By Minho Kim
On Saturday, President Joe Biden signed a spending bill that permitted federal funds to continue until mid-March, effectively concluding the week’s unforeseen turmoil regarding the matter just hours after the shutdown deadline had officially passed.
The legislation was passed by the Senate early Saturday following a bipartisan vote in the House on Friday night. This bill sustains the current funding level for the government and allocates $100 billion in disaster relief for areas still recovering from storms, along with $10 billion in direct support for farmers. The spending deadline has now been deferred to the early part of the Trump administration, when Republicans will oversee both legislative chambers.
In a statement released after his signature, Biden remarked, “This deal is a compromise, meaning no side received everything it desired. However, it opposes the rapid path to a tax cut for billionaires that Republicans pursued and ensures the government can function at full capacity.”
During the chaotic negotiations in Washington leading up to the spending deadline, Biden had been largely uninvolved. (Earlier in the week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused President-elect Donald Trump of instigating a shutdown and stated: “A deal is a deal. Republicans need to honor their commitments.”)
Two previous drafts of the bill, which Biden eventually signed, did not reach his desk. The first version, a massive package that was heavily criticized by Elon Musk on social media and later by Trump, was not brought to a House vote. A slimmer version that included a suspension of the debt limit, which Trump had insisted upon, also failed to pass the House due to an uprising among thirty-six fiscally conservative Republicans who voted against it alongside almost all Democrats on Thursday night.
This spending conflict highlighted the limited influence Trump has over the far-right faction of the Republican Party, which staunchly opposes accruing additional debt.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, delivered a harsh critique on Thursday night, stating, “To adopt this bill, and to pat oneself on the back merely because it’s shorter in length while increasing the debt by $5 trillion, is absurd. I am thoroughly disgusted by a party that campaigns on fiscal responsibility yet boldly claims to the American public that this is fiscally sound.”
Conversely, Trump seemed more focused on shirking responsibility for addressing the debt ceiling, which was predicted to be reached in January, rather than on the implications of accruing more debt.
“Raising the debt ceiling isn’t ideal,” Trump commented in a Wednesday statement, “but we prefer to do it under Biden’s administration.”
On Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called a vote on a revised bill excluding the debt ceiling provision, which passed 336-34. One hundred seventy Republicans supported it, joining all but one Democrat, who voted “present.”
