THE LATEST: House votes have been cancelled for the night as Speaker Mike Johnson regroups and tries to salvage a year-end spending plan after a mass Republican backlash led by billionaire businessman and presidential pal Elon Musk. Follow the latest at Inside Congress Live A FACT CHECK, IF YOU MUSK Musk spent Wednesday stirring Republicans into a frenzy over the stopgap spending bill filed by Johnson — one loaded up with $100 billion in disaster aid funding, billions more in farm assistance and dozens of other side deals that pushed the final product past 1,500 pages. His daylong flurry of dozens of postings on his X account appears to have succeeded: President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance came out against the bill this evening, calling instead for a pared-back measure coupled with a debt-limit increase. But among the 100-plus tweets Musk sent Wednesday were a number of misleading or outright false claims — a worrying start to the mogul’s new role as co-leader of a Trump-blessed effort to slash government funding. — Government shutdowns aren’t painless: Musk is repeatedly posting on X that a government shutdown wouldn’t have any significant consequences for the country. He responded “YES” to a post that read, “Just close down the govt until January 20th. Defund everything. We will be fine for 33 days.” Another Musk post said a shutdown “doesn’t actually shut down critical functions.” File this one as a half-truth: Yes, essential government functions and personnel are allowed to continue during a shutdown. But there are significant real-world effects: Other government employees will halt their day-to-day work and miss paychecks. While Social Security checks will go out and mail will be delivered, agency shutdowns cause massive lost productivity. A five-week shutdown from 2018 to 2019 caused the economy to lose about $3 billion, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. — Member pay won’t be raised 40 percent: Both Musk and the X account for his “Department of Government Efficiency” got the facts surrounding lawmaker paychecks wrong: Members of Congress have not had a raise to their $174,000 salaries since 2009, after repeatedly freezing a law implementing automatic cost-of-living increases. The pending CR does not include a COLA freeze, but that would not result in a 40 percent boost in pay — far from it. The maximum potential pay adjustment would be 3.8 percent, an increase of $6,600. Even if lawmakers had given themselves all 15 years of rejected COLAs — which, again, they are not doing — it would only result in a 31 percent increase, according to the Congressional Research Service. — Taxpayers aren’t paying for a new stadium: Musk reposted a claim that the bill would provide $3 billion for a new NFL stadium in Washington. Not true: The bill transfers control of the site of the existing RFK Stadium to the D.C. local government for redevelopment, which could potentially include a stadium. No federal funds are changing hands as part of the transaction. There is a possibility that D.C. taxpayers could eventually be on the hook for the project: Mayor Muriel Bowser has floated using local funding to cover environmental remediation costs and upgrade underlying infrastructure. But any redevelopment plan would be subject to D.C. government approval and wouldn’t involve any federal dollars appropriated in the pending bill. — The bill isn’t shielding the Jan. 6 committee: Musk said it was “[o]utrageous” that the bill would block House Republicans from investigating the Jan. 6 select committee established in the prior, Democratic-majority Congress. Not exactly: The section of the bill cited by the convicted Jan. 6 rioter that Musk quoted has nothing to do with internal House investigations. Rather, it’s language meant to clarify that House data stored on outside digital platforms remains under control of House offices — and thus subject to House rules and procedures for accessing it: “A House office shall be deemed to retain possession of any House data of the House office, without regard to the use” of any particular platform, the bill reads. — No “bioweapon labs” here: Musk reposted a screenshot from a conservative account Libs of Tiktok claiming that the legislation would fund “bioweapon labs.” That is false: The provision in question would establish regional biocontainment laboratories as part of a larger pandemic preparedness plan. Their stated purpose is “conducting biomedical research to support public health and medical preparedness,” not creating bioweapons. The provision is part of a long-sought reauthorization of the Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness and Response Act. — Daniella Diaz and Katherine Tully-McManus, with asissts from David Lim and Ben Leonard
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