President Trump signed Republicans’ yearlong government funding extension, avoiding a partial government shutdown, similar to what he experienced in his first term.
He signed the continuing resolution Saturday, the White House said.
The stopgap bill will extend government funding until Sept. 30, which is the end of the current fiscal year. It also includes bumps in spending to Mr. Trump’s policy priorities while making cuts along the way.
Mr. Trump’s support of the bill helped unify Republicans who often never support stopgap funding bills to coalesce behind the House GOP’s funding extension.
Under the bill’s hood are roughly $13 billion in cuts to nondefense spending on projects that lawmakers requested for their districts, increases of $6 billion each for defense spending and veterans’ health care, and half a billion-dollar bump for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been running low on funding for detention and deportation of illegal immigrants.
Republicans largely viewed the stopgap as a means to an end that would let the White House and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency continue taking a hatchet to the federal government and offered the opportunity to seek deeper spending cuts in the GOP’s budget process.
Democrats strongly rebuked the measure for that exact reason, but stumbled in their push for cross-chamber unity to stop the bill from passing.
Neither side was fond of the measure because running the government under a full-year continuing resolution effectively hamstrings agencies from starting new programs and contracts and doesn’t let lawmakers make their mark on this year’s spending bills.
While House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, was able to gun the bill through his chamber without widespread Democratic support, it was Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, who played a large role in passing the CR in the upper chamber.
Mr. Schumer caved to the GOP’s pressure campaign of either supporting the bill or shuttering the government, which he criticized as a “Hobson’s choice.” Still, he didn’t want to give Mr. Trump unfettered power to ravage through the government during a shutdown.
His choice, which gave political cover to more moderate lawmakers, roiled many Democrats in both chambers.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, and his top lieutenants refused to answer whether they still had confidence in Mr. Schumer’s ability to lead in the Senate, while Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, was more blunt.
“That is an absolute dereliction of duty on the part of the Democratic leadership,” Mr. Sanders, who is a