Trump signs stopgap spending bill into law, following US Senate passage
The U.S. Senate cleared a stopgap spending bill Friday that will fund the government through the end of September, sending the legislation to President Donald Trump.
The White House said on Saturday afternoon that Trump had signed the measure, avoiding a partial government shutdown.
Trump’s signature, a day after the 54-46 Senate vote, will keep the federal government mostly running on autopilot under spending levels and policy similar to what Congress approved about a year ago when lawmakers passed the full-year appropriations bills for the last fiscal year. But the stopgap bill does slightly boost defense spending while reducing domestic funding authority.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote against passage. Maine independent Sen. Angus King and New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen voted to approve the bill, the only ones backing it besides Republicans.
Senate approval followed days of debate among Democrats over whether to support moving forward with the GOP-authored bill or see a shutdown begin that Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said would allow Trump to take even more power over the government.
Debate on the House-passed stopgap spending bill was more complex than usual. A majority of Senate Democrats believe the continuing resolution shortchanges important federal programs and doesn’t do enough to reinforce Congress’ constitutional authority over spending in light of Trump’s efforts to remake the size and scope of the federal government.
Many of those actions are on hold as dozens of lawsuits move through the federal court system. But Democrats who opposed the bill felt that lawmakers must make their voices heard as well.
Other Democrats argued a partial government shutdown would give Trump more leeway to make funding decisions and further harm federal workers.
Republicans largely supported the stopgap spending bill. However, many lamented that the House and Senate didn’t do more to reach agreement on the dozen full-year government funding bills.
‘Inherently a failure
Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the stopgap spending bill wasn’t her first choice for funding the government, but that it was the only option on the table to prevent a funding lapse.
“Government shutdowns are inherently a failure to govern effectively and have negative consequences all across government,” Collins said. “They inevitably require certain government employees — such as Border Patrol agents, members of our military and Coast Guard, TSA screeners and air traffic controllers — to report to work with no certainty at all on when they will receive their next paycheck.”
Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, ranking member on the Appropriations panel, rebuked House Republican leaders for drafting the stopgap spending bill on their own and then expecting Democratic votes.
“Let me be clear, in my time in Congress, never, ever has one party written partisan full-year appropriations bills for all of government and expected the other party to go along without any input,” Murray said.
The stopgap spending bill, she said, cuts overall spending on domestic programs, a choice Democrats never would have agreed to had GOP leaders tried to negotiate with them.
“We are talking about a nearly 50% cut to life-saving medical research into conditions affecting our service members,” Murray said. “It is a giant shortfall in funding for NIH. It is a massive cut in funding for Army Corps projects and $15 billion less for our domestic priorities.”
“This bill will force Social Security to cut staff and close offices and make it harder for our seniors to get the benefits they spent their careers paying into the system to earn,” Murray added. “It creates a devastating shortfall that risks tens of thousands of Americans losing their housing. So this bill causes real pain for communities across the country.”
Murray also criticized House Republicans for releasing their stopgap spending bill just days before the deadline and then leaving for a recess right after voting to send the measure to the Senate. The move prevented the Senate from amending the CR in any way if Congress wanted to avoid a shutdown.
The Senate voted to reject amendments from Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Paul before approving the bill.
Schumer’s decision
Schumer said he voted to limit debate to avoid giving Trump, Elon Musk and U.S. DOGE Service the authority to determine which federal employees would have been exempt from the effects of a shutdown and which would have essentially been furloughed. Under federal law, both categories of federal workers receive back pay once the shutdown ends.
“In a shutdown, Donald Trump and DOGE will have the power to determine what is considered essential and what is not — and their views on what is not essential would be mean and vicious and would decimate vital services and cause unimaginable harm to the American people,” Schumer said.
The Democrats who voted to advance the stopgap spending bill, Schumer said, wanted to keep attention on Trump’s actions as president and not divert focus to the wide-reaching repercussions of shutting down the government.
“A shutdown will be a costly distraction from this all important fight,” Schumer said.
The stopgap spending bill, he noted, doesn’t change the Constitution or the laws that say Congress controls spending and that the president must implement those laws.
“The CR does not change the underlying law, making the Trump administration’s impoundments and mass firings illegal,” Schumer said. “Nothing in the CR changes the Impoundment Control Act, the foundation of Congress’ appropriations authority. And the authorization laws that require USAID and other agencies to exist and to operate the programs Congress has assigned to them. Nothing changes Title 5, governing the civil service, the Administrative Procedures Act and so on.”
Senate rules require at least 60 lawmakers vote to cut off debate on a bill. The GOP holds 53 seats at the moment and needed Democratic buy-in to proceed with regular bills. That procedural vote was 62-38.
Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Dick Durbin of Illinois, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Gary Peters of Michigan, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, King, Schumer and Shaheen voted to limit debate.
Delays on spending bills
Congress was supposed to draft, debate and approve the dozen annual appropriations bills by the start of this fiscal year on Oct. 1, nearly six months ago.
The bills fund the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans’ Affairs.
They also provide funding for Congress, the Supreme Court and numerous smaller agencies, like NASA and the National Science Foundation.
The House Appropriations Committee approved all 12 of its bills on party-line votes and the House was able to pass five of those across the floor last summer without broad Democratic support.
The Senate panel approved 11 of the bills in July and August with broadly bipartisan votes, but none of the measures came up on the floor for debate.
The House and Senate have regularly negotiated final versions of the spending bills, even if they didn’t receive floor approval, and could have begun that conference process in September, or even during their August recess.
But congressional leaders opted to focus their attention on the November elections and used a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running through mid-December, an expected and rather predictable move.
After Republicans won unified control of government, Congress used a second continuing resolution to keep the government funded through March 14. GOP leaders and Trump wanted to hold over negotiations on the full-year bills until they were in office.
The leaders of the Appropriations committees spent the last couple months trying to get bipartisan, bicameral agreement on the total spending level for the current fiscal year. But that ended this weekend when House Republicans released a stopgap spending bill to fund the government through September.
The House voted 217-213 on Tuesday to send the continuing resolution to the Senate. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie was the only GOP lawmaker to vote against it and Maine Rep. Jared Golden was the only Democratic member to support the bill in that chamber.
‘Congratulations to Chuck Schumer’
Trump had said he would sign the stopgap spending bill, according to a Statement of Administration Policy issued Tuesday.
“H.R. 1968 includes a focused set of critical funding anomalies to ensure the Administration can carry out important programs and fulfill its obligations, including veterans’ healthcare and benefits, pay raises for junior enlisted servicemembers, operations of our air traffic control system, along with nutrition and housing programs,” the SAP states.
“The bill also provides the Department of Defense with the resources and flexibility necessary to align funding to current priorities in consultation with the Congress and responds to emerging threats by allowing for ‘new starts,’ including other key provisions.”
Trump took to social media ahead of the procedural vote to thank Schumer for announcing he’d vote to limit debate.
“Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took ‘guts’ and courage! The big Tax Cuts, L.A. fire fix, Debt Ceiling Bill, and so much more, is coming. We should all work together on that very dangerous situation,” Trump wrote. “A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights. Again, really good and smart move by Senator Schumer. This could lead to something big for the USA, a whole new direction and beginning! DJT”
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