Trump ends government shutdown, signs funding bill

President Donald Trump late Wednesday signed a funding bill into law to end the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history.

The bill was passed by the House of Representatives earlier Wednesday night in a 222-209 vote, hours before the shutdown was set to enter its 43rd day. 

“The Democrats tried to extort our country,” Trump said before signing the bill in the Oval Office at the White House.

Democrats had blocked passage of funding until Sunday, when a bloc of the party’s Senate caucus agreed to support the measure in that chamber.

“Republicans never wanted a shutdown,” said the president, who was flanked by Republican leaders of Congress. “People were hurt so badly.”

“We can never let this happen again,” Trump said, reiterating his call for the Senate to end a filibuster rule that effectively requires 60 votes to pass legislation, including short-term funding resolutions.

Trump did not take questions from reporters after the signing, despite several of them trying to ask about the release by House Democrats earlier Wednesday of documents from the estate of his former friend, Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious sex offender.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., before Wednesday’s vote, during comments backing the bill on the chamber’s floor, said, “My friends, let’s get this done.”

Just two Republicans in the House voted against the bill: Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Florida’s Greg Steube.

All but six Democrats voted against the bill.

The shutdown began on Oct. 1.

Government operations remained shuttered since then because Senate Democrats overwhelmingly refused to vote for a funding measure that did not include an extension of enhanced tax credits that reduce the cost of Affordable Care Act health insurance plans for 20 million Americans.

Earlier Wednesday night, the U.S. Department of Transportation froze the level of flight cuts it imposed in light of shortages of air traffic controllers during the shutdown.

As of Tuesday, 6% of scheduled flights were cancelled at U.S. airports, and that level was set to rise to 10% by Friday.

The Senate passed the funding bill on Monday night, a day after the Republican majority won support for it from seven Democrats and one independent senator to barely reach the 60-vote minimum.

The spending deal will fund the government operations through the end of January.

The deal will also reverse all shutdown-related layoffs of federal government employees and ensure that all federal workers will be paid their normal salaries that they would have received if the government had not shut down.

And the package also funds the SNAP program, which helps feed 42 million Americans through food stamps. 

The Trump administration tried to end those food stamp benefits in November, citing the shutdown, and then refused to tap money other than $4.6 billion in a congressionally appropriate contingency fund to fully pay SNAP benefits for the month.

The Supreme Court had stayed a federal judge’s order mandating that full benefits be paid until Thursday, giving Congress time to effectively moot the case by passing the shutdown bill.

The deal also includes provisions for a bipartisan budget process and prevents the White House from using continuing resolutions to fund the government.

CRs have been repeatedly used to avoid government shutdowns.

Under the deal, Senate Republicans agreed to allow Democrats a vote in December on a bill of their choice to extend those boosted subsidies, which are due to expire at the end of that month.

Without those tax credits, millions of Americans will see sharp increases in the cost of their Obamacare insurance plans.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., during remarks on the House floor before the House vote, said some people will see their monthly insurance premiums “double or even triple” because of the lack of protection for the added ACA subsidies and that “more than 2 million Americans are expected to lose their health plans next year because it is just too expensive.”

DeLauro said that Johnson, the House speaker, “has shown no interest” in holding a vote on the ACA subsidies, despite Senate Republicans saying that was the plan.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said, “We never should have been here.”

“We tried as Republicans more than a month ago to prevent a government shutdown,” Scalise said.

“We waited for 42 days where time and time again, Democrats, to appease their most radical base, voted to keep that government shut down.”

Scalise said “millions of Americans” have had to endure “pain and suffering” because Democrats refused to vote for a funding bill.

He accused Democrats of hypocrisy by seeking $200 billion in health spending that would benefit “illegals,” while “advocating to gut the $50 billion Rural Health Care Fund.

“It’s insanity,” Scalise said.