Congress veering toward government shutdown after Trump, Musk sink bipartisan funding bill

WASHINGTON – Congress careened toward a government shutdown on Thursday after President-elect Donald Trump sank a bipartisan deal that would have funded the government until March, then endorsed a last-minute GOP proposal that most Democrats rejected.

The intervention by Trump and his advisor, Elon Musk, came after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., negotiated a bill with Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, who leads the Senate Appropriations Committee, and her fellow Democrats who still control the upper chamber until the incoming Republican majority retakes control of the Senate in January. That compromise legislation would have funded the government at current levels through March 14 while adding about $10 billion in assistance for farmers and $100 billion in aid for recovery from wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters.

“I have been pushing for a comprehensive bill that addresses the wide scope of disaster relief needs across the country,” Murray said in a statement when the bill was unveiled on Tuesday, “and while this is not the legislation I would have written on my own, it is a strong, bipartisan package that provides the resources communities urgently need to recover.”

But because that legislation would be the proverbial last train leaving the station before Congress departs for the holidays, it became what Capitol Hill insiders derisively call a “Christmas tree bill,” bedecked with other provisions that lawmakers hoped to pass. Those measures included funding for child care, security for Supreme Court justices and rebuilding the collapsed Key Bridge in Baltimore.

To avoid the Senate filibuster and pass the House on a fast-track basis, a short-term spending bill will require the support of Democrats and Republicans, even after the GOP takes control of the Senate. But in a flurry of posts on X, the social media platform he owns, Musk made several false claims about the bill, called it “an insane crime against the American people” and said it “should NOT pass.”

Musk, who is set to have a major role in the incoming Trump administration despite the apparent conflict of interest stemming from his companies’ federal contracts, suggested in a series of more than 100 posts that letting the government shut down until Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20 wouldn’t have a major effect.

While the government’s essential functions would continue during a shutdown, some federal workers would stop working and go without pay. A five-week shutdown that began at the end of 2018 cost the U.S. economy about $3 billion in lost productivity, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated.

In an interview on Thursday, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the incoming chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that while a shutdown “doesn’t affect the American people that much,” because of exemptions Congress has added to past bills, it still represents a failure on the part of legislators.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Risch said. “I am not advocating for a government shutdown. Congress needs to govern – that’s our first responsibility – and you don’t govern by shutting down the government. So I’m not in favor of that, but I’m also not saying it’s going to be the end of the world.”

After Trump and his allies came out against the bipartisan deal, House Republicans scrambled to negotiate a new bill that would meet the incoming president’s demands, which include raising or eliminating the debt ceiling that limits how much the U.S. government can borrow. About three hours after unveiling a package that included disaster relief along with a debt limit hike, that bill failed as 38 Republicans and nearly all Democrats voted against it.

Rep. Russ Fulcher, a member of the hardline GOP House Freedom Caucus who represents North Idaho, voted against the bill. Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Spokane and Dan Newhouse of Sunnyside, both Republicans, didn’t vote.

The bipartisan bill released Tuesday includes a 3.8% pay raise for federal lawmakers, most of whom earn $174,000 but haven’t given themselves a pay hike since 2009. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat who represents southwest Washington, said she would vote against the legislation because she opposed that measure. She was one of just two Democrats who voted for the Trump-backed plan that failed Thursday evening.

“When Americans feel the pressure of rising prices, from cough syrup to home ownership, Congress should prioritize the people we represent, not ourselves,” she said in a statement on Tuesday. “Any way you slice it, Congress giving itself a pay raise right now is bananas.”

Thursday night’s failed vote leaves Johnson with no clear path forward. With just a two-vote majority when the new Congress is sworn in at the start of the new year, he will need virtually every Republican’s support to be re-elected as speaker, yet averting a government shutdown will require cooperating with Democrats, which some GOP hardliners consider a fireable offense.