US House votes through last-gasp bill to keep government open

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The US House passed a stop-gap funding measure with just hours to spare on Friday, paving the way for Congress to avert a government shutdown after days of fighting on Capitol Hill.

The bill that passed the House did not include any change to the debt ceiling, defying Donald Trump’s call for the mechanism to be scrapped or increased.

But the measure gained bipartisan support in the chamber, with Democrats joining Republicans to pass the bill 366-34 just after 6pm in Washington — six hours before the deadline.

The Democratic controlled Senate must now vote on the law before it heads to the desk of President Joe Biden, who will support the legislation, according to the White House press secretary.

Enacting the bill will end a week of volatility in Washington as Trump and his ally Elon Musk flexed their influence over hardline Republicans, pushing them to reject what they said were “giveaways” to Democrats.

Before the bill passed on Friday, Musk expressed his continued disdain for the bill: “So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?”

The measure passed was House Speaker Mike Johnson’s third attempt to get a deal through the chamber after Trump torpedoed the first bipartisan agreement earlier in the week.

The new bill was almost identical to Johnson’s second one, but stripped out any move to raise or suspend the debt ceiling, despite Trump’s demands. It extends government funding at current levels, and provides aid for natural disaster relief and farmers.

The passage in the House marked a victory for Johnson, who had vowed earlier in the day that the US would “not have a government shut down”.

A shutdown would temporarily close parts of the government and suspend pay for federal employees. Previous government shutdowns have forced hundreds of thousands of federal workers to be furloughed.

Trump’s looming presence over the debate has been the biggest complicating factor in frantic negotiations to find a last-minute deal.

But as soon as the vote began, Musk changed his tune, saying that Johnson “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.”

Democrats, angry that the earlier bipartisan deal was ditched, have blamed Musk for inserting himself in the process this week, triggering more turmoil in Congress just ahead of the US holiday season.

“At the behest of the world’s richest man who no one voted for, the US Congress has been thrown into pandemonium,” said Democrat Rosa DeLauro about Musk on Thursday.

Some top Republicans also appeared to criticise the interventions by Trump and Musk.

“I don’t care to count how many times I’ve reminded . . . our House counterparts how harmful it is to shut the government down and how foolish it is to bet your own side won’t take the blame for it,” Mitch McConnell, the outgoing Senate Republican leader, said on Friday.

“That said, if I took it personally every time my advice went unheeded, I probably wouldn’t have spent as long as I have in this particular job.”