Midnight deadline looms as House fails to pass budget bill to avert government shutdown
The House rejected a temporary budget bill Thursday night, edging the government closer to a shutdown.
The House rejected a temporary budget bill Thursday night, edging the government closer to a shutdown.
The House rejected a temporary budget bill Thursday night, edging the government closer to a shutdown.
In a vote of 174-235, the House rejected a budget bill Thursday night, edging the government ever closer to a Christmastime shutdown.
Nearly all Democrats, along with 38 Republicans, rejected the hastily written, pared-down bill that met the demands of President-elect Donald Trump.
The failed vote is a massive setback for Trump and his allies, who pressured Republicans to cut what they viewed as excessive spending and regulation from an original, bipartisan deal.
Trump also demanded the nation's borrowing limit be extended for at least another two years, something not part of the original funding conversation.
Now, House Republicans are pledging to reassess and propose another last-minute solution to keep the government running.
"The government is too big and does too many things," House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said. "We're going to cut and limit the size and scope of the government and get it under control for the American people."
Video above: Get the Facts on the debt ceiling
Vice President-elect JD Vance blamed Democrats for a potential shutdown, even though dozens of Republicans voted against the Trump-backed plan.
Meanwhile, the White House laid blame on Republicans, saying they were doing the "bidding of their billionaire benefactors at the expense of hardworking Americans."
"House Republicans have abandoned the bipartisan agreement that we entered into in good faith," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, said ahead of the vote. "Real progress for working-class Americans, for middle-class Americans, for everyday Americans who aspire to be part of the middle class has been cut out of this legislation."
Failure to pass a budget by midnight could force several federal agencies to shut down nonessential programs and send hundreds of thousands of federal employees home without pay.
Social Security and Medicare recipients will still get their benefits, but new applications for the programs won't go through.
The effects of a federal furlough could also extend beyond federal employees.
Air traffic controllers and TSA workers, for example, are considered essential employees and are expected to show up to work without pay. In the past, many have called out sick in large numbers during shutdowns, which could cause staffing issues and long lines at airports across the country just before the holidays.