President Donald Trump signed a new government finance bill Wednesday, ending a standoff between Republicans and Democrats over the bill and the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
The federal government shutdown, which began when Senate Democrats refused to sign a funding bill unless it included an amendment extending health care benefits for low-income Americans that Republicans rejected, lasted 43 days, leaving government employees unpaid and government agencies paralyzed without funding.
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President Trump signed the new bill hours after the House approved a package passed earlier by the Senate that reopened federal departments and reinstated food assistance programs.
“With my signature, the federal government will resume normal operations,” President Trump said late Wednesday.
What does the bill include and what does it not include?
An estimated 750,000 federal workers were furloughed and sent home without pay during the government shutdown, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Thousands of essential workers, including police, FBI, and air traffic controllers, were required to continue working without pay.
With the finance bill approved by Congress and signed by President Trump, furloughed employees will be able to return to work and receive back pay.
Among other things, the bill would authorize funding for food assistance programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as “food stamps,” and the legislative branch of government through the end of January 2026.
However, the bill does not include an extension of health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which Democrats had requested even before they agreed to pass the funding bill. The program’s tax credits, passed in 2010 under President Barack Obama to expand health insurance coverage and benefit more than 22 million low-income Americans, are set to expire on Dec. 31.
Centrist Democrats and Republicans instead agreed to hold another vote in December to decide on health care subsidies separately. However, there is no guarantee that these grant extensions will be approved.
How did this bill pass in the Senate?
Health care subsidies were a central Democratic demand in the funding battle. When the first bill was proposed by Senate Republicans, most Democrats opposed it. Republicans were unable to reach an agreement because they refused to cut subsidies, and the bill was not approved by Congress.
During a series of votes held in the 43 days since the government shutdown began, Democratic senators rejected 14 times to reopen the government and advocated an extension of ACA tax credits.
But in the Senate on Nov. 9, six Democratic senators and two independents finally split ranks and voted with Republicans.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer was among those who voted against the bill, saying, “Democrats have been fighting for months to force the Senate to address the health care crisis. This bill does nothing to ensure that the crisis is addressed.”
But Schumer was criticized by some Democratic senators and members of the House for not joining Democratic senators who bowed to Republicans in wanting to end the shutdown. Some called on Schumer to resign from his position as minority leader.
When the government reopening bill was moved to the House, many Democrats continued to oppose it, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
“I will not support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to destroy Americans’ health care,” Jeffries said in a news release issued by his team Tuesday night.
Other Democrats in the House also opposed the bill. “To my colleagues, please do not allow this body to become a ceremonial red seal from an administration that deprives children of food and health care,” Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill said in her final speech on the House floor before leaving Congress to become New Jersey’s new governor.
How did members of Congress vote?
In the end, the opposition Democratic Party was defeated.
The U.S. House of Representatives includes 219 Republicans and 214 Democrats, with two seats vacant. The bill passed the House by a vote of 222-209.
A total of 216 House Republicans voted in favor of the finance bill. They were joined by six House Democrats who want to end the government shutdown. They are Henry Cuellar of Texas, Donald Davis of North Carolina, Marie Grusenkamp Perez of Washington, Jared Golden of Maine, Adam Gray of California, and Thomas Suozzi of New York.
The remaining 207 Democrats voted against the bill. Republicans Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Greg Steube of Florida also participated. One person, Democrat Bonnie Watson Coleman and Republican Michael T. McCall, did not vote.
The Washington, D.C.-based newspaper The Hill reported that Massey is expected to vote against the bill. He typically votes against spending bills, even those drafted by his own party, if he thinks the spending levels are unreasonable.
Massey also reposted an
In a post on X on Wednesday, Steube wrote that he opposes the resolution because it includes legislation that would allow some senators to personally sue the Justice Department using taxpayer funds.
“I cannot in good conscience support a resolution that would create a selfish legal provision for some senators to line their pockets by using taxpayer dollars to sue the Department of Justice,” Steube wrote.
What happens to workers and programs affected by the shutdown?
Scott Lucas, a professor of US and international politics at the Ireland-based Clinton Institute at University College Dublin, told Al Jazeera that a return to normal government is “easier said than done.”
