WASHINGTON: The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives set up a Tuesday (Mar 11) vote on legislation that would keep the government funded and avert a partial shutdown, as Washington is rocked by President Donald Trump’s rapid moves to slash federal agencies.
The House Rules Committee advanced the Bill on Monday evening to the full chamber, clearing the way for what will likely be a close vote on Tuesday to extend government funding past midnight Friday, when it is due to expire.
The package would also have to pass the Senate before Trump can sign it into law.
House Democratic leadership was urging its rank-and-file to oppose the measure. Meanwhile, Trump was contacting some fence-sitting Republican lawmakers to garner their support, Fox News reported, in a sign that House Speaker Mike Johnson may not have nailed down enough votes for passage as of Monday.
Hardline members of the fractious 218-214 House Republican majority – who over the past year repeatedly bucked Speaker Johnson’s plans – have signalled support for the Bill, which would keep the government funded at its current levels through Sep 30, when the current fiscal year ends.
Supporters argued that the House must advance it to move on to Trump’s agenda of sweeping tax cuts and stepped-up spending on immigration enforcement and the military. Trump has voiced support for the Bill.
If all House Democrats oppose the Bill, Johnson will have to make sure all Republicans fall in line behind the legislation to ensure its passage.
“It is not something we could ever support,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters, saying his party would not be “complicit” in what he said were cuts to social safety net programs embedded in the 99-page Bill.
Multiple Senate Democrats – who could block the Bill thanks to the chamber’s 60-vote filibuster rule but have long bemoaned government shutdowns as needless chaos – have said they would support it rather than further destabilise the government when Trump adviser Elon Musk has ousted more than 100,000 federal workers.
The Bill covers discretionary spending, functions like law enforcement and air traffic control, and represents about a quarter of the roughly US$6.75 trillion federal budget. That also includes spending for the Social Security retirement program and more than US$1 trillion per year on interest payments on the government’s growing US$36 trillion debt.
It would increase defence spending by about US$6 billion while decreasing non-defence spending by about US$13 billion, according to House Republican leadership aides. It would also maintain a freeze on US$20 billion for the Internal Revenue Service included in a December stopgap Bill.
