United States President Donald Trump has signed a bill ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
Trump signed the deal on Wednesday night, hours after the House of Representatives voted to restart disrupted food assistance, pay hundreds of thousands of federal workers, and revive a hobbled air-traffic control system.
The Republican-controlled chamber passed the package by a vote of 222-209, with Trump’s support largely keeping his party together in the face of vehement opposition from House Democrats, who are angry that a long standoff launched by their Senate colleagues failed to secure a deal to extend federal health insurance subsidies.
Trump’s signature on the bill, which cleared the Senate earlier in the week, will bring federal workers idled by the 43-day shutdown back to their jobs starting as early as Thursday, although just how quickly full government services and operations will resume is unclear.
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“We can never let this happen again. This is no way to run a country,” Trump said in the Oval Office during a late-night signing ceremony that he used to criticise Democrats.
The deal extends funding through January 30, leaving the federal government on a path to keep adding about $1.8 trillion a year to its $38 trillion in debt.
“I feel like I just lived a Seinfeld episode. We just spent 40 days and I still don’t know what the plotline was,” said Republican Representative David Schweikert of Arizona, likening Congress’ handling of the shutdown to the misadventures in a popular 1990s U.S. sitcom.
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