Republican Plan to Avoid Shutdown Fails in the House
Where Things Stand
The House rejected a new Republican proposal to avert a shutdown, a day after President-elect Donald J. Trump torpedoed a spending deal that House Speaker Mike Johnson had struck with Democrats. The new, Trump-endorsed plan would have tied an extension of government funding to a two-year suspension of the federal debt limit. Read more ›
The vote was 235 to 174, with 38 Republicans and 197 Democrats voting no. Mr. Johnson is trying to find a new way forward. If a spending deal is not passed, government funding lapses at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
Some right-wing lawmakers defied Mr. Trump’s orders to support the plan because they did not want to increase the government’s borrowing limit, while Democrats said the new bill would be used to finance extensive tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of working people.
Reporting from the Capitol
The government lurched toward a shutdown after the House on Thursday rejected a hastily produced plan ordered up by President-elect Donald J. Trump to keep funding flowing, with dozens of Republicans defying his demand to pair the spending with a two-year suspension of the federal debt limit.
The vote sent Speaker Mike Johnson back to the drawing board ahead of a Friday night deadline with no clear path to keeping the government open. Right-wing lawmakers balked at increasing the government’s borrowing limit, something many of them have long pledged not to do without spending cuts to keep the debt from ballooning further.
They were joined by Democrats who savaged the G.O.P. for bowing to Mr. Trump and reneging on a spending compromise Mr. Johnson had reached with them only days earlier.
The vote was 174 to 235, with one member voting “present.” Thirty-eight Republicans joined almost every Democrat in voting “no.”
It was an epic meltdown that reflected the deep divisions among Republicans in Congress and a fraught dynamic between them and Mr. Trump that portends a difficult road ahead in January, when the G.O.P. will hold full control of Congress and he will be back in the White House. In particular, it suggested that the president-elect’s ambitious fiscal plans, including a large tax cut, could face a rocky path on Capitol Hill even with his own party in charge.
Even before the spending measure hit the House floor on Thursday evening, it appeared doomed to fail. It was made public roughly two hours before the vote was held, and Mr. Johnson used a special procedure to fast-track it to a vote that required the support of two-thirds of lawmakers to push it across the finish line. In the end, it did not come close to drawing even a simple majority.
Like the original bipartisan deal Mr. Johnson struck with Democrats, which Mr. Trump blew up on Wednesday in a hail of criticism, the bill would have extended government funding at current levels through mid-March, and provided $100 billion in disaster aid and $10 billion in direct payments to farmers. It also would have extended the expiring farm bill for a year. The measure omitted an array of other policy changes that had been included in the initial deal.
But by far the biggest change was the addition of a two-year suspension of the debt ceiling, a demand that Mr. Trump abruptly issued on Wednesday — two days before the shutdown deadline — and then insisted that Republicans include in any measure to keep government spending flowing.
Mr. Trump threw his support behind the bill, calling it a “very good Deal for the American People.”
“All Republicans, and even the Democrats, should do what is best for our Country, and vote ‘YES’ for this Bill, TONIGHT!” Mr. Trump wrote on TruthSocial.
But the proposal was at odds with the position that many G.O.P. lawmakers have held for years — that they would never back an increase in the government’s borrowing limit without spending cuts to slow the growth of the national debt.
“You never have any ounce of self-respect,” Representative Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, said in heated remarks to his G.O.P. colleagues on the House floor. “To take this bill and congratulate yourself because it’s shorter in pages, but increases the debt by $5 trillion, is asinine.”
He added that he was “absolutely sickened by a party that campaigns on fiscal responsibility” but was prepared to support legislation that would pave the way for so much more debt.
Mr. Johnson’s original plan to avert a shutdown imploded on Wednesday amid a backlash by G.O.P. lawmakers that was fueled by Elon Musk, who spent much of the day trashing the measure on social media and threatening the political future of any Republican who supported it.
Mr. Trump later joined in with his debt limit demand, saying he would rather raise it while President Biden is still in office than be responsible for doing so next year after he takes office and Republicans are in full control of Congress.
Democrats also refused to back a debt-limit increase they argued would ease the path for Mr. Trump and Republicans to ram through extensive tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of working people.
Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, tore into Republicans for rejecting the deal Mr. Johnson had negotiated with her party, arguing that G.O.P. leaders had caved to Mr. Musk.
“We must unequivocally reject the illegitimate oligarchy that seeks to usurp the authority of the United States Congress and of the American people,” Ms. DeLauro said.
