A spending bill backed by Donald Trump failed in the U.S. House of Representatives as dozens of Republicans defied the president-elect, leaving Congress with no clear plan to avert a fast-approaching government shutdown that could disrupt Christmas travel.

The vote laid bare fault lines in Trump’s Republican Party that could surface again next year when they control the White House and both chambers of Congress.

Trump had pressured lawmakers to tie up loose ends before he takes office on Jan. 20, but members of the party’s right flank refused to support a package that would increase spending and clear the way for a plan that would add trillions more to the federal government’s $36 trillion in debt.

“I am absolutely sickened by a party that campaigns on fiscal responsibility and has the temerity to go to the American people and say you think this is fiscally responsible,” said Republican Representative Chip Roy, one of 38 Republicans who voted against the bill.

The package failed by a vote of 174-235 just hours after it was hastily assembled by Republican leaders seeking to comply with Trump’s demands. A prior bipartisan deal was scuttled after Trump and the world’s richest person Elon Musk came out against it on Wednesday.

What is government shutdown and debt ceiling

WHY WOULD THE GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN?

Congress is supposed to allocate funding to 438 government agencies before Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year. But lawmakers rarely meet this deadline and routinely pass temporary spending bills to keep the government operating while they finish their work. The current temporary spending bill expires on Saturday. Republicans and Democrats have prepared legislation that would push the deadline back to March 14, but Trump has urged his Republicans to vote against it.

If lawmakers don’t work out a deal that can make it through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democratic-majority Senate and pass it before midnight on Friday, funding for much of the government will lapse.

WHAT IS THE DEBT CEILING?

A debt limit is a cap set by Congress on how much money the U.S. government can borrow. Because the government spends more money than it collects in tax revenue, lawmakers need to periodically tackle the issue — a politically difficult task, as many are reluctant to vote for more debt.

Trump wants Congress to tackle the debt ceiling now so he will not have to deal with it when he is in the White House. One of his first priorities on returning to office will be extending tax cuts passed during his first term. Doing so will add about $4 trillion over the next decade to the U.S. federal government’s current $36 trillion in debt, tax experts say.

Congress set the first debt limit of $45 billion in 1939, and has had to raise that limit 103 times since, as spending has consistently outrun tax revenue. Publicly held debt was 98% of U.S. gross domestic product as of October, compared with 32% in October 2001.

Under a 2023 budget deal, Congress suspended the debt ceiling until Jan. 1, 2025. As a practical matter, the U.S. Treasury will be able to pay its bills for several more months, but Congress will have to address the issue at some point next year.

Failure to act could prevent the Treasury from paying its debts. A U.S. debt default would likely have severe consequences, roiling global financial markets and plunging the country into a recession.

Sometimes Congress raises the debt ceiling quietly, and sometimes lawmakers use the occasion to engage in a noisy debate over fiscal policy before raising the cap at the last possible moment.

Republicans unsuccessfully tried to pair a debt-ceiling hike with spending cuts in 1995 and 1996, leading to two partial government shutdowns. They won significant spending restraints in a 2011 confrontation that pushed the United States to the brink of default and prompted a first-ever downgrade of its top-notch credit rating.

Republicans also won some spending restraints in the 2023 debt-ceiling deal, but many in the party were left frustrated that they did not get more.

WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN?

There have been 14 shutdowns since 1981, according to the Congressional Research Service, many lasting only a day or two. The most recent one was also the longest, lasting 35 days between December 2018 and January 2019 due to a dispute between then-President Trump and Congress over border security.

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers would be furloughed without pay and a wide range of services could be disrupted, from financial oversight to trash pickup at national parks.

Other workers deemed essential would remain on the job, though they also would not get paid. Services like mail delivery and tax collection would continue.

Shutdowns that last only a few days have little practical impact, particularly if they occur over a weekend, but the broader economy could suffer if federal employees begin missing paychecks after two weeks.

A shutdown would directly reduce GDP growth by around 0.15 percentage point for each week it lasts, according to Goldman Sachs, but growth would rise by the same amount after the shutdown was resolved.

