Elon Musk’s future effort to achieve government efficiency for Donald Trump must not start with a government shutdown, which will happen at midnight tonight unless the Congress approves a funding bill and President Biden signs it. But Musk, in trashing a carefully negotiated bipartisan spending bill, is causing chaos on Capitol Hill. Musk, by cowing fearful Republicans, has made his point and has to stop. Otherwise, he’ll only be creating more damage with his mischief. Before Trump’s good buddy and the world’s richest man (with assets of $458 billion on yesterday’s Bloomberg Billionaires Index) went on a tirade of more than 150 blasts on his X social media, there was an agreed plan to keep the government funded and operating through March 14. The compromise deal was hammered out between Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker who will be part of an even smaller House GOP majority in the next Congress, and Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, who will be the minority leader next month. It still remains to be seen if Johnson will be able to command the votes to continue to be speaker. Before Musk muscled his way in with threats and bluster and a bunch of non-truths and was soon enough joined by Trump, spiking the package, the must-pass legislation had $100 billion in disaster relief aid, including for those Americans impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. There was also $21 billion in disaster relief for farmers and the farm bill, due to expire, was to be extended until next Oct. 1, when the next fiscal year starts. The bill also had money to make solvent the World Trade Center Health Program to treat the heroes and victims of 9/11 who were sickened by the poisonous air rising up from Ground Zero. Without the funding, survivors and responders suffering from cancer and other ailments would see their care rationed. The deal included welcome changes for pharmacy benefit managers making them divulge more details about their practices and who is paid what and force them to send any rebates to insurers. Also on the matter of health care, there’s a provision to keep for another two years the telehealth for Medicare that started during COVID. That Baltimore bridge that collapsed in March was to be rebuilt, for about $2 billion. There would be new regulations and safety standards on lithium-ion batteries for e-bikes and e-scooters that are causing hundreds of fires a year in New York alone, killing people and destroying property. Basically, there’s a lot of the unfinished business of the very unproductive 118th Congress, which started two years ago when Speaker Kevin McCarthy needed 15 ballots over the course of four days to be seated. But, as with any agreement, there is plenty of stuff for people to dislike, such as approval of the first pay raise for members of Congress since 2009. Musk railed on and on, perhaps angry that there even was a deal with Democrats. When Trump entered the fray, demanding out of nowhere that the national debt ceiling be raised or else otherwise no deal, the deal collapsed. Americans will know by tonight if the Congress and Musk and Trump can behave responsibly, or we’ll have a government shutdown just in time for Christmas. That’s the spirit of the season.