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House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to the media following the passage of spending legislation to avert a government shutdown, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, on Dec. 20, 2024.
US averts shutdown but offers preview of Trump 2.0
US lawmakers early Saturday struck an 11th-hour deal to avert a government shutdown. On Friday, the House voted overwhelmingly to pass a stopgap spending bill after a week of chaos on Capitol Hill in which President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk intervened to scuttle two earlier bipartisan bills. The Senate followed suit shortly after midnight.
The final measure passed on Friday funds the government through March, includes $10 billion in economic assistance for farmers, and earmarks $100 billion in fresh disaster relief funds. It doesn’t include Trump’s demand to suspend the debt ceiling, which limits how much the federal government can borrow.
Three things are immediately clear from this week:
First, Elon Musk has real government power even without a real government position. Musk’s extensive criticisms of the initial bill’s length and contents, some of which included false or misleading claims, shaped the politics immediately, sinking the first version of the spending bill. Musk does not hold an elected or even an official post, but with his 208 million followers on X, which he owns, he hardly needs to.
Trump’s grip on the GOP is hardly complete. The president-elect could not force his party to accept the idea of scrapping the debt ceiling, which would have given him substantially more spending room during his first two years in office. Instead, lawmakers pledged to take up the issue separately once he is in office.
This week was a preview. With a bold and controversial Trump policy agenda, a slim House GOP majority, and another hugely influential risk cook in the kitchen, the past few days offer a window into what legislating may often look like beginning in January. Buckle up.House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, gives a press conference in the Capitol on Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023, after leading a vote to avoid a government shutdown.
Shutdown averted, but deal contains no aid for Ukraine
New Speaker Mike Johnson managed to wrangle enough votes to avoid a government shutdown late Tuesday, relying on 209 Democrats and 127 Republicans to pass a bill to allow the US government to keep functioning into 2024. The Senate approved the measure on Wednesday, sending it to President Joe Biden for his signature. Had the House not acted, the government would have run out of money at midnight on Friday.
Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, has been speaker for less than a month. He took over after a convoluted internal struggle that followed the ouster of Kevin McCarthy by members of the far-right Freedom Caucus, who were pushing for the Republicans to shut down the government to force the Biden administration to spend less money. Johnson ended up presenting a similar stopgap bill to the one that Republicans could not swallow from McCarthy.
The agreement Tuesday takes the pressure off, but it will likely be a brief respite. The funding will run out for some programs — military construction, veterans’ affairs, transportation, housing, and the Energy Department — on Jan. 19, while other programs are funded until Feb. 2. The brinksmanship over the next round will begin again soon, and Republicans — who are pushing for spending cuts and tougher border security measures — are not likely to give way easily. Intense struggles within the GOP make it hard to predict what Congress will do after the Thanksgiving break.
The bill did not include military aid for Israel and Ukraine. Democrats have sought to link military aid for Israel – for which there is bipartisan support – to support for Ukraine, which a growing number of Republicans are likely to resist.
The continued success of Ukraine in resisting Russian aggression hinges on continued military support from the United States. In Europe, meanwhile, Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán has threatened to veto EU aid packages for Ukraine. So both sides of the Atlantic are seeing political struggles that may ultimately decide what happens on the ground in Ukraine.Up up and away: Will skiers see more or less snow at Whistler this year?
Hard Numbers: El Niño messes with snow, US shutdown looms again, Toronto developers pause condos, climate report calls out Canada
8: It’s that time again … for shutdown roulette! The US Congress has just 8 days to pass a fresh stopgap measure to fund the federal government beyond Nov. 17, when the current money runs out. Mike Johnson, the newly elected speaker of the GOP-controlled House, said Wednesday that he would decide by the end of this week what he will seek to do. Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted last month by far-right GOP members who objected to the spending compromises that he’d reached with President Joe Biden.
14,000: Even as Toronto suffers the broader Canadian housing crisis, developers in the city have delayed launching almost 14,000 units as high-interest rates continue to depress demand among pre-construction buyers. At the same time, the national government pledged this week to build close to 30,000 new units on federal lands by the end of the decade.
110: A new UN report says that major energy-producing countries are on track to produce 110% more fossil fuels in 2030 than they are supposed to if the world intends to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages. Canada is a big part of the problem: It shows the fourth-largest production increase in the world during that time period. The US came in second behind only Brazil among the climate policy scofflaws.House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speaks to reporters in the US Capitol after the House of Representatives passed a stopgap government funding bill to avert an immediate government shutdown.
Will avoiding a shutdown cost McCarthy the speakership?
There was no shortage of drama on Capitol Hill this weekend – including a pulled fire alarm that delayed voting by an hour – as the US government managed to avoid another shutdown. Congress passed a stopgap funding bill on Saturday that will keep the lights on through Nov. 17. The proposal easily cleared the House before garnering Senate approval 88 to 9. It included natural disaster aid but no new support for border restrictions or assistance for Ukraine.
The measure passed a day after Republican Rep. Andy Biggs and 20 others blocked a Republican stopgap bill replete with spending cuts, border controls, and curbs on immigration. Unable to fund the government with just conservative votes, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy changed gears, offering a bill that would satisfy Democrats. The absence of fresh support for Ukraine prompted Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet to briefly delay the vote, but bipartisan senators resolved the impasse by pledging to further fund aid to Ukraine "in the coming weeks." President Joe Biden made it clear that “We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted.”
McCarthy is expected to introduce a separate Ukraine aid bill when the House returns. But having worked with Democrats to get this measure passed could cost him his job. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Republican hardliner, said on Sunday that he plans to move for McCarthy’s ouster this week.
If Gaetz introduces a measure to remove McCarthy, the House will have 48 hours to vote on it.
But McCarthy remains defiant. “If somebody wants to make a motion against me, bring it," he said. "There has to be an adult in the room. I am going to govern with what’s best for this country.”
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