After a fraught day of closed-door House GOP discussions led by Speaker Johnson, late this afternoon Johnson released, and President-elect Trump swiftly announced his support for, a revised Continuing Resolution (the American Relief Act of 2025) that includes a two-year debt limit suspension while removing a panoply of items previously included in the CR released yesterday by Speaker Johnson.
The House is scheduled to vote between 6:00-6:30pm this evening on suspension, requiring a 2/3 vote to pass. Minority Leader Jeffries announced his opposition to the new CR, and House Democrats are expected to oppose the bill en masse, thereby dooming it to fail. In addition, at least several members of the House Freedom Caucus (Roy, Ogles, Norman, Good) have already announced their opposition, meaning the bill likely can’t pass under a rule at this junction, either, absent support from enough farm state Democrats to reach a majority. Tonight’s suspension vote will be telling.
Latest House GOP bill – American Relief Act of 2025 (link to text)
- CR to March 14, 2025
- Debt limit suspension to January 30, 2027
- Farm bill extension to September 30, 2025
- Expiring health extenders to March 31, 2025
- $100 billion in disaster supplemental assistance
- $10 billion in economic assistance to farmers
Notable Provisions Dropped
- Entire Outbound investment and sanctions regime
- Various health policies, including PBM language
- Member pay raise
- Entire Foreign Affairs title, including Haiti tariff relief
- Entire Commerce title, including ticketing and telecom bills
- Bipartisan WIOA language
- E15 waiver
- RFK Stadium land transfer
Presuming the new Johnson bill fails on suspension and/or under a rule this evening, the path forward remains murky. One option would be for the House GOP to revert to yesterday’s deal, but to add the debt limit suspension to it. As the clock ticks towards shutdown, another option might be to pass a short-term CR as a bridge through the holidays. It is also possible that the Senate could take steps to attempt to initiate a CR, but even assuming 60 votes exist for a consensus product (e.g. a clean CR), this process could take several days absent agreement from all 100 Senators.
We will keep you updated as events unfold.
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