With less than two weeks to go before a March 14 deadline, Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress appear to be nowhere close to a deal to avert a government shutdown that would throw Washington into deeper turmoil...

Growing calls among hardline House conservatives to incorporate cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) into a developing government funding bill are complicating efforts to avert a shutdown two weeks ahead of the looming deadline.

The pleas are poised to pin Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) into the tricky — yet familiar — position of managing his right flank while keeping the lights on in Washington, which will require some support from congressional Democrats.

Congress is struggling to strike a deal to keep the government funded as a looming deadline to prevent a shutdown next month gets closer.

Lawmakers are less than a month away from a mid-March date to pass legislation to prevent a funding lapse — or risk the first shutdown in years. 

“We can’t have precisely the same kind of deal we had before, and we’re trying to work to find some common ground,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said shortly before the House left for a one-week recess this week.

Democrats in Congress are growing louder with threats to force a shutdown in March to put the brakes on President Trump’s and Elon Musk’s efforts to overhaul the federal government by freezing spending and dismantling agencies.

A growing number of Democratic lawmakers think the March 14 deadline for funding the government gives them the best leverage to pressure Trump and Musk to back off their plans to pick apart the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other agencies.

President Joe Biden signed a funding bill Saturday, averting a Christmastime government shutdown after negotiations in Congress went down to the wire overnight.

Last minute legislative wrangling was brought about by President-elect Donald Trump, who along with influential billionaire Elon Musk, pressured Republicans to abandon an earlier bipartisan funding compromise.

Lawmakers then spent several days trying to...

Facing a government shutdown deadline, the Senate rushed through final passage early Saturday of a bipartisan plan that would temporarily fund federal operations and disaster aid, dropping President-elect Donald Trump’s demands for a debt limit increase into the new year.

President Joe Biden signed a government funding bill on Saturday that averted a government shutdown and marked the end of a chaotic, high-stakes week in Congress.

The White House said in a statement that the bill had been signed. Biden has not made any public statements following the 11th-hour congressional negotiations that led to the U.S. Senate approving the bipartisan federal spending bill.

The Senate voted 85-11 to approve a short-term spending bill to fund the government until March 14. The measure, signed hours later by President Biden, had overwhelming bipartisan support in both chambers after days of chaos caused by the last-minute intervention of President-elect Donald Trump.

In addition to the federal funding, the latest GOP proposal includes $100 billion in aid to communities recovering from natural disasters, including 2023 wildfires in Maui and more recent, post-hurricane flooding in North Carolina.

Federal lawmakers have until midnight Friday to pass a budget, or else the government will shut down, impacting millions of employees and consumers ahead of the holiday.

Without a funding plan, the shutdown would begin at 12:01 a.m. Dec. 21 and last until Congress passes a spending bill.

Here are the government services and agencies that would be affected if the government shuts down.