“We have to restore staff, restore services and restore payments.”
Employees on furlough
Furloughed employees could return to work as early as Thursday. However, it is unclear how quickly government operations and services will fully resume.
Lucas also said that under the passed bill, the U.S. government would be required to ensure that furloughed employees keep their jobs and not be fired, but “the Trump administration intends to do that.”
“There will be disruption, and of course the important thing is that the estimated $7 billion to $14 billion in lost productivity will not be recovered,” Lucas said. This represents an estimated cost to the economy (about 1.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) this quarter) caused by delayed pay for furloughed employees during the government shutdown.
food assistance program
SNAP funding, which benefits more than 40 million Americans, ran out on October 31, and the Trump administration blocked the program from accessing emergency funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Disaster and Nutrition Assistance Account.
A White House Budget Office spokesperson said this week that the rollout of food assistance would begin within hours of the government reopening.
However, recipients may still face long delays. “These payments need to be arranged now, which means there is a backlog of work that needs to be processed,” the spokesperson said.
air traffic controller
Last Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an emergency order to 40 airports to reduce flight capacity by 6%, citing a shortage of air traffic controllers due to the shutdown. Hundreds of domestic flights were canceled, causing havoc for travelers. Had the government shutdown not ended, it was expected to extend to 10% of flights.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said air traffic controllers will receive 70% of their pay within 24 to 48 hours after the shutdown ends.
“Right now, he’s asking air traffic controllers to continue working without pay until the problem is resolved,” Lucas explained.
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported, citing unnamed airline industry representatives, that flights could return to normal within a week of the end of the grounding.
For flights to resume as normal, the Department of Transportation must have enough air traffic controllers back on duty to minimize staffing-related aviation delays. FAA Administrator Michael Duffy must then lift the emergency order that reduced flights.
construction project
Several government-funded construction and infrastructure projects worth $11 billion have been suspended during the shutdown, and it is unclear when and how progress will resume. These include work on two aging federally-owned bridges over the Cape Cod Canal in Massachusetts and a waterfront park in San Francisco.
“It’s not just a question of ‘will it reopen? When will it reopen?’ It’s a question of whether federal funding will be restored, which is not clear at this point,” Lucas said.
“Federal funding for infrastructure construction projects may be restored, but what happens here is that we have to restart the pipeline for funding. There are contracts for all of this. There are contracts for the timing of funding, and there will also be Congressional approval behind it.”
Announcement of major economic data
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) monthly employment report for October, which would normally have been released, was not released during the government shutdown. Additionally, the release of key inflation statistics, scheduled for mid-October, has been postponed.
White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said Wednesday that those data likely still won’t be released when the shutdown ends because the shutdown has prevented investigators from being on the ground to collect raw data.
Levitt said the data not yet collected “will be forever compromised, leaving Fed policymakers blind at a critical time.”
This means that the Federal Reserve and policymakers in other sectors do not have access to key indicator numbers typically used to set interest rates and guide economic policy. Investors and companies also don’t have the critical data to make predictions. Historical records would create a blind spot in data from October 2025 that would distort future trend analysis.
What happens next?
Government funding is currently secured through the end of January, but the issue of the ACA tax credit is still unresolved. Therefore, if the health care standoff is not resolved by the end of January, the United States could face another government shutdown.
“Right now, they’re saying they’re planning to vote on this in the Senate in mid-December, but of course just because they’re planning to vote on extending the tax credit doesn’t mean that vote will be successful,” Lucas said.
“So we will be back at the end of January to effectively start again,” he added.
“We could definitely face another confrontation in January. In fact, I think it’s becoming more likely. If we don’t get some sort of deal in terms of lowering premiums for these tens of millions of Americans, Democrats have now made that a major issue. This issue will be an issue all the way to the 2026 election.”
In January, the Trump administration will need to seek Congressional approval to extend government funding again, once again needing Democratic support.
Lucas said in the meantime, Americans who rely on the ACA and other health insurance programs would see their premiums more than double from November to the end of January without the tax credit. He said this would increase medical costs and “have obvious consequences as people would either have to cut and cover other medical costs or go without insurance.”