Only two Democrats, Representatives Kathy Castor of Florida and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, voted “yes.”
The debt limit is expected to be reached sometime in January — though many think it could be stretched into the spring — and a failure to increase it would cause a default on the nation’s debt. Mr. Trump acknowledged that he did not want to shoulder the responsibility for doing so.
“Increasing the debt ceiling is not great,” Mr. Trump said in a statement, “but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch.”
The last time Mr. Trump forced a government shutdown, in 2018 in a dispute over funding for a wall at the nation’s southern border, Congress had already passed bills funding three-quarters of the federal government, including the Defense and Veterans Affairs Departments.
This time, Congress has not passed any individual spending bills to fund the government into next year, meaning if lawmakers do not act before the Saturday morning deadline, the entire government will shut down. Unable to come to any real consensus on spending levels since negotiating two huge bills in March, Congress has been passing stopgap bill after stopgap bill ever since to keep the government from careening into a shutdown.
The 2018 shutdown sidelined roughly 800,000 of the federal government’s 2.1 million employees for 34 days.
In the case of a shutdown, large numbers of postal workers and Transportation Security Administration employees could be forced to work without pay. Benefits such as Medicare and Social Security continue uninterrupted because they are authorized by Congress in separate laws that do not need to be renewed every year.
The blowup could not have come at a worse time for Mr. Johnson, who is hoping to be re-elected as speaker on Jan. 3. Mr. Trump on Wednesday night issued a veiled threat to him over the imperiled stopgap spending bill, telling Fox News Digital that the speaker would be “easily” re-elected to the role next year if he did what Mr. Trump wants.
Asked in a telephone interview on Thursday whether he still had confidence in Mr. Johnson, Mr. Trump told NBC News, “We’ll see.”
Hours later, the bill Mr. Trump had demanded Mr. Johnson deliver failed resoundingly on the floor.
The speaker’s handling of the deal has also left a number of conservatives in the House openly mulling whether to support him in a vote on the floor early next year, when he can afford only a few G.O.P. defections to win the necessary majority to keep his gavel. At least one Republican, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who led the charge to oust Mr. Johnson earlier this year, has said he will not vote for him for speaker.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said in a statement on X: “Johnson needs to stop the same failed pattern of making dirty swamp deals behind closed doors and keeping everyone in the dark. Republicans need to be working together to deliver the mandate. That requires big changes in behavior.”
Maya C. Miller contributed reporting.
Reporting from Washington
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s hammerlock on the Republican Party was shaken on Thursday night when 38 of his party’s lawmakers in the House voted to defy his command to support a spending and debt deal.
Writing on social media, Mr. Trump had told Republicans to “vote ‘YES’ for this Bill, TONIGHT!” He said it was vital to pass a bill that extended spending until early next year and suspended the nation’s debt limit until 2027, well into his next term.
For the better part of a decade, that kind of dictate has usually been enough for Mr. Trump, who has methodically seized control of the Republican Party at all levels. But with just a month left before he returns to office, Mr. Trump found out that at least some of his followers were willing to buck his leadership in the right circumstances. The rebel Republicans, combined with most House Democrats, sank that legislation, leaving the nation about a day away from a government shutdown.
The defiance came not from the handful of moderate Republicans who have previously earned the president-elect’s ire. This time, it was conservatives who would normally align themselves with Mr. Trump’s philosophy who voted against his wishes.
Several did so because they opposed the idea of raising the debt limit for more than two years, something they argue would allow out-of-control government spending to continue unabated. Mr. Trump had argued that raising the limit would clear the decks for his ambitious legislative agenda, removing a potential fight over the issue early in his term.
For the president-elect, the actions of his party on Thursday night raise questions as he moves into the final act of his political career: Have the signs suggesting his grip over the G.O.P. is tighter than ever been wrong? Has he lost some control he once had? Or was the vote merely a brief hiccup in the absolute loyalty forecast for when he moves back into the White House next month?
The answer may not be known until Mr. Trump puts a razor-thin Republican majority to the test next year. It will only take a handful of Republicans to doom any one of his agenda items in the House or the Senate. But such defiance would come at the risk of their political careers, under a president who has shown himself willing and able to rally voters as he wishes.
Still, the rebel Republicans who voted against his wishes on Thursday did so despite an explicit electoral threat. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump had warned that “any Republican that would be so stupid” as to vote against a bill like the one offered on Thursday “should, and will,” face primary challenges. More than three dozen House members were not dissuaded.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
No further votes are expected in the House tonight, congressional leaders say. Lawmakers are going home for the night roughly 28 hours away from the shutdown deadline.
