Dec. 19 (UPI) — House Republicans have reached agreement on a continuing resolution to avert a federal government shutdown on Friday.
Representatives Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., and Tom Cole, R-Okla., told media Thursday afternoon the GOP has agreed to a continuing resolution that will fund the federal government until a more permanent measure can be enacted.
Cole chairs the House Appropriations Committee, of which Bice is a member.
If a funding measure is not enacted in time, the federal government will shut down after midnight Friday.
President-elect Donald Trump heralded the new agreement as a “success” and called the proposed funding measure the “American Relief Act of 2024.”
“Speaker Mike Johnson and the House have come to a very good deal for the American people,” Trump said Thursday afternoon in a post on Truth Social.
“The newly agreed to American Relief Act of 2024 will keep the government open, fund our great farmers and others, and provide relief for those severely impacted by the devastating hurricanes,” he added.
Trump said the new funding proposal contains a “very important piece” that is “vital to the America-first agenda.”
He said the date of the “very unnecessary debt ceiling” would be moved to Jan. 30, 2027.
“Now we can Make America Great Again, very quickly, which is what the people gave us a mandate to accomplish,” Trump said. “All Republicans, and even the Democrats, should do what is best for our country, and vote ‘yes’ for this bill, tonight!”
Support for a prior bipartisan measure that included more than $100 billion in disaster relief funding and financial support for farmers and ranchers fell apart soon after the 1,547-page House resolution was announced Tuesday night.
Trump was among those who opposed the funding measure that would have kept the federal government fully funded into March.
“If Republicans try to pass a clean continuing resolution without all of the Democrat ‘bells and whistles’ that will be so destructive to our country, all it will do … is bring the mess of the debt limit into the Trump administration, rather than allowing it to take place in the Biden administration,” Trump said Wednesday in a post on Truth Social.
“Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should, and will, be primaried,” Trump added. “Everything should be done, and fully negotiated, prior to my taking office on January 20th, 2025.”
The “bells and whistles” Trump referenced include a raise for members of Congress and another year of funding for the controversial Global Engagement Center, which is tasked with quelling “disinformation.”
The opposition to the bipartisan funding resolution drew a sharp rebuke for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
“We reached a bipartisan agreement that will help farmers, families, the future of working-class Americans, children, seniors, veterans and the men and women in uniform all across the nation and the world,”Jeffries told media Thursday.
“That bipartisan agreement has now been detonated because House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government and hurt the very working-class Americans that many of them pretend to want to help.”
While Jeffries blames the GOP for tanking the proposed short-term funding resolution, at least one member of the House Democrat Caucus promised to vote against it because the resolution included a significant pay raise and expansion of benefits for members of Congress.
“This legislation, released last night, was introduced without any debate and without allowing any amendments,” Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., said Wednesday in a press release.
“Members of Congress currently earn $174,000 annually — more than 90% of Americans,” Ryan said. “If enacted, this continuing resolution would allow for a 2025 adjustment of 3.8%, resulting in a member salary increase of $6,600.”
Ryan elaborated further in a post on X late Wednesday afternoon.
“My constituents are getting crushed by high costs; we should all be focused on lowering those costs. Period,” Ryan said. “I’m a hard NO until we put the American people over politicians.”
The funding controversy has endangered Johnson’s leadership position in the House when a new Congress is seated in January.
While Johnson, R-La., works to resolve the funding impasse, at least one House member expressed the desire to vote on an alternative funding resolution.
“I don’t know where Speaker Johnson is going to get his votes,” Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., told Roll Call, “but I’m certainly not going to join him in another disaster like the one he is presenting because he simply can’t get his caucus in order.”