Congress Passes Revised Funding Plan, Averting Government Shutdown

WASHINGTON—Both chambers of Congress on Dec. 21 passed a last-minute funding package that would extend government funding to March 14, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk.

The legislation, dubbed the American Relief Act, passed the Senate in a late-night 85-11 vote that wrapped up not long after the midnight shutdown deadline on Saturday. The House of Representatives passed the same bill in a 366–34 vote earlier in the afternoon on Dec. 20.

The passage of the legislation by both chambers of Congress caps off a week of uncertainty as lawmakers sought to reorganize following the collapse of a previous funding agreement due to opposition from President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans.

Aside from punting government funding into next year, the 118-page bill approves $110 billion in emergency hurricane relief and $30 billion in farm aid, extends the farm bill for one year, and includes a series of other minor provisions.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) indicated that although he wasn’t thrilled about the package, he was happy an agreement had been reached.

“We got some major things we wanted in the bill, particularly the disaster relief. … we kept the government open, and we didn’t get the debt ceiling,” Schumer said. “So there were three major victories. We didn’t get everything we wanted, but I think if you look at the vote in the House, people felt pretty good it was virtually unanimous.”

Biden is expected to sign the bill, according to the White House.

Absent from the proposal is any mention of the debt ceiling. Trump previously called on Johnson to use the lame duck session to suspend or raise the debt ceiling, which could give Democrats policy leverage in the next Congress.

However, both House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) expressed opposition to such a move.

“This would have been a very unfortunate time to add the debt limit to any agreement, any [Continuing Resolution], and I’m very glad we didn’t,” Schumer told reporters ahead of the vote.

Trump made the debt ceiling issue a pillar of his opposition to the original funding proposal released Tuesday.

Coming in at 1,547 pages, that proposal ignited a social media firestorm. Elon Musk, a close political ally of Trump, waged a crusade against the legislation on X, vowing to fund primary challenges against any Republican who supported it.

Democrats, who have historically backed government funding measures, objected to the withdrawal of the original proposal and the suspension of the debt ceiling—an issue that promises Democrats a rare piece of leverage in the upcoming Republican-dominated government.

Several Republicans objected to the inclusion of a provision to raise the debt ceiling as well as new spending in the bill.

The draft of the bill that ultimately passed on Friday was similar to the rejected proposal, though it didn’t include provisions on the debt ceiling.

Trump has not weighed in since the House introduced the Plan C legislation on Dec. 20.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) offered colorful words for the piece of legislation after it passed the House.

“This whole situation is, it would be the [expletive] Christmas movie on ‘Lifetime,’ except we don’t find true love, and we didn’t get to save the cookie factory in the small town,” Fetterman told The Epoch Times.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), frustrated with the cost of the funding package, said he would be voting “no.”

“I don’t care about the pages” removed from the original bill, Johnson told The Epoch Times. “They didn’t pay for it, so I’m not voting for it.”