Reporting from Washington
There have been more than 20 gaps in federal government funding since 1976, with varying levels of shutdowns that have affected agencies — and the public — in different ways. During Donald J. Trump’s first term as president, roughly 800,000 of the federal government’s more than two million employees were sidelined for over a month starting in December 2018. The economy took a major hit.
As lawmakers raced to secure a funding deal that would keep the government open beyond Friday’s midnight deadline, Washington and its large federal work force braced for a potentially disruptive holiday season. Travel would still likely proceed without major interruptions, as Transportation Security Administration employees and air traffic controllers would largely continue to work. But like during the late 2018 shutdown, travelers could face delays at airports.
Carter Langston, a Transportation Security Administration spokesman, said on Thursday that 59,000 of the agency’s 62,000 employees were considered “essential,” meaning they would continue working without pay during a shutdown. The agency expects to screen 40 million passengers over the holidays.
“While our personnel have prepared to handle high volumes of travelers and ensure safe travel, an extended shutdown could mean longer wait times at airports,” Mr. Langston said.
A shutdown would cause enormous strain on furloughed government workers and those required to still work, most of whom would do so without pay until funding is restored.
How does the federal government prepare?
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget maintains a collection of plans that federal agencies have developed in the event of a shutdown. Other Washington institutions, like the National Gallery of Art, have also developed plans as part of that list.
Federal agencies organize their employees by the urgency of their work in a shutdown, using categories such as “necessary to perform activities expressly authorized by law”; “necessary to the discharge of the president’s constitutional duties and powers”; and “necessary to protect life and property.” Departments provide estimates of how many employees in those categories would be likely to work during a shutdown.
The Health and Human Services Department would keep roughly 50,000 of its employees working through a shutdown, and would furlough more than 40,000 people by the second day of a break in funding. Divisions within the department with workers more urgent to human health would keep going.
The National Institutes of Health’s clinical center would care for and admit new patients “for whom it is medically necessary,” while the Food and Drug Administration would monitor and respond to food-borne illnesses and flu outbreaks. But some core food safety work would be “reduced to emergency responses.” Like in past shutdowns, government labs could close, halting research.
More than 150,000, or over half, of the Homeland Security Department’s work force would keep working because of their status as “necessary to protect life and property.”
How are federal workers’ lives affected?
Federal employees, including those who are furloughed, will receive back pay once the president signs legislation funding the government. And employees who worked overtime can typically claim extra wages after a shutdown concludes.
Those protections are not necessarily guaranteed for the many contractors who keep government agencies running, such as janitors and cafeteria workers. They may still be entitled to unemployment compensation if they were furloughed or could not work.
A break in pay would affect a wide swath of workers, potentially delaying paychecks for members of the military. Many federal employees do clerical or administrative work that keeps agencies functioning, and do not have large salaries. Past shutdowns have led to scenes of anguish and desperation among federal workers who struggled to afford food and essentials. In 2019, as the more than monthlong shutdown extended well past New Year’s Day, there were long lines at Washington-area food banks, where federal workers waited for brown bags of meals.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management has published a shutdown guide for federal workers.
How is the public affected?
Some aspects of a shutdown would be more noticeable to Americans, like changes in the operations of national parks and museums. Some would be harder to spot: In past shutdowns, inspections of chemical factories, power plants and water treatment plants ground to a halt, while some routine food safety inspections were paused.
Social Security and Medicare benefits continue uninterrupted, as does medical care for veterans. Because of how the Postal Service is funded, regular mail operations would continue.
Depending on the length of a shutdown, low-income Americans who rely on food stamps or WIC — the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — could see access lapse.
Lawmakers are now streaming back to Speaker Johnson’s office in the Capitol. “What’s next?” one asked a leadership aide.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTAs we wait for word on how House Republicans will move forward, Speaker Mike Johnson is holding forth on the House floor with a circle of lawmakers, many of them hard-right members who opposed the bill.
The bill officially fails, 174 to 235. One lawmaker, Representative Marcy Kaptur, Democrat of Ohio, voted present. Thirty-eight Republicans voted against the measure, which Trump had called on his party to back.
Speaker Mike Johnson just told reporters that he and House Republicans were as committed as ever to cutting the size of the federal government, even though the bill on the floor would raise the debt ceiling for another two years. The extension, Johnson insisted, “in no way reflects any lack of enthusiasm on our part to get about those serious cuts for the American people.” He did not take any questions.
