# 2024 United States federal government shutdown

The United States federal government shut down at midnight EST on Saturday, December 21, 2024. It began after a failure to pass legislation to fund government operations and agencies. This stemmed from a series of disputes over policy riders, with incoming president Donald Trump seeking a suspension of the debt ceiling, Democrats seeking legislation funding childhood cancer research and pharmacy benefit manager reform, and many lawmakers pushing for disaster aid, aid to farmers, and various other provisions.

## Background

In the 2024 United States elections, Donald Trump was elected President and the Republican Party won majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate. However, the new congress does not take office until January 3. This resulted in a lame duck session for the 118th congress, where Republicans held a narrow majority in the House and the Democratic Party held a narrow majority in the Senate, with Democrat Joe Biden serving as president until Trump's inauguration on January 20.
In the 118th Congress, the far-right House Freedom Caucus, has secured a number of House of Representatives seats. Many Freedom Caucus members initially did not support the party's nominee Kevin McCarthy for speaker, although McCarthy won on the 15th ballot after agreeing to give hardliners seats on the Rules Committee, which controls which bills come to the floor, to lower the threshold for a motion to vacate the chair to one member, and to push for steep spending cuts. However, Republican infighting and opposition from Democrats meant that Republicans were unable to pass a complete budget. In response, McCarthy cut deals with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling and keep the government open. This led to his removal as speaker and the election of Mike Johnson as speaker. Johnson also cut spending deals with Democrats for fiscal year 2024, but a motion to remove him was unsuccessful.
The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 called for $895 billion in defense spending and $711 billion in non-defense discretionary spending for fiscal year 2025, both representing a 1% increase over fiscal year 2024. House Republicans, however, looked to pass partisan spending bills which included a 6% cut to non-defense spending and added restrictions on abortion access, environmental programs, gender-affirming care, and diversity initiatives. Although these bills were considered dead on arrival in the Senate, Republicans hoped to pass all 12 regular appropriations bills before the August recess to gain a better hand in negotiations. They passed 5 bills largely along party lines but failed to pass additional bills due to internal disagreements over policy riders. Instead, lawmakers approved a continuing resolution, extending fiscal year 2024 funding levels until December 20.

## Beginning of shutdown

Following the 2024 elections, many Republicans, including top members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, argued for a year-end omnibus spending bill to take care of government funding, allowing the incoming Trump administration to focus on legislative agenda items without a government funding fight. Other Republicans, including some Freedom Caucus members and speaker Johnson, called for a continuing resolution, hoping that kicking the can to a Trump administration would allow for greater spending cuts. Both bills would need Democratic support to pass.

### First continuing resolution

On December 17, congressional leaders released a bipartisan continuing resolution. The bill contained an extension of government funding to March 14, 2025, a one year extension of the farm bill, and $110 billion in disaster aid. The bill, which was 1,547 pages, was described as a Christmas tree bill due to its inclusion of unrelated policy riders. These included $10 billion in economic aid for farmers, restrictions on US capital investment in China, transferring ownership of RFK Stadium to the District of Columbia allowing for a new Washington Commanders stadium, extensions of numerous healthcare programs, legislation requiring pharmacy benefit managers to pass 100% of rebates to sponsors of prescription drug plans, several tech and AI related bills, legislation requiring ticket sellers to list the full prices of each ticket, provisions allowing gas stations to sell E15 fuel year-round, and an effective 3.8% pay increase for members of congress.
Even before the bill was released, numerous hardline Republicans came out against the bill, criticizing the lack of member input in its development and the riders, which they called unnecessary and wasteful. Elon Musk, a top Republican donor and nominee for the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, posted over 100 times on X in opposition to the bill, making numerous misleading claims, and was widely credited for its eventual defeat. About 12 hours after Musk first came out against the package, Trump and vice president-elect JD Vance released a statement criticizing the deal, calling it a "Democrat giveaway," at which point Johnson abandoned the bill. Trump called for pairing government funding with an increase to the debt ceiling, which was scheduled to be reached sometime between January and June of 2025, and later argued it should be abolished entirely. Democrats criticized Republicans for walking away from a bipartisan deal after Musk, the richest man in the world, came out against it, with senator Bernie Sanders calling it "oligarchy at work" and many insinuating that Musk was in reality the "shadow president."

### Second continuing resolution

After several hours of negotiations, on December 19, House Republicans announced the American Relief Act. The bill, similar to the previous bill, extended government funding to March 14 while providing disaster aid and extending the farm bill, but also suspended the debt ceiling until 2027. It removed most of the riders in the previous bill, except for the economic aid for farmers and some healthcare extensions. Trump announced his support for the bill. Democratic leaders quickly came out against the bill, saying they were not involved in the negotiations and the bill, which removed most riders sought by Democrats while keeping those sought by Republicans, was "laughable." However, many hardline Republicans opposed raising the debt ceiling without spending cuts. Republicans brought the bill to the floor later that day under suspension of the rules, which required a 2/3rds majority to pass, but the bill failed overwhelmingly, and Republican leaders subsequently abandoned the bill.
American Relief Act – Vote in the House of Representatives (December 19, 2024) :
| Party | Party | Votes for | Votes against | Votes present | Not voting/Absent |
| | Republican (219) | 172 | 38 Aaron BeanAndy BiggsJosh BrecheenTim BurchettEric BurlisonKat CammackMichael CloudAndrew ClydeEli CraneJohn CurtisJeff DuncanRuss FulcherBob GoodPaul A. GosarAndy HarrisWesley HuntDoug LambornDebbie LeskoGreg LopezMorgan LuttrellNancy MaceThomas MassieRich McCormickCory MillsAlex MooneyBlake MooreNathaniel MoranRalph NormanAndrew OglesScott PerryBill PoseyMatt RosendaleChip RoyDavid SchweikertKeith SelfVictoria SpartzThomas P. TiffanyBeth Van Duyne | – | 9 Brian BabinMike GarciaKay GrangerMike KellyBlaine LuetkemeyerDan NewhouseCathy McMorris RodgersGreg Steube Roger Williams |
| | Democratic (211) | 2 Kathy CastorMarie Gluesenkamp Perez | 197 | 1 Marcy Kaptur | 11 Earl BlumenauerDwight EvansLizzie FletcherJosh GottheimerRaúl M. GrijalvaTed LieuGrace NapolitanoNancy PelosiDean PhillipsMikie SherrillThomas Suozzi |
| Total (430) | Total (430) | 174 | 235 | 1 | 20 |

### Proposals for a third continuing resolution

Republicans considered several options for a third continuing resolution. Eventually, they chose a bill identical to the second continuing resolution except for the debt ceiling increase. Meanwhile, a handshake agreement was reached to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion while also cutting $2.5 trillion in mandatory spending via the budget reconciliation process during Trump's term, which Democrats claimed would require cuts to Social Security or Medicare.

## Shutdown

The shutdown began on midnight EST on December 20, 2024.
The shut down ended when a third proposed stopgap bill, equal to the second but without the debt ceiling raise, was passed by Congress.