House Republican Leaders Agree To New Spending Plan

 House GOP leadership agreed on Friday to push a new plan to avoid a government shutdown after the first two spending bills failed, sources told Fox News and CNN.

Congress has until midnight on Friday to strike up a deal before government funding runs out.

The third plan reportedly includes holding three separate votes — one on a three-month government spending plan, one on a $100 billion disaster relief package, and a third on a $10 billion farm aid bill, CNN reported. The new plan does not include a vote on the debt limit. Instead, lawmakers would agree to act on the debt limit next year, according to Fox News.

House GOP leaders will meet with the Republican conference on Friday afternoon to present their third plan to lawmakers.

“We’re gonna talk to the conference and I’ll give you the final decision when this is over,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told reporters.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) added that they “had some really good, productive meetings this morning, and we’re going to be laying out a few options to the members right now, and we’re going to be ready to then move to floor action, but have to first talk to our full membership.”

The first spending plan was a 1,547-page stopgap bill negotiated between the GOP-led House and Democrat-controlled Senate on Tuesday night. But with the help of his ally, Elon Musk, Trump pushed back against that bill, which forced Speaker Johnson to come back with a much shorter revised bill on Thursday.

Nearly 40 Republicans and almost every Democrat in the House opposed Johnson’s revised bill, which failed in a vote on Thursday. Most Republican criticism focused on how the bill would extend the debt ceiling suspension for another two years beyond January of next year when the current suspension is slated to expire. Trump addressed the controversy over the debt ceiling in a late-night Truth Social post, writing, “Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling. Without this, we should never make a deal. Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President.”

 

Trump also said on Friday morning that funding the government “is a Biden problem to solve,” adding that if a shutdown is unavoidable, it should “begin now.”

“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under ‘TRUMP,’” the president-elect posted on Truth Social. “This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!”