Unless a significant number of lawmakers change their votes before the gavel, Johnson’s Plan B will not pass. There are now enough "No" votes — 171 — to make a two-thirds majority impossible.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTAn hour ago, this bill already seemed destined to fail. A number of hard-right lawmakers told us they would not support it because they could not bear to raise the debt limit without extracting any spending cuts in exchange.
And Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, told his caucus he was a “hell no” on the bill.
A major reason the bill seems all but certain to fail — at least on this vote — is that the House speaker, Mike Johnson, expedited it to the floor by using a procedure that requires the support of two-thirds of all lawmakers for passage. That would only be possible if a significant number of Democrats joined up with Republicans.
Several senators have crossed over to the House side of the Capitol to watch the spectacle of the vote about to take place.
“It’s more exciting over here,” said Senator Steve Daines, Republican of Montana, as he walked toward the House chamber. Additional sightings included Senator Cynthia Lummis, Republican of Wyoming, and Senator Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont.
Chip Roy, the Republican congressman from Texas, is lecturing his colleagues for claiming to care about the debt while voting to rack up more. “To take this bill and congratulate yourself because it’s shorter in pages, but increases the debt by $5 trillion, is asinine. That’s precisely what Republicans are doing.”
He says he is “absolutely sickened by a party that campaigns on fiscal responsibility” but supports this legislation.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
After the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, called the Republicans' last-minute plan to avoid a government shutdown “the Musk-Johnson proposal,” Elon Musk took to his social platform, X, to push back on the idea that he’s calling the shots. “I’m not the author of this proposal,” Musk wrote, crediting President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson.
House G.O.P. appropriators — the lawmakers on the House's panel that controls federal spending — now have the unenviable task of making a case for this legislation, which seems all but certain to fail on the House floor ahead of the vote. “We’ve got many needs and necessary reasons to keep our government functioning,” said Representative Chuck Edwards of North Carolina. “The American people are counting on us.”
Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican seen as a more moderate member of her conference, met on Thursday with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is hoping to become health secretary in the next Trump administration. She told CNN earlier this week that she planned to press Kennedy on his anti-vaccine activism. A spokesman for Murkowski, Joe Plesha, said that she was keeping the contents of the meeting private.
The meeting could be critical for Kennedy’s chances. Republicans will hold a 53-47 majority, meaning that if all Democrats vote against him, Kennedy can only lose three Republican votes.
Democrats are questioning whether President-elect Donald J. Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson truly control their party, or whether they’ve ceded that influence to unelected outsiders like Musk.
“Is Elon Musk the new dictator of the Republican Party?” asked Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTDemocrats emerged from their closed-door meeting and told reporters they were “united” in voting against the Republicans’ new proposal.
Without Democratic support, and with a few Republicans already pledging to vote down the measure, Johnson’s bill, which would need a two-thirds-majority to pass, appears to be dead on arrival. The House will vote on it within the next hour.
There wasn't much optimism about the fate of this bill from one House Republican. “I have a feeling it’s going to fail spectacularly,” Representative Rich McCormick of Georgia said, calling the legislation “horrible.”
Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, told Democrats inside their closed-door meeting on Johnson’s new spending bill, “I’m not simply a no, I’m a hell no.”
On his way into the closed-door meeting with his fellow party members, Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland lamented to reporters that an unelected figure like Elon Musk could persuade House Republicans to blow up a delicately negotiated agreement. “It’s just horrific that they have thrust us into this kind of chaos already, and they haven’t even taken over,” said Raskin, who will be the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee next year.
“Who is our leader, Hakeem Jeffries, supposed to negotiate with?” Raskin said, exasperated. “Is it Mike Johnson? Is he the speaker of the House? Or is it Donald Trump? Or is it Elon Musk? Or is it somebody else?”
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTDemocrats in the closed-door meeting were overheard applauding loudly and shouting, “Hell no!” — presumably in response to the newly released Republican spending bill.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, called the proposal “laughable” on his way into a closed-door meeting where House Democrats will decide whether or not to support Republicans’ latest spending pitch. He derided the proposal as “not serious” and suggested that House Speaker Mike Johnson had reached it with Elon Musk. “Extreme Maga Republicans are driving us to a government shutdown,” he said.
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, previously said he opposed Trump’s push to raise the debt ceiling, and many Republicans have voiced discomfort with it as well. It is not yet clear if the proposal that House Republican leaders plan to offer would have the votes to pass in the House or the Democratic-led Senate. (The debt limit is suspended until Jan. 1.)
