President Donald Trump has signed legislation ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, hours after the House of Representatives voted to restart disrupted food assistance, pay hundreds of thousands of federal workers, and revive the air traffic control system.
The Republican-controlled chamber passed the package by a vote of 222-209.
Trump’s signature on the bill, which cleared the Senate earlier in the week, will bring federal workers made idle by the 43-day shutdown back to their jobs starting as early as Thursday.
“We can never let this happen again,” Trump said in the Oval Office.”This is no way to run a country.”
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.
The shutdown’s end offers some hope that services crucial to air travel in particular would have some time to recover, with the critical Thanksgiving holiday travel wave just two weeks away.
Restoration of food aid to millions of families may also make room in household budgets for spending as the Christmas shopping season moves into high gear.
It also means the restoration in the coming days of the flow of data on the U.S. economy from key statistical agencies.
The absence of data had left investors, policymakers, and households largely in the dark about the health of the job market, the trajectory of inflation, and the pace of consumer spending and economic growth overall.
Reuters/Hauwa M.