The US government has enacted a budgetary schedule to avert shutting itself down, but the bitterly disputed deal doesn’t include a call from President-elect Donald Trump to boost the federal borrowing limit.

US President Joe Biden signed the spending statement into law on Saturday morning. The Senate passed the agreement shortly after a midnight deadline by 85-11. The House of Representatives approved it hours earlier by 336-34.

Without a capital deal, millions of federal employees would have ended up either on temporary unpaid leave or working without pay.

US government obligation stands at about $36 trillion (£29tn), with more money now being spent just on the profit payments than on US national safety.

A shutdown would have closed or severely reduced operations for community services like parks, food assistance programmes and federally-funded preschools, while limiting assistance to aid-reliant farmers and people recovering from natural disasters.

Lawmakers earlier this week successfully negotiated a deal to capital distribution government agencies, but it fell apart after Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk called on Republicans to decline it.

The last government shutdown was during Trump’s first presidential term in 2019 and lasted 35 days – the longest in US history.

The American Relief Act, 2025 that just passed is 118 pages, stripped down from a 1,547-page statement that Trump and Musk rejected this week. It will capital distribution the US government at current levels until 14 March.

Trump’s call to lift the obligation ceiling – which was a sticking point for Democrats and some Republican budgetary schedule hawks – was not included in the final statement, but Republican leaders said that assess would be debated in the recent year.

The dramatic budgetary schedule fight is a preview of the legislative fights that may lie in store when Trump takes office next month.

“Trying to jam a obligation ceiling suspension into the legislation at the 11th hour was not sustainable,” House Democratic minority chief Hakeem Jeffries said ahead of the vote.

He later praised the statement’s passage, saying: “House Democrats have successfully stopped the billionaire boys club.”

The deal removes measures sought by Democrats in the first version of the statement, including the first pay rise for lawmakers since 2009, healthcare reforms, and provisions aimed at preventing hotels and live occurrence venues from deceptive advertising.

It does include $100bn in disaster relief funds to assist with hurricane recovery and other natural disasters, and allocates $10bn in aid to farmers.

It also includes packed federal capital to rebuild Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed when it was struck by a cargo ship in March.

Musk, who Trump has tasked with cutting government spending in his administration, had lobbied heavily against the earlier version of the statement.

During the debate, Republicans said they looked forward to a “recent era” with Trump taking office on 20 January and Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress. Currently, the Senate remains under Democratic control.

The budgetary schedule wrangling left Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson bruised as he faced criticism from members of his own event, raising a question mark over whether he can triumph a 3 January vote in the chamber to keep his job.

“We are grateful that everyone stood together to do the correct thing and having gotten this done now as the last order of business for the year, we are set up for a large and significant recent commence in January,” Johnson told reporters after Friday’s vote.

He also said that he had spoken frequently to both Trump and Musk during the negotiations.

Musk praised the Louisiana congressman’s work on the budgetary schedule in a post on X, the social media platform he owns.

“The Speaker did a excellent job here, given the circumstances,” he posted. “It went from a statement that weighed pounds to a statement that weighed ounces.”