In a statement on social media, President-elect Donald J. Trump threw his support behind the proposal to be put forward by Republican leaders, urging “All Republicans, and even the Democrats” to vote for the bill tonight.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
President-elect Donald J. Trump had dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Wednesday with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the world’s two richest men and longtime business rivals who have cultivated relationships with the president-elect, according to two people briefed on the get-together.
Mr. Musk, who along with Mr. Trump was instrumental in tanking a bipartisan spending deal that was meant to avoid a government shutdown over the holidays, was not initially expected to be part of the dinner but joined as it was underway. The people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private dinner.
Mr. Musk, who is worth more than $450 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, and Mr. Bezos, who is worth about $240 billion, are among a string of tech billionaires who have flocked to Mr. Trump’s Florida estate. Mr. Musk was a crucial supporter of Mr. Trump’s bid for the presidency and is helping to lead a government cost-cutting effort for him, and Mr. Bezos’ Amazon said last week it was giving $1 million to the committee planning Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
Mr. Bezos, who founded both Amazon and Blue Origin and also owns The Washington Post, said at a New York Times DealBook conference this month that he was optimistic about Mr. Trump’s return to the White House and that he has seen signs of a “calmer” president-elect.
Mr. Trump has basked in the glow of those who once criticized him or kept him at a distance rushing to forge relationships with him. Mr. Trump targeted Mr. Bezos from 2016 to 2020 over everything from headlines in The Post to Amazon’s tax payments.
“The first term, everybody was fighting me,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference on Monday. “In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.”
Mr. Bezos has also clashed with Mr. Musk. His rocket company, Blue Origin, will compete in the years ahead with Mr. Musk’s SpaceX for government contracts worth billions.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTRobert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to run the Health and Human Services Department, visited Capitol Hill on Thursday for a fourth straight day of meetings with Senate Republicans, who have pressed him on his commitment to their anti-abortion agenda but so far offered little resistance to his candidacy.
In a sign of the friendly reception Mr. Kennedy has received this week, Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, a physician, said Thursday that he had formed a “Make America Healthy Again” caucus — an ode to the slogan Mr. Kennedy has used to describe his broad agenda focused on food policy and chronic disease. Mr. Kennedy had endorsed the group, Mr. Marshall’s office said.
The caucus appeared to be an effort to institutionalize Mr. Kennedy’s influence in Congress, similarly to the recently formed DOGE caucus, a reference to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting project overseen by the billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Mr. Marshall’s announcement said the group, which includes Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Senator Rick Scott of Florida, Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, would focus on nutrition, improving primary care and “addressing the root causes of chronic diseases.”
Mr. Kennedy’s visits to Capitol Hill this week have led to the impression that he is on a glide path to confirmation, with Republicans set to hold 53 seats in the next Congress.
But he has yet to meet with some members of the conference who could approach him more skeptically, including Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor who is set to lead the Senate health committee next year.
Mr. Kennedy met on Thursday with Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a moderate Republican who has vowed to press Mr. Kennedy on his anti-vaccine activism. Joe Plesha, a spokesman for Ms. Murkowski, said that she planned to keep the contents of the meeting private. That strategy was a departure from most of the Republicans Mr. Kennedy saw this week, who posted supportive photos and statements on X soon after their sessions with him.
Mr. Kennedy told reporters this week that he might meet in January with Democratic members of the Senate.
Alan Rappeport covers the Treasury Department and has reported on debt limit fights during the Trump and Biden administrations.
President-elect Donald J. Trump injected debt limit politics into already-fraught congressional spending talks this week, urging lawmakers to lift the debt limit or abolish it entirely before he takes office next month.
The re-emergence of the debt limit comes 18 months after Republicans and Democrats staved off a fiscal crisis and agreed to suspend a cap on how much the government can borrow until after the 2024 presidential election. That was supposed to clear the decks and sidestep a politically difficult vote during the heat of campaign season.
But now the problem is waiting for Mr. Trump. As he prepares to push an agenda of tax cuts and border security, Mr. Trump fears that a debt limit fight next year could interfere. His plans are expected to cost trillions of dollars, much of which will most likely need to come from borrowed funds. A drawn-out debt limit fight next year could force Mr. Trump and Republicans to bow to the demands of Democrats and could consume the congressional calendar.
