President Trump signed a funding bill Wednesday to end the longest government shutdown in US history, hours after the House of Representatives passed legislation ending the 43-day standoff.
“It’s an honor now to sign this incredible bill and get our country working again,” Trump said in the Oval Office, flanked by House Republican leaders as well as business and union leaders.
The president blasted “extremist” Democrats for shutting down the government, accusing them of attempting to “extort American taxpayers.”
“This cost the country $1.5 trillion,” Trump said of the shutdown, describing it as a “little excursion” that DemTrump re-upped his demand for Senate Republicans to “terminate” the filibuster — so that “this would never happen again” — and called for the “massive amount” of federal funding for Obamacare to be “paid directly to the people of our country, so that they can buy their own health care.”
In a 222-209 vote, the House voted to pass the funding bill it received from the Senate that will restart paychecks for federal workers and air traffic controllers, and fund food assistance programs.
The legislation finally “reopens the government, restores critical services, and puts an end to the needless hardship Democrats have inflicted on the country,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.).
“We feel very relieved tonight,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters after the vote. “The Democrat shutdown is finally over thanks to House and Senate Republicans, who stood together to get the job done.”
Johnson slammed Democrats for using “the American people as leverage in this political game,” arguing that the outcome was “totally foreseeable.”
“It’s something that is very difficult to forgive,” he continued, describing the shutdown “stunt” as “utterly pointless and foolish.”
House Democrats lamented that their Senate Democratic colleagues caved with nothing to show for it on health care, their stated reason for holding the government hostage.
“I rise in opposition to this bill that does nothing, not one thing to address the Republican health care crisis, amid a cost-of-living crisis,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said in a floor speech ahead of the vote.
In his speech, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) proclaimed, “This fight is not over.”
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“There are only two ways that this fight will end, Mr. Speaker: Either Republicans finally decide to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits this year, or the American people will throw Republicans out of their jobs next year and end the speakership of Donald J. Trump once and for all,” the Democratic leader said.
The legislation will return federal workers to their jobs with back pay, reopen executive branch agencies that provide critical veterans services and other benefits like food stamps and fully fund the government until at least Jan. 30.
After that, some spending for SNAP benefits, veterans programs, legislative branch activities and military construction, among other items, will continue until Sept. 30 — at which point the 2026 fiscal year ends.
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers and congressional staffers had gone without pay for more than 40 days — leading the top union backing government employees to pressure Democrats into ending the shutdown.
There had also been increasing flight delays and cancellations due to the lack of staffing at air traffic control towers, as unpaid workers were not showing up to their jobs.
Last Friday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had warned that if the government remained closed with the Thanksgiving holiday nearing, there could be an up to 20% reduction in US airspace.
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers and congressional staffers had gone without pay for more than 40 days.
“As of Sunday, nearly half of all domestic flights and US flights were either canceled or delayed. And it’s a very serious situation,” Johnson noted on Monday, giving his chamber 36 hours to reconvene.
“Shutting down the government never produces anything,” Johnson added. “It never has.”
Six House Democrats voted for the funding measure in the House’s first legislative move since going into recess after Sept. 19.
New York Post
