elon Musk, the Tesla founder and close Trump confidante. Democrats were heard chanting “hell no” from inside the room.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, was leading the opposition from the GOP side. He didn’t like the stopgap measure to begin with, including billions of dollars in spending that was not offset. And he definitely doesn’t like the debt limit being suspended for two years without any spending cuts attached.
“You can’t lift the debt ceiling, or suspend the debt ceiling, without actual structural reform to save money,” Roy said. “It’s like increasing your credit card limit while you don’t do anything to constrain spending. That’s just the reality.”
Trump went after Roy personally on social media after it became clear the Texan was ginning up opposition. Roy “is getting in the way, as usual, of having yet another Great Republican Victory — All for the sake of some cheap publicity for himself,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
But the Texan stood firm, and his support among GOP colleagues was broader than expected.
Late Thursday, there were few outward signs of a Plan C coming together, at least immediately. GOP leaders told members no more votes would occur until Friday.
“We’ll reboot and we’ll come up with another solution, so stay tuned,” Johnson, R-La., said.
Skinny plan
The slimmer bill under consideration would extend government funding through March 14, and carries the $110 billion disaster and farm aid package that was hitched to the original 1,547-page legislative package that Trump tossed into the scrap heap on Wednesday night. Some other appropriations add-ons survived, including billions of dollars for submarine procurement.
It includes a one-year farm bill extension, as in the initial stopgap measure, and much of the initial health care package included in the gigantic earlier bill with one big omission: a set of provisions that would crimp pharmacy benefit manager profits and ran into House GOP objections.
Sweeping cuts to health care, agriculture and other federal programs would also be averted by a provision that would turn off the statutory “pay-as-you-go” law set to trigger early next year.
The current stopgap funding law expires Saturday morning, meaning federal agencies would need to start winding down operations first thing Monday. Federal employee and military paychecks could be delayed if there’s no resolution before the end of the month.
Trump said the measure “will keep the Government open, fund our Great Farmers and others, and provide relief for those severely impacted by the devastating hurricanes.”
Democrats typically go along with suspending the debt ceiling, and have argued for years that fighting over the nation’s borrowing cap is destructive and shouldn’t be the subject of negotiations. But in this case, they appear to be in widespread opposition to pushing off the next round of debt limit battles until after the 2026 midterms.
“He wants to be able to blow a massive hole in the deficit with a tax cut for billionaires, that’s why he’s doing it,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said Thursday. “And he said ‘I want to do it on Biden’s watch’ so he’s not blamed for it.”
Trump offered to simply eliminate the debt ceiling, which many Democrats have supported. House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., on Thursday agreed that getting rid of the debt limit was the best solution.
But like Kaine, she didn’t want Democrats to make it easier for Republicans to make good on their priorities, like next year’s massive tax-cut bill, by shouldering the burden of a debt limit vote.
“The reason why they want to lift the debt limit is … because they can’t get their folks to do it,” DeLauro said. “So this is an opportunity to do it, and then they can do whatever they want in terms of taxes for the rich and the billionaires like President Musk.”
While the debt ceiling will be reinstated on Jan. 2, in reality Treasury will have several more months until actually running out of borrowing room. That’s because they currently have an emergency cash buffer worth more than $800 billion, and the use of “extraordinary measures” like suspending reinvestments of federal trust funds in interest-bearing Treasury securities.
Analysts predict those tools could last until at least next summer, and Jeffries said it was “premature” to suspend the debt ceiling at this point.
Republicans were preemptively blaming the other side for a shutdown.
“If the government shuts down because Hakeem Jeffries orders his people not to vote for this, Hakeem Jeffries will be responsible for destroying the American agriculture industry, making sure that people are still sleeping in tents in North Carolina, making sure that people do not have relief for a whole myriad of things, making sure that the Capitol Police aren’t getting paid,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., told reporters.
‘Shut it down’
It’s not clear what happens next after the bill’s defeat.
Another option that was considered earlier in the day was a continuing resolution-disaster aid combo that leaves the debt ceiling unaddressed, but included some kind of commitment to take it up before Inauguration Day as Trump has demanded.
Otherwise, there were various options circulating that would extend government funding for a few days to a week or so to buy more time. But there didn’t seem to be much appetite for interfering with the holidays, with some Republicans arguing that a shutdown was preferable.
“Shut it down,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., posted on the social platform X, which is owned by Musk.
The entire situation was raising new questions about Johnson’s ability to lead his conference in the new Congress, starting with his vote count to be reelected as speaker on Jan. 3. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said she’d be “open” to backing Musk for speaker, since there’s no requirement that position go to a sitting House member.
“The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday,” Greene wrote on X. “This could be the way.”
Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., said he is against raising the debt limit and in favor of the pharmacy benefit manager provisions that got pulled. He said Thursday will “define” Johnson.
“You’re literally saying, take out all the good stuff, add some bad stuff, and then I’m supposed to vote for it,” he said. “No, thank you. That’s not the way this works.”
McCormick said the situation “absolutely” endangers Johnson’s speakership and as of right now he would not support him.
Meanwhile, whatever plan House GOP leaders hatch, even if it could pass the House, would need to get through the Democratic-controlled Senate, where Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., has taken a similar hard-line position.
“The one thing that everybody’s got to remember, OK, is that as of today, Republicans do not control the other end of this building,” Rep. Drew Ferguson, R-Ga., said Thursday. “So whatever plan comes out of the House of Representatives still has to get a hearing in the Senate. And I don’t see Chuck Schumer doing that, nor do I see Joe Biden signing that into law.”
Schumer’s position remained consistent throughout the whole episode: The original package Democratic leaders negotiated with Johnson is the only viable solution.
“It’s a good thing the bill failed in the House. And now it’s time to go back to the bipartisan agreement, we came to,” Schumer said in a statement late Thursday.
Jacob Fulton, David Lerman and Paul M. Krawzak contributed to this report.
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