The China Mail - US House passes bill to avert shutdown, Senate vote to follow

Lawmakers sent a package to the Senate that would keep federal agencies running through mid-March -- but the upper chamber only has until midnight (0500 GMT) to follow suit or federal agencies will begin shutting.

Although the House is run by the Republicans, who introduced the bill, 34 of the party's backbenchers voted against it, while almost every Democrat was a yes.

"Today, Democrats stood firm in our commitment to collaboration, not division. The American people deserve a government that works for them," senior Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson posted on X.

If senators drag their feet, the government will still cease to be funded at midnight, and non-essential operations will start to grind to a halt, with up to 875,000 workers furloughed and 1.4 million more required to work without pay.

The Democratic-led upper chamber would be expected to follow the House, however, and the main question now is how quickly senators will move.

Congress's setting of government budgets is always a fraught task, with both chambers closely divided between Republicans and Democrats.

The latest drama intensified after Republican President-elect Trump and tech billionaire Musk, his incoming "efficiency czar," pressured his party to renege on a funding bill they had hammered out with Democrats.

Two subsequent efforts to find compromise fell short, leaving Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson at the last chance saloon as he huddled with aides to keep government agencies running.

If the bill fails Senate scrutiny, non-essential government functions will be put on ice. Employees in key services like law enforcement would continue working but would only be paid once government functions are back up.

Many parks, monuments and national sites would close at a time when millions of visitors are expected.

- 'Let it begin' -

The House-passed bill avoids all that by funding the government until mid-March in a package that includes $110 billion in disaster aid and financial relief for farmers.

It is essentially the same as a bill that failed miserably in a vote Thursday -- except without a two-year suspension of the country's self-imposed borrowing limit demanded by Trump.

Musk appeared again to be doing his best to marshal conservatives against the deal ahead of the House vote, as he posted: "So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?"

The influence of the world's richest man over the Republicans -- and his apparent sway with Trump -- has become a focus for Democratic attack, with questions raised over how an unelected citizen can wield so much power.

There is growing anger even among Republicans over Musk's interference after he trashed the original funding agreement in a blizzard of posts -- many of them wildly inaccurate -- on his social media platform X.

"Last time I checked, Elon Musk doesn't have a vote in Congress," Georgia House Republican Rich McCormick told CNN.

"Now, he has influence, and he'll put pressure on us to do whatever he thinks the right thing is for him. But I have 760,000 people that voted for me to do the right thing for them."

The Senate's expected rubber stamp could take days under the rules governing the upper chamber, unless members agree unanimously to waive normal procedure.

Trump has been clear that he is willing to see a shutdown if he does not get his way.

"If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration," he said on social media.

T.Wu--ThChM