House GOP searches for new plan as government shutdown nears

The federal government is less than 12 hours away from a shutdown as House Speaker Mike Johnson continues to strike out in his search for funding legislation that can satisfy his narrow Republican majority and President-elect Donald Trump - and Trump’s billionaire adviser, Elon Musk.

If Congress doesn’t act, the government will shut down just after midnight Saturday and won’t reopen until a new funding law is enacted. The White House warned agencies Friday morning to prepare to close. A shutdown would furlough hundreds of thousands of federal workers and force many others - including air traffic controllers, airport security agents and military service members - to work without pay on the eve of the Christmas holiday.

Racing the clock, House Republicans are now trying to deal separately with several provisions that have been part of each government funding proposal this week. Johnson’s original plan included a three-month stopgap spending bill, more than $100 billion for natural disaster relief and an additional $10 billion in aid for struggling farmers. It also included a year-long extension of the sweeping agriculture policy and anti-poverty law called the farm bill.

Both parties broadly agree on those parameters, but other policies - around health care costs, medical research, limiting investments in Chinese technology and transferring RFK Stadium to Washington, D.C. - were part of Johnson’s original bipartisan deal with Democrats. They have supplied Johnson (R-Louisiana) with the votes to avert previous shutdowns and still control the Senate and White House and so far say they’ll accept nothing less than their original agreement.

Johnson is set to attempt to break that logjam later Friday afternoon by splitting up those priorities into two separate bills that would get separate votes - one with a funding extension and the farm bill, another with disaster aid and the farm aid, according to two people familiar with the speaker’s plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private meetings.

The plan notably leaves out any legislation to suspend the nation’s borrowing limit, which Trump has demanded as part of shutdown talks.

“Without this, we should never make a deal,” he posted on social media at 1:16 a.m.

Whatever can pass the House will get packaged into a single bill and sent over to the Senate, in a process called “king of the hill.” But it is unclear if Trump or the nearly 40 GOP hard-liners who sunk previous funding measures this week will approve of Johnson’s maneuver.

“President Trump is a huge part of this. If President Trump is not supportive of this plan, it is going to struggle to pass,” Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-South Dakota) said. “If he understands that the negotiations that we’ve been working on ultimately get him what he needs to govern this country, then this is going to pass.”

Musk appeared to embrace the plan: “Great idea,” he wrote on his X social media platform on Friday morning.

Democrats were cool to the idea, though, and without their support, the “king of the hill” ploy may still not work. More than 50 House Republicans have voted against all six government funding bills since September 2023, according to the Hohlt Group, a conservative advocacy firm. If only a few of those GOP members defect alongside unified Democratic opposition, the bills will fail.

“I think that we were all of the same opinion that are bargaining position was pretty sound and we should not retreat from it,” Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Massachusetts) said after leaving the Democratic caucus meeting Friday morning.

Lawmakers began the week expecting to cruise toward passage of a bipartisan deal to keep the government open. The bill would have punted the shutdown deadline into mid-March, sent more than $100 billion to natural disaster survivors and $10 billion to farmers, and also included new policies to lower prescription drug costs, along with a host of smaller policy wins claimed by each party.

But some GOP members disliked it from the outset, and when Musk opposed the deal in an hours-long social media tirade on Wednesday that Trump eventually joined, other Republicans jumped ship. That forced Johnson to try a new approach Thursday with a trimmer bill negotiated only among the GOP that Democrats opposed almost unanimously, but he still lost 38 of his own members.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the “Musk-Johnson” proposal “laughable,” and accused Republicans of being controlled by “one or two puppet masters.”

Conservative hard-liners ousted Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy (R-California), in October 2023 over similar issues. When Johnson took office, he pledged to tighten Congress’s belt and prevent year-end “Christmas tree” measures - named for all the legislative ornaments that often adorn must-pass funding legislation in late December.

“A year and a half ago, Kevin McCarthy was substantially removed because of a debt ceiling debate that had the largest cut in spending, functionally, in U.S. history,” Rep. David Schweikert (R-Arizona) told The Washington Post. “And here many of the same people who complained about that are about to vote for one with no constraints at all.”