President Donald Trump has signed a funding package into law, ending the longest government shutdown in American history after 43 days, following a vote in the House of Representatives that brought the standoff to a close.
The House passed the continuing resolution late on Wednesday, 11 November in Washington, by 222 votes to 209, mostly along party lines. The Senate had already passed the measure on Monday by 60 votes to 40, after eight senators broke with the Democratic leadership to strike a deal. Mr Trump signed the bill late on Wednesday night.
The shutdown, which began on 1 October, had furloughed hundreds of thousands of federal workers and left many more working without pay. Around 1.3 million federal employees were affected, and the package guarantees them back pay, reverses the firings of federal workers ordered during the shutdown, and blocks further layoffs through January.
The bill funds most of the federal government through 30 January 2027, while giving full-year funding to the departments of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs, the Food and Drug Administration, military construction and the legislative branch through the end of the 2026 fiscal year.
Six Democrats voted for the bill — Henry Cuellar, Danny Davis, Jared Golden, Adam Gray, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Tom Suozzi — while two Republicans, Thomas Massie and Greg Steube, voted against it. The vote followed weeks of deadlock in which Democrats had demanded an extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits, which are due to expire at the end of the year.
Those credits were not extended in the package. Republicans promised a separate Senate vote on the subsidies by mid-December, but the omission was the central concession in the deal, and it divided Democrats, with party leaders arguing that the shutdown had failed to secure the healthcare protections they sought.
The package also includes about $203.5 million in additional security funding for members of Congress and $28 million for Supreme Court justices, reflecting the heightened security concerns around public officials.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the shutdown cost the American economy about $14 billion in lost growth. Food aid for around 42 million Americans was disrupted, and air travel was affected as air traffic controllers and other federal staff worked without pay.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll published on 12 November found that 50 per cent of Americans blamed Republicans for the shutdown, while 47 per cent blamed Democrats, a reminder of how politically costly the standoff had been for both parties.
Federal workers were expected to return to work from Thursday, with agencies reopening and back pay to follow. The funding runs only until the end of January, so Congress will have to return to the same arguments over spending and healthcare within weeks, and the next deadline is already in sight.
