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The US House passed a stopgap funding measure in just a few hours on Friday, paving the way for Congress to avert a government shutdown after days of fighting on Capitol Hill.
The bill that passed the House did not include any changes to the debt ceiling, defying Donald Trump's call for the program to be repealed or increased.
But the measure received bipartisan support in the chamber, with Democrats joining Republicans to pass the bill 366-34 just after six o'clock in Washington – six hours before the deadline.
The Democratic-controlled Senate must now vote on the legislation before it goes to the desk of President Joe Biden, who will sponsor the legislation, according to a White House press secretary.
Enactment of the bill would end a week of uncertainty in Washington as Trump and his partner Elon Musk turned their influence on hard-line Republicans, pushing them to reject what they called “gifts” from Democrats.
Before the bill was passed on Friday, Musk expressed disdain for the bill: “Is this a Republican bill or a Democratic bill?”
The measure that passed was House Speaker Mike Johnson's third attempt to get a deal through the chamber after Trump made the first bipartisan deal earlier in the week.
The new bill was almost identical to Johnson's second bill, but it stripped any move to raise or suspend the debt ceiling, despite Trump's demands. It increases government funding from current levels, and provides aid for natural disaster relief and farmers.
The passage of the House marked a victory for Johnson, who had vowed on the same day that the US “will not be shut down by the government”.
A Shut down will temporarily shut down government facilities and freeze federal workers' pay. Earlier government shutdowns forced hundreds of thousands of federal workers to be laid off.
Trump's looming presence at the debate has been the most difficult factor in negotiating a last-minute deal.
But as soon as the vote began, Musk changed his tune, saying Johnson “did a good job here, given the circumstances.” It went from a bill weighing pounds to a bill weighing ounces. The ball should now be in the Dem's court. “
Democrats, angry that an earlier bipartisan deal was abandoned, accused Musk of inserting himself into the process this week, causing chaos in Congress just before the US holiday season.
“At the behest of the richest man in the world who didn't vote for anyone, the US Congress has been thrown into a tailspin,” Democrat Rosa DeLauro said of Musk on Thursday.
Some top Republicans appeared to be critical of Trump and Musk's intervention.
“I don't even care to count how many times I have reminded them. . . Our colleagues in the House how dangerous it is to shut down the government and how foolish it is to bet your side will not be guilty of it,” said Mitch McConnell, the outgoing Republican leader of the Senate on Friday.
That said, if I had taken it seriously every time my advice was ignored, I wouldn't have spent so long on this job.