The Virginia-class attack submarine Minnesota (SSN 783) is under construction at Huntington Ingalls Newport News Shipbuilding. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of Newport News Shipbuilding/Released)
WASHINGTON — Just hours before a midnight deadline is set to trigger a government shutdown, the House overwhelmingly approved a stopgap funding bill that keeps federal funding rolling until mid-March and adds $14 billion for submarines.
The bill, approved in a 366-34-1 vote in which Republicans made up the only “nay” votes, was the third deal floated this week amid a Republican back-and-forth in which President-elect Donald Trump and billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk played starring roles. In the end, House Democrats overwhelmingly backed the bill after the White House voiced reluctant support.
“Following an order by President-elect Trump, yesterday Republicans walked away from a bipartisan deal and threatened to shut down the government at the 11th hour in order to pave the way to provide tax breaks for billionaires. This revised legislation does not do that,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
“President Biden supports moving this legislation forward and ensuring that the vital services the government provides for hardworking Americans — from issuing Social Security checks to processing benefits for veterans — can continue as well as to grant assistance for communities that were impacted by devastating hurricanes,” she added.
The measure now moves to the Senate, which is expected to pass the bill as early as this evening.
Like previous proposals, the latest bill included more than $14 billion in additional funds for the Virginia-class and Columbia-class submarines. That sum includes $5.7 billion in emergency funds for Virginia-class submarine construction for “the improvement of workforce wages and non-executive level salaries.” That funding, which the Navy could incrementally dole out until the end of fiscal 2029, is aimed at mitigating ongoing instability in the submarine industrial base, which has had difficultly recruiting and retaining skilled shipbuilding technicians since the pandemic.
It also included $9 billion for Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine procurement.
The additional submarine funding was an uncontroversial provision that drew little conversation during the past week of negotiations.
“Importantly, the final Continuing Resolution maintains the Biden Administration’s request to Congress of over $14 billion for the Virginia and Columbia class submarine programs and the industrial base, which will help the Navy and industry boost production cadence and grow the supply chain.” Rep. Joe Courtney, the Connecticut Democrat who is ranking member on the House Armed Services seapower subcommittee, said in a statement.
Other defense related increases that remained in the latest bill were the addition of disaster relief funding for military installations for damages caused by Typhoon Mawar as well as various hurricanes. However, previous language that would transfer a District of Columbia Air National Guard wing to the Maryland Guard was not included, as that move was part of a deal that would transfer the RFK stadium site to DC, which was not addressed in the current CR bill.
Trump, Musk Derail Johnson’s Plan
The road to the current deal has been fraught with drama. The initial CR deal, negotiated between House GOP and Democratic leadership and released on Tuesday, included billions of dollars in farm aid and disaster relief, as well as a laundry list of additional provisions spanning from the ownership of Washington’s RFK stadium to a pay raise for congressional salaries to music tourism. Without Democrat buy-in to ensure passage of the bill, House Speaker Mike Johnson risked the CR being derailed by hardline fiscal hawks in his own party. However, Republicans were incensed by the unrelated items attached to the CR, which had ballooned into more than 1,500-pages.
The wheels came off on Wednesday as Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who have both been tapped to lead Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency effort, took to social media and issued a string of posts decrying the bipartisan agreement as a waste of taxpayer dollars and calling for a shutdown unless a clean CR was put forward. Trump’s disavowal of the deal — and his demand that any agreement also tackle the debt ceiling — proved to be the final death knell, leaving Republicans scrambling to figure out a new plan with only two days left before federal funding ran out.
With Trump’s blessing, Johnson put forward another bill yesterday: a clean CR with disaster relief and the farm bill, as well as suspend the debt ceiling. However, the bill failed in a 174-235 vote in which 38 Republicans voted against the measure.
Republicans spent all day trying to put forward another option, at one point considering conducting four different votes for the CR, the farm bill, the disaster relief and the debt ceiling. Ultimately, House leadership opted for a single bill that dropped the debt ceiling issue.
Democratic leaders repeatedly stated that Republicans would be responsible for getting a funding bill over the line without Democrat help, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stating on a Wednesday post on the X social media site, “You break the bipartisan agreement, you own the consequences that follow.”
Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, criticized Musk’s involvement in the process in a floor speech ahead of the vote.
“We need to rely on each other to keep our word, that when we have an agreement, we keep that agreement,” she said.
However, both Democrats ended up voting for the bill.
Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., implored Democrats to consider funding measures that included in the bill on their own merits, not what had been stripped out from the previous bipartisan agreement.
“If you vote no on this bill, you are effectively voting to shut down the government,” he said. “These are things that we agree on, and there is nothing in this bill certainly that my friends on the other side disagree with.”
