Congress is one step closer to a nightmare before Christmas.

A House Republican measure to avert a government shutdown went up in flames Thursday in a 174-235 vote after a near-solid bloc of Democrats and 38 Republicans voted against the stopgap, which had been championed by President-elect Donald Trump. 

Twenty lawmakers did not cast a vote on the spending patch. Only two Democrats — Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Kathy Castor of Florida — voted in favor of it. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) voted present.

The new funding deal would’ve kept the government’s lights on for three months, reupped farm aid, added a two-year suspension of the debt limit until Jan. 30, 2027, and replenished $110 billion in disaster relief, while cutting out other aspects of a prior deal that went up in flames on Wednesday, according to the 116-page bill’s text.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who backed the new bill, tore into House Democrats — specifically Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) — for tanking the measure. 

“A super fair & simple bill was put to a vote and only 2 Democrats in Congress were in favor,” Musk wrote on X Thursday night.

“Therefore, responsibility for the shutdown rests squarely on the shoulders of @RepJeffries.”

Democrats wasted little time mobilizing against the spending patch. During a subsequent emergency caucus gathering, chants of “Hell no” were heard from members huddled in the meeting room. 

None of them appeared to have specific grievances against the content of the bill, which was a watered-down version of what they previously backed. Instead, they were perturbed by what was left out and alienated that Republicans reneged on the prior deal in the 11th hour. 

“The Musk-Johnson proposal is not serious. It’s laughable. Extreme MAGA Republicans are driving us to a government shutdown,” Jeffries told reporters ahead of the vote.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who served as the No. 2 House Democrat for more than a decade, raged against “President Musk” for spiking the prior deal. 

“They threw out all the provisions that helped working men and women, sick children, farmers, and so many other people who were relying on this to be able to make it in America,” Hoyer groused. 

“There was no discussion. This was a take-it-or-leave-it [situation]. You know the 72-hour rule, this is the 72-second rule. They just posted [the bill],” he told The Post when asked whether there was communication from Republicans during the drafting of the plan B deal. 

Other Democrats similarly expressed unity in opposition to the American Relief Act. Some complained about the debt ceiling provision, fretting that Republicans were trying to make it easier to cut taxes when they claim the trifecta. 

“To put this on at this point, without consulting us or talking to us, is just pretty unfortunate. We have a deal — it was a bipartisan deal,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), chair of the House Democratic Caucus, told reporters. “They should honor the deal.”

The earlier deal ran more than 1,500 pages and was killed amid heavy lobbying from Musk, his Department of Government Efficiency co-chair Vivek Ramaswamy and other fiscal hawks in the House.

Republicans opted to fast-track the new deal for consideration on the House floor, less than three hours after dropping the text. 

Due to House rules, a proposal that doesn’t pass through the committee will need to garner two-thirds support from the lower chamber, meaning some Democrats will have to cross the aisle to vote in favor of the funding extension.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had hunkered down in his office through Thursday with a slew of Republican lawmakers filtering in and out while negotiating with his conference on it.

Trump, 78, who had come out against the prior government funding plan on Wednesday, had been kept in the loop on the deal both via staff and directly, according to lawmakers involved with discussions.

“The newly agreed to American Relief Act of 2024 will keep the Government open, fund our Great Farmers and others, and provide relief for those severely impacted by the devastating hurricanes,” Trump added in his Truth Social post.

Leadership had been keen on trying to rush the agreement through as quickly as possible.

The new deal had cut out numerous provisions in the prior one, including a pay hike for members of Congress, up to $2 billion in funding for the Francis Scott Key Bridge, reforms aimed at cracking down on pharmaceutical benefit managers, the renovation and relinquishment of Robert F. Kennedy Stadium to city officials in Washington, DC, and more.

Additionally, the American Relief Act opted to forgo a congressional pay bump and a one-year extension of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which funded an advertisers’ “blacklist” of The Post and other outlets to purportedly crack down on “misinformation.”

The American Relief Act kept some extraneous provisions such as $25.5 million for salaries and resources to protect the residences of Supreme Court justices. 

After slapping down the prior government funding plan, Trump called on Congress to address the debt limit, which was under suspension until early next year, which was the key addition to the American Relief Act.

That ask from Trump splintered hardline Republicans, who had also raged against the initial deal.

“It’s a water-downed version of the same crappy bill people were mad about yesterday,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) fumed to reporters after details of the deal trickled out.

Roy had been in and out of Johnson’s office on Thursday and Trump lashed out against him on Truth Social. The president-elect had previously been furious with him for backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 GOP primary.

Trump took to Truth Social early Friday, well after the plan B bill failed to pass, to again push for action on the debt ceiling in the next draft of the spending plan.

“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling. Without this, we should never make a deal. Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President,” the president-elect wrote.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre blasted Republicans for “breaking their word to support a bipartisan agreement that would lower prescription drug costs and make it harder to offshore jobs to China.”

“President Biden supports the bipartisan agreement to keep the government open, help communities recovering from disasters, and lower costs — not this giveaway for billionaires that Republicans are proposing at the 11th hour,” she said in a statement.

Should Congress fail to act, the government will enter a partial shutdown after midnight Friday into Saturday.

Any measure to forestall a government shutdown will need to clear the Senate and get Biden’s signature to go into effect.