WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed funding legislation to keep the U.S. government operating until mid-March, avoiding a year-end shutdown and kicking future spending decisions into Donald Trump’s presidency.
The legislation went to Biden early Saturday morning after the Senate voted 85 to 11 to approve the measure, which sailed through the House hours earlier.
The last-minute events — the government was taking initial steps to shut down this weekend — capped a tumultuous few days in which two earlier plans pursued by House Speaker Mike Johnson collapsed under pressure from President-elect Trump and Elon Musk.
Biden’s signature extends government funding through March 14 and includes more than $100 billion in aid for natural disaster victims and farmers, the White House said in a statement.
As the U.S. government teetered on the brink of a holiday shutdown, federal agencies moved ahead with preparations, notifying workers Friday that they might be furloughed. While key services such as law enforcement, air traffic control and airport screening would continue during a shutdown, the workers would temporarily go without pay.
The late turmoil over a short-term spending package that had been expected to be relatively free of drama vividly demonstrated both Trump’s power over fellow Republicans and its limits.
Republican lawmakers quickly abandoned a bipartisan deal Johnson had negotiated after Trump and his billionaire ally Musk attacked it in social media posts on Wednesday. But then a new funding package tailored to meet Trump’s demand that the national debt limit be waived or raised before he takes office failed when 38 Republican conservatives refused to go along.
Musk publicly backed the funding package as the House began voting, giving a boost to both the legislation and the embattled speaker. The House will vote for a new speaker on Jan. 3 and restive ultra-conservatives could threaten to unseat Johnson.
“The Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances,” Musk said on his social media platform X. “It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces.”
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(With assistance from Ari Natter and Bill Faries.)
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