admin
US President Donald Trump has signed a spending bill to reopen the government after a 43-day shutdown.
It was the longest such closure in the country’s history.
Trump signed the budget into law late Wednesday after the house of representatives voted 222-209 to approve it, two days after the senate narrowly approved the same package.
Trump called the legislation a victory over Democrats.
“They didn’t want to do it the easy way,” he said of the Democrats. “They had to do it the hard way, and they look very bad.”
However, the short-term budget only provides funding to keep the government open until January 30, when lawmakers will once again need to find a way to fund the government.
The deal also guarantees an early December vote in the senate on the expiring Obamacare subsidies that Democrats made the focus of their demands during the shutdown battle.
In addition, the legislation includes full-year funding for the department of agriculture, funding for military construction and legislative agencies, guarantees that all federal workers will be paid during the shutdown, and funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme (SNAP) — which provides food aid to one in eight Americans.
Many government services have been suspended since October, and around 1.4 million federal employees have been on unpaid leave or working without pay.
Food aid has also been left in limbo with domestic air travel disrupted nationwide.