“This is a nasty TRAP set in place by the Radical Left Democrats!” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Wednesday night.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump successfully pushed Republican Speaker Mike Johnson to include a two-year suspension of the debt limit in a spending deal that is needed to prevent a pending government shutdown. But the House rejected the proposal on Thursday night, with right-wing lawmakers opposed to a debt limit increase joined by Democrats to scuttle the legislation. It failed by a vote of 174 to 235, with one member voting “present.”
Republicans are always reluctant to lift the debt limit, particularly when a Democrat is in the White House, saying it enables runaway spending. G.O.P. lawmakers regularly use it as a tool to extract concessions, such as spending cuts, from Democrats when they are in power.
But Republicans will soon control Congress, as well as the White House, putting the onus squarely on them to either deal with the debt limit or face the prospect of a default. The standoff over the debt limit last year roiled markets and led to a downgrade of the long-term credit rating of the United States. Mr. Trump would like to avoid a similar scenario on his watch.
By trying to address the debt limit during the final weeks of the Biden administration, Republicans are hoping to prevent Democrats from weaponizing it against them once they are in power. And, as Mr. Trump has made clear, a decision to raise the cap would allow him to blame Mr. Biden for increasing the borrowing limit.
“It’s clear Trump wants to clear the deck so he doesn’t have to have a budget/debt limit showdown on his watch to clean up the mess from the Biden spending sprees,” said Stephen Moore, a Heritage Foundation economist who has been an adviser to Mr. Trump.
Democrats demonstrated on Thursday that they did not want to go along with that plan, with the vast majority voting against the House measure to advance the bill.
Democrats have long criticized Republicans for playing dangerous games with the debt limit, and called for it to be abolished. But it is not clear how willing they might be to let go of it as a potential source of leverage. And while Mr. Trump has indicated that he is willing to spearhead a move to eliminate the debt limit, many Republicans might fear that following his lead would be fiscally reckless.
What is the debt limit?
The debt limit is a cap on the total amount of money that the United States is authorized to borrow to fund the government and meet its financial obligations.
Because the federal government runs budget deficits — meaning it spends more than it brings in through taxes and other revenue — it must borrow huge sums of money to pay its bills. Those obligations include funding for social safety net programs, interest on the national debt and salaries for members of the armed forces.
Approaching the debt ceiling often elicits calls by lawmakers to cut back on government spending. But lifting the debt limit does not actually authorize any new spending — in fact, it simply allows the United States to spend money on programs that have already been authorized by Congress.
When will the debt limit be reached?
After a protracted fight, lawmakers agreed in June 2023 to suspend the $31.4 trillion debt limit until Jan. 1, 2025.
On that day, the limit would have to be increased by the amount of debt that has been incurred since the suspension — about $5 trillion. If it is not lifted or suspended again, the Treasury secretary will then have to use “extraordinary measures” to ensure that the United States pays its bills, including interest payments to investors who have bought government debt. Those payments are essential to preventing the United States from defaulting on its debt.
It is not yet clear how long the Treasury secretary will be able to use extraordinary measures, which temporarily curb certain government investments so that the bills can continue to be paid. However, it is expected that the so-called X-date would come sometime in the middle of next year.
“The summer could be a period that we zero in on as an X-date time frame,” said Shai Akabas, the executive director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Economic Policy Program, adding that natural disasters or new legislation passed early next year could bring that date forward.
How could the debt limit complicate Trump’s agenda?
Republicans will soon control the White House, the Senate and the House, but with narrow majorities. That means Republican lawmakers will have to work with Democrats on most legislation to find enough votes for passage.
That is what happened during Mr. Trump’s first term, when Republicans controlled Congress but were reluctant to raise the debt limit. Mr. Trump was trying to force Democrats to fund his proposed border wall, threatening a government shutdown as a debt limit deadline approached.
Ultimately, he had to rely on Democrats, who drove a tough bargain over his demands, and he broke with his party to strike a deal with Democrats. Republicans were frustrated at the time over an agreement that included disaster relief money and a debt limit increase without including many of their policy priorities.
The machinations over the debt limit distracted Republican efforts to pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, although lawmakers ultimately pushed it through at the end of 2017.
Republicans most likely want to avoid another paralyzing event this time around as they determine which of their many priorities they want to push through first. They are still deciding whether to first focus on extending the 2017 tax cuts next year, which is estimated to cost $4 trillion over 10 years, or to prioritize border security legislation.
They will need the votes of Democrats to deal with the debt limit, and a long standoff could hobble their ability to get other things done.
