*

Tentative deal includes $100.4 billion in fresh disaster

aid,

$10 billion in economic aid for farmers

*

Partial government shutdown would begin on Saturday

without

congressional action

By Richard Cowan, Katharine Jackson

WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Top Republicans and

Democrats in the U.S. Congress unveiled a stopgap measure on

Tuesday to keep federal agencies funded through March 14, which

would avert a partial government shutdown that would otherwise

begin on Saturday.

The measure would likely keep the roughly $6.2 trillion federal

budget running at its current level, funding programs ranging

from the military, air traffic controllers and federal

regulators for areas ranging from drug safety to securities

markets.

It also includes $100.4 billion in new emergency funding to help

states including North Carolina and Florida recover from

devastating hurricanes, as well as western wildfires and other

recent disasters.

That money would include $29 billion for the Federal

Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund; $21 billion

for aid to farmers hit by flooding and other losses; and $10

billion in economic assistance for them, according to House of

Representatives Republican leadership aides.

State and local communities would receive $12 billion in

block grants and $8 billion would be earmarked for the

Transportation Department's highway and road disaster relief.

Nearly $5.7 billion in new funding would go to the

Pentagon's Virginia-class submarine building by General Dynamics

Corp ( GD ) and Huntington Ingalls Industries ( HII ).

Should lawmakers fail to act in time, federal agencies would

enter a partial shutdown beginning on Saturday.

House Speaker Mike Johnson leads a narrow and restive

219-211 Republican majority and has repeatedly over the past

year had to rely on Democratic support to pass major

legislation.

Party hardliners signaled on Tuesday that they were unhappy with

the bill, meaning that Johnson will once again need to reach

across the aisle to pass it.

"One of the things we know very clearly is that House

Democrats will be needed to pass government funding," No. 3

House Democrat Pete Aguilar said at a Tuesday press conference.

RISING DEBT

The stopgap measure is needed because Congress failed to

pass its one-dozen annual appropriations bills in time for the

current fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1. The government's

"mandatory" programs, which include Social Security and Medicare

retirement and healthcare benefits and represent about

two-thirds of the budget, renew automatically.

That has contributed to the rising federal debt, which exceeds

$36 trillion. Congress will have to address that again early

next year, when a 2023 deal to extend the nation's "debt

ceiling" expires. Failure could shock bond markets with

potentially severe economic consequences.

Democrats had pushed for a longer bill funding the government

through the end of its current fiscal year ending Sept. 30, but

Republicans wanted to wait for final agreement until after

President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20 and their

party takes its majorities in both the Senate and House of

Representatives.

Trump and congressional Republicans campaigned all year on a

promise of significantly cutting the number of federal workers

and proposing deep cuts to many of the government's programs.

He has created an advisory committee called the Department of

Government Efficiency, headed by Tesla founder Elon Musk, the

world's richest person, and former presidential candidate and

entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Neither has any government

experience.

Now that the temporary funding bill has been unveiled,

rank-and-file members of Congress will review its details. It

was unclear when the first votes on the bill, by the House,

would occur. Once passed there, the Senate would aim to vote by

a midnight Friday deadline, and then send it to Democratic

President Joe Biden to sign into law.

Riding along in this spending bill is a one-year extension

of federal farm programs, including commodity subsidies and food

and nutrition benefits for low-income people. Without such an

extension, prices for milk, cheese and other dairy products

would skyrocket after Dec. 31.