The News
US lawmakers are still trying to pull together a last-minute spending deal in order to avert a government shutdown that would take effect at midnight on Saturday.
A long-negotiated bipartisan agreement was cast aside following opposition from President-elect Donald Trump, and a subsequent, hastily assembled proposal backed by Trump also failed, leaving open the prospect of a closure of many federal government operations at the close of Friday.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has indicated that his chamber will take up a proposal before the deadline, though there’s little clarity so far on what that might be. Trump’s insistence on adding a suspension of the US debt limit to the agreement appears to have no chance of succeeding, and Republicans have shown little interest in seeking Democratic votes despite the fact that outgoing President Joe Biden’s party still controls the Senate.
SIGNALS
The impacts of a shutdown could be far-reaching
If prior experience is any guide — 21 gaps in federal government funding since 1976 — the impacts of a shutdown could be far-reaching, The New York Times reported: Agency employees categorized as “essential” would continue to work, mostly without pay, until funding is restored, but contractors aren’t necessarily guaranteed those same protections. Delayed paychecks have “led to scenes of anguish and desperation” in the past as federal staff struggled to afford basic supplies, The Times wrote. For the general public, an extended shutdown may mean longer wait times at airports at one of the busiest times of the year, the Transportation Security Administration warned. And although Social Security and Medicare benefits don’t require annual approval, new applications could be impacted, CBS News noted.
The looming shutdown is a testament to Elon Musk’s outsized influence
The collapse of the initial spending measure provided an early indication of the power billionaire Elon Musk could wield in Trump’s second term: While the president-elect was against the first bill, Musk’s opposition, voiced in more than 100 posts on X, was “clearly the driving force” behind its failure, The Washington Post wrote. Musk has an unofficial role to advise Trump on “government efficiency,” and his ability to kill legislation is “either terrifying or exhilarating to those in Washington,” CNN reported. His outsized influence has been enabled by the lack of any real party discipline within Congress, an expert argued in The Guardian: “This was the first test of the United States to keep functioning under a radical, unleashed Trump. So far, this nation is failing and falling.”
Speaker Mike Johnson’s future is in doubt
House members are now looking to Speaker Mike Johnson to see whether he can find a majority within the GOP, or win over enough Democrats, to “save Christmas,” Semafor’s Burgess Everett wrote, though some senators insist they can’t be blindsided. With so many Republicans now questioning his leadership skills, Johnson’s very future as speaker — a position he will need to run for again in January — looks increasingly uncertain, The Washington Post reported.