The 2018-2019 shutdown cost the economy about $3 billion, equal to 0.02% of GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

WHAT FUNCTIONS ARE CONSIDERED ESSENTIAL?

Each department and agency has a contingency plan to determine which employees must keep working without pay.

The 2018-2019 shutdown furloughed roughly 800,000 of the federal government’s 2.2 million employees.

The Department of Homeland Security’s 2022 shutdown plan calls for keeping 227,000 of its 253,000 workers on the job, including border security agents and the Coast Guard.

The Department of Justice said in its 2021 contingency plan that 85% of its 116,000 employees would be considered essential, including prison staff and prosecutors. Criminal litigation would continue, although most civil litigation cases would be paused.

Air travel would remain relatively unimpeded, but in previous shutdowns the Transportation Security Administration has warned that airport-security screeners could call in sick at an increased rate.

It is not clear whether the United States’ 63 national parks would remain open. During a shutdown in 2013, the Obama administration shuttered parks due in part to safety concerns, losing an estimated $500 million. In the 2018-19 shutdown the Trump administration kept them open with public restrooms and information desks closed and waste disposal halted. Some states, such as New York and Utah, paid for their sites to stay open and staffed during the 2018-2019 shutdown.

The Internal Revenue Service has furloughed up to 90% of its staff in the past but all of its employees are considered essential under its current contingency plan.

All military personnel would remain working, but roughly 429,000 civilian Pentagon employees would be furloughed.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson provided no details when reporters asked him about next steps after the failed vote.

“We will come up with another solution,” he said.

Government funding is due to expire at midnight on Friday. If lawmakers fail to extend that deadline, the U.S. government will begin a partial shutdown that would interrupt funding for everything from border enforcement to national parks and cut off paychecks for more than 2 million federal workers. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration warned that travelers during the busy holiday season could face long lines at airports.

The bill that failed on Thursday largely resembled the earlier version that Musk and Trump had blasted as a wasteful giveaway to Democrats. It would have extended government funding into March and provided $100 billion in disaster relief and suspended the debt. Republicans dropped other elements that had been included in the original package, such as a pay raise for lawmakers and new rules for pharmacy benefit managers.

At Trump’s urging, the new version also would have suspended limits on the national debt for two years — a maneuver that would make it easier to pass the dramatic tax cuts he has promised.

Johnson before the vote told reporters that the package would avoid disruption, tie up loose ends and make it easier for lawmakers to cut spending by hundreds of billions of dollars when Trump takes office next year.

“Government is too big, it does too many things, and it does few things well,” he said.

TEEING UP TAX CUT

Democrats blasted the bill as a cover for a budget-busting tax cut that would largely benefit wealthy backers such as Musk, the world’s richest person, while saddling the country with trillions of dollars in additional debt.

“How dare you lecture America about fiscal responsibility, ever?” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said during floor debate.

Even if the bill had passed the House, it would have faced long odds in the Senate, which is currently controlled by Democrats. The White House said Democratic President Joe Biden did not support it.

Previous fights over the debt ceiling have spooked financial markets, as a U.S. government default would send credit shocks around the world. The limit has been suspended under an agreement that technically expires on Jan. 1, though lawmakers likely will not have to tackle the issue before the spring.

When he returns to office, Trump aims to enact tax cuts that could reduce revenues by $8 trillion over 10 years, which would drive the debt higher without offsetting spending cuts. He has vowed not to reduce retirement and health benefits for seniors that make up a vast chunk of the budget and are projected to grow dramatically in the years to come.

The last government shutdown took place in December 2018 and January 2019 during Trump’s first White House term.

The unrest also threatened to topple Johnson, a mild-mannered Louisianan who was thrust unexpectedly into the speaker’s office last year after the party’s right flank voted out then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy over a government funding bill. Johnson has repeatedly had to turn to Democrats for help in passing legislation when he has been unable to deliver the votes from his own party.

He tried the same maneuver on Thursday, but this time fell short.

Several Republicans said they would not vote for Johnson as speaker when Congress returns in January, potentially setting up another tumultuous leadership battle in the weeks before Trump takes office.