Abolish the debt limit?
One idea that Mr. Trump floated this week was to do away with the debt limit entirely.
According to the Constitution, Congress must authorize government borrowing. In the early 20th century, the debt limit was instituted so that the Treasury would not need to ask Congress for permission each time it had to issue debt to pay bills.
During World War I, Congress passed the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917 to give the Treasury more flexibility to issue debt and manage federal finances. The debt limit started to take its current shape in 1939, when Congress consolidated different limits that had been set on different types of bonds into a single borrowing cap.
But the drama surrounding the debt limit has led to bipartisan calls for it to be ended. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen in 2021 called the debt limit “destructive” and said it should be eliminated. Her predecessor, Steven T. Mnuchin, expressed similar sentiments in 2017 when he described it as a “somewhat ridiculous concept” that does not limit spending.
Mr. Trump previously suggested that the borrowing cap was not necessary and said this week that the “Debt Ceiling guillotine” should be either extended or terminated before he takes office.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Michael D. ShearAnnie KarniRyan Mac and Maggie Haberman
Michael D. Shear, Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman reported from Washington. Ryan Mac reported from Los Angeles.
When President-elect Donald J. Trump picked “the Great Elon Musk,” the world’s richest man, to slash government spending and waste, he mused that the effort might be “the Manhattan Project of our time.”
By Thursday, that prediction looked spot on. Wielding the social media platform he purchased for $44 billion in 2022, Mr. Musk detonated a rhetorical nuclear bomb in the middle of government shutdown negotiations on Capitol Hill.
In more than 150 separate posts on X, starting before dawn on Wednesday, Mr. Musk demanded that Republicans back away from a bipartisan spending deal that was meant to avoid a government shutdown over Christmas. He vowed political retribution against anyone voting for the sprawling bill backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called Mr. Musk on Wednesday to ask that he stop posting about the bill.
Mr. Musk also shared misinformation about the bill, including false claims that it contained new aid for Ukraine or $3 billion in funds for a new stadium in Washington. By the end of Wednesday, Mr. Trump issued a statement of his own, calling the bill “a betrayal of our country.”
It was a remarkable moment for Mr. Musk, who has never been elected to public office but now appears to be the largest megaphone for the man about to retake the Oval Office. Larger, in fact, than Mr. Trump himself, whose own vaunted social media presence is dwarfed by that of Mr. Musk. The president-elect has 96.2 million followers on X, while Mr. Musk has 207.9 million. (Mr. Musk is also far richer than Mr. Trump. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he is worth $458 billion, while the president-elect is worth a mere $6.61 billion.)
This week also marked the first time Mr. Musk has been able to use his website as a digital whip, driving lawmakers to support his desired outcome.
His actions had prompted a backlash from some lawmakers who recoiled at his interference in the legislative process. Some even accused him of acting more like the president or vice president than a billionaire executive.
“Democrats and Republicans spent months negotiating a bipartisan agreement to fund our government,” Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who has long criticized the power of wealthy business executives, wrote on X. “The richest man on Earth, President Elon Musk, doesn’t like it. Will Republicans kiss the ring? Billionaires must not be allowed to run our government.”
Representative Glenn Thompson, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Agriculture Committee, told reporters that he “didn’t see where Musk has a voting card.”
Mr. Trump sought to reclaim control of the political debate for himself on Thursday morning, issuing a threat of sorts to Mr. Johnson that he must not give in to Democrats as he tries to find a way to keep the government operating without incurring the wrath of Mr. Musk.
“If the speaker acts decisively, and tough, and gets rid of all of the traps being set by the Democrats, which will economically and, in other ways, destroy our country, he will easily remain speaker,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
On Thursday evening, Mr. Trump endorsed a new effort by Mr. Johnson to avoid a government shutdown with a spending plan that suspends the nation’s debt limit for two years. In a social media post, the president-elect wrote that “all Republicans, and even the Democrats, should do what is best for our Country, and vote ‘YES’ for this Bill, TONIGHT!”
Hours later, that spending deal failed to pass in the House, with 38 Republicans voting against the measure.
Mr. Trump has tasked Mr. Musk to rein in an out-of-control bureaucracy when he named him to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, with Vivek Ramaswamy, another billionaire. Both men are among a string of tech billionaires who have flocked to Mr. Trump’s Florida estate in recent weeks to cultivate their relationships with the president-elect.
