Government Shutdown Crisis Averted, at Least for Now.

In a week of (ridiculous) political drama, the federal budget is extended through March, while the Farm Bill is re-instituted under previous operating procedures until September 30, 2025.

The political week started on Monday, December 16th, with Congress facing a critical deadline. They needed, at the very least, to pass a continuing resolution by midnight Friday or the federal government would face a partial shutdown. They felt confident, though, as they had a bipartisan deal made by majority and minority leaders from both chambers as well as the Appropriation Committee leaders.

The bipartisan deal accomplished the following:

1.) Extended the existing 2023 federal budget through March.

2.) Restored 2023 Farm Bill spending and programs until September.

3.) Funded $100 billion in relief funding to communities hit hard by weather-related disasters.

Sure, there were other provisions in that deal, but these provisions were the core elements sought by a majority of members of both parties.

First thing this morning, just past midnight, Congress passed legislation signed by President Biden that:

1.) Extended the existing 2023 federal budget through March.

2.) Restored 2023 Farm Bill spending and programs until September.

3.) Funded $100 billion in relief funding to communities hit hard by weather-related disasters.

But what happened in between Monday and today was a complete, unmitigated, ridiculous, stupid, waste-of-time-and-energy disaster. That’s because Donald Trump is back in power. And he’s brought his “advisors” with him. And he isn’t even in office yet.

In this case, Elon Musk (the world’s richest person) brought his Trump-friendly bravado and I-bought-own-my-own-social-media-empire impact to the budget fight. The Trump/Musk goal: to suspend the debt ceiling for two years in order to pave the way for a multi-trillion dollar tax cut that primarily benefits billionaires and multi-millionaires. Real “Man of the People” stuff.

Musk’s policy expertise, by the way, is a position atop the absolutely fake “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). DOGE does not yet exist and is not an actual Cabinet position. Also, Trump is not yet President. It’s hard to see how this all got muddled up in the minds of the members of Congress and the media this week.

The action focused on the House, with a lot of pressure on Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), where Trump and Musk worked together to tank the bipartisan deal on Wednesday. Things were looking grim. Then Johnson convinced Trump to give the deal a try with his debt ceiling suspension attached. The House voted. The Democrats revolted. The 38 true-believer deficit hawk Freedom Caucus Republicans gave Trump the finger. The Trump-Musk bill went down in flames.

Friday started with a strategy to bring the different elements of the package to the House floor as individual bills. As that was moving forward, part of the nervousness was coming from farm state Republicans who started to get worried that their $10 billion farm income assistance package was not going to pass. That’s because while it might be true that farmers are facing low prices and high costs, more members of Congress are starting to realize that a small handful of large, wealthy row crop farmers land nearly all farm income support payments. The Democrat/Shut-Down-the-Government Republican Alliance makes a majority.

Trump, by the way, spent the day musing whether or not a federal government shutdown would be a good thing. As a reminder, this is the incoming leader of the federal government.

By Friday evening, the power of the deadline and worry about blame flexed its muscles and the House decided to finally do their jobs and pass the package: keep the government open, extend the farm bill, fund needed disaster aid. The Senate quickly passed it. President Biden signed it.

In the House, happy hour was on.

The Democrats spent their time reminding the members and the media about what was cut from the first draft bipartisan bill: childhood cancer research, nutrition assistance for poor people, consumer protections against predatory fees, price caps for life-saving prescription drugs.

The Republicans, on the other hand, called the Democrats out. Sour grapes, they said. Shouldn’t we be celebrating all we’ve accomplished? Shouldn’t we be patting ourselves on the back for taking a 1200-page bill and condensing it to 96 pages? You can’t make America Great Again without limiting the required reading.

At the end of the day (the beginning of the next day, to be fair), the job got done. The politicians are headed home for the holidays, and federal workers can breathe a sigh of relief for now. Things will operate fairly normally for some time.

Still, the unnecessary drama and whirlwind whipsaw “leadership” is back. Ugh.

---

The Cocklebur covers rural policy and politics from a progressive point-of-view. Our work focuses on a tangled rural political reality of dishonest debate, economic and racial disparities, corporate power over our democracy, and disinformation peddled by conservative media outlets. We aim to use facts, data, and science to inform our point-of-view. We wear our complicated love/WTF relationship with rural America on our sleeve.