US Government shutdown looms as Trump-backed bill fails to pass House

The United States government is a day away from running out of money as Congress scrambles to come up with a short-term funding plan.

On Thursday night, a revised spending plan by Republicans that would have averted a government shutdown failed to clear the House.

It needed a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives to pass and failed to reach that requirement. Thirty-eight Republicans broke ranks and voted against the bill, alongside most Democrats.

President-elect Donald Trump had thwarted a previous funding deal that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson had struck with Democrats.

Trump’s denouncement of that bipartisan deal followed heavy criticism of the measure by tech billionaire Elon Musk.

The Trump-approved replacement bill would have tied government funding to a two-year suspension of the federal debt limit, which determines how much the government can borrow to pay its bills. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the chamber, called the proposal “laughable”.

Speaker Johnson must now head back to the drawing board, with just hours left on the clock.

[BBC]