Mr. Trump dined with Mr. Musk and Jeff Bezos, the world’s two richest men, at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday night, as Mr. Musk’s posts were roiling Washington. Mr. Bezos, the Amazon and Blue Origin founder who also owns The Washington Post, recently gave $1 million to the committee planning Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
Mr. Musk was not initially expected to be part of the dinner but joined as it was underway, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private dinner.
Many House Republicans have been left deeply frustrated by Mr. Musk’s involvement in spending negotiations and legitimately concerned about his threat to find primary challengers to take on any lawmakers who vote for a spending bill he doesn’t like. Lawmakers said they were alarmed and that they have never seen a donor outwardly exact so much influence on policy after his preferred candidate won an election.
They are also stuck taking their cues from Mr. Musk’s social media feeds, where he is promoting members who are in agreement with him. Despite his occasional presence on the Hill and in his role leading DOGE, Mr. Musk does not interact directly with many members of Congress. Mr. Ramaswamy has been the one talking directly with them.
On the House floor on Thursday, lawmakers were fuming that Mr. Musk is not a member of Congress and is exerting too much influence on their proceedings.
Mr. Thompson, who was deeply involved in negotiating direct payments for farmers that are now effectively dead because of Mr. Musk, added, “I’m not sure he understands the plight of the normal working people right now.”
As their offices were flooded with calls, appropriators and lawmakers from rural areas were livid that Mr. Musk had spent the day posting on social media to effectively kill the bill. Members were glued to his nonstop feed as they walked to and from votes, and some privately expressed concerns about their own political futures if he went through with his threats.
Conservative Republicans, however, rallied behind Mr. Musk’s barrage of posts.
Representative Andy Barr, Republican of Kentucky, told Fox News that “this is exactly what the American people voted for when they voted for Donald Trump.”
After Mr. Musk threatened on X to “vote out” any member who voted for the spending bill, Representative Dan Bishop of North Carolina cheered. “In five years in Congress, I’ve been awaiting a fundamental change in the dynamic,” he wrote online. “It has arrived.”
Some Republicans even went so far as to suggest that the party should replace Mr. Johnson with Mr. Musk as speaker, noting that speaker candidates don’t have to be a sitting member of Congress to win the gavel.
“I’d be open to supporting @elonmusk for Speaker of the House,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on social media. She added: “The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday. This could be the way.”
That kind of lavish praise could come back to haunt Mr. Musk, though people close to Mr. Trump say there is no evidence of any kind of a rift between the president-elect and his richest supporter.
Still, the president-elect gets famously irritable when the people in his orbit outshine him. Steve Bannon, once the chief strategist in the White House during his first term, abruptly departed after journalists focused attention on the power and influence he wielded. (One “Saturday Night Live” skit several weeks into his presidency featured Mr. Bannon as the Grim Reaper standing behind the president and calling the shots in the Oval Office.)
One of Mr. Musk’s first posts about the spending bill came at 4:15 Wednesday morning in Washington.
“This bill should not pass,” the billionaire wrote on his social platform.
Between posts about his own video game antics and SpaceX’s satellite internet service, he used his X account to call the bill “criminal,” spread misinformation about its contents and issue a rallying cry to “stop the steal of your tax dollars!”
His posts followed a similar pattern of past activity on X, where he can become hyper-fixated on a single issue that bothers him. As the most popular user on X, Mr. Musk has used his feed as a bullhorn to drive conversation on the platform and beyond.
By Wednesday afternoon, House representatives and senators — some of whom had already voiced their disapproval of the bill before Mr. Musk’s outbursts — were falling in line.
“Any Member who claims to support the @DOGE should not support this “CR of Inefficiency” that does not have offsets!!,” Representative Ralph Norman, a Republican from South Carolina, wrote on X, using shorthand for a continuing resolution to keep federal funding flowing. “Don’t get weak in the knees before we even get started!”
On Wednesday, narrative eclipsed truth. “The terrible bill is dead,” Mr. Musk posted just before 4 p.m. in Washington, closing his post with the Latin phrase “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” which translates to “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
He has used the refrain before, most notably when restoring Mr. Trump’s Twitter account in November 2022, shortly after buying the company. This time, the man who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars this election cycle to support Mr. Trump’s campaign used it to frame his own actions as the will of American citizens.
“No bills should be passed Congress until Jan. 20, when @realDonaldTrump takes office,” Mr. Musk wrote on X. “None. Zero.”
An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of the representative from Georgia who wrote a social media post referring to Elon Musk. She is Marjorie Taylor Greene, not Green.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment