Congress Approves Updated Funding Plan, Preventing Government Shutdown
The legislation secures government funding until mid-March, allocating $110 billion for disaster relief, $30 billion for agriculture support, and extending the farm bill by one year.
WASHINGTON—On December 21, both houses of Congress approved a last-minute funding package that ensures government operations continue until March 14, forwarding it to President Joe Biden for his signature.
The bill, referred to as the American Relief Act, was passed in the Senate during a late-night session with a vote of 85-11, just after the midnight deadline for a potential shutdown on Saturday. Earlier, the House of Representatives had approved the same measure with a vote of 366–34 on December 20.
Passing this legislation marks the end of a week filled with uncertainty, as lawmakers aimed to regroup after a prior funding agreement fell through, driven by opposition from President-elect Donald Trump and some Republican members.
In addition to extending government financing, the 118-page bill authorizes $110 billion in urgent hurricane relief and $30 billion in agricultural assistance, extends the farm bill for another year, and includes several minor additional provisions.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) expressed that while he wasn’t entirely pleased with the package, he was relieved that an agreement was finally achieved.
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“We achieved key initiatives in the bill, especially in disaster relief. … we managed to keep the government operational, and we avoided the debt ceiling issue,” Schumer remarked. “So, those are three significant victories. While we didn’t secure all our demands, the House vote indicates general satisfaction with the outcome.”
The White House has indicated that Biden is likely to sign the bill into law.
The proposal notably does not address the debt ceiling. Trump had previously urged Johnson to leverage the lame duck session to either suspend or raise the debt ceiling, which could provide Democrats with a policy advantage in the upcoming Congress.
However, both House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) voiced their opposition to such an action.
“Adding the debt limit to any agreement, any [Continuing Resolution], at this time would have been highly inadvisable, and I’m relieved that we avoided it,” Schumer stated to reporters before the vote.
Trump had positioned the debt ceiling as a central tenet of his objections to the earlier funding package unveiled on Tuesday.
The original funding proposal, spanning 1,547 pages, sparked a wave of backlash on social media. Elon Musk, a political ally of Trump, campaigned aggressively against the legislation on X, pledging support for primary challenges against any Republican who endorsed it.
Democrats, traditionally supporters of government funding measures, opposed the removal of the original proposal along with the debt ceiling suspension—an issue that could afford them leverage in the forthcoming Republican-majority government.
In contrast, several Republicans voiced dissent against the debt ceiling provisions as well as new expenditures within the bill.
The final version of the legislation passed on Friday resembled the rejected draft but excluded any references to the debt ceiling.
Since the House introduced the revised Plan C legislation on December 20, Trump has been silent on the matter.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) had colorful remarks regarding the legislation after its passage in the House.
“This whole scenario resembles a [expletive] Christmas movie on ‘Lifetime,’ but without finding true love or saving the local cookie factory,” Fetterman quipped to The Epoch Times.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), dissatisfied with the overall cost of the funding measure, declared he would vote “no.”
“I’m not concerned about the number of pages cut from the initial bill,” Johnson told The Epoch Times. “They didn’t fund it, so I cannot support it.”
