The longest U.S. government shutdown on record came to an end Wednesday night when President Donald Trump signed a funding bill that reopens federal agencies and restores pay for furloughed workers.
What happened
The measure cleared the House in a narrow 222-209 vote after passing the Senate earlier in the week. President Trump signed the bill in the Oval Office shortly after the House vote, officially ending a 43-day stalemate that disrupted services, delayed flights and left hundreds of thousands of federal employees without pay.
Who returns to work — and who gets paid
Under the deal, most federal operations will be funded through January. Employees who were furloughed during the shutdown will receive retroactive pay. Programs paused by the impasse, including certain preschool and food benefit services, are set to resume over the coming days.
Big issues left unresolved
The signing does not settle the core dispute over extensions of Affordable Care Act premium tax credits. Lawmakers agreed to hold a separate vote on that issue next month, but no guarantee yet exists that the subsidies will be extended.
“The extremists in the other party insisted on creating the longest government shutdown in American history for purely political reasons,” President Trump said at the signing. “Don’t forget what they’ve done to our country.”
Political fallout
The final vote exposed deep divisions on Capitol Hill. Six Democrats crossed party lines to back the bill; two Republicans voted against it. Democrats who opposed the deal said it failed to protect healthcare subsidies and that the agreement relied too heavily on a nonbinding promise of a future vote.
Supporters argued urgency mattered more than principle: continuing the shutdown would prolong hardship for millions of Americans who rely on government services and for the federal workforce already pushed to the breaking point.
What comes next
With the government reopened, lawmakers face another deadline: the continuing resolution funds operations only for a short period, leaving Congress to pass additional spending bills before January. The parties will also need to decide whether they can reach a durable agreement on healthcare premium subsidies — an issue that helped trigger the shutdown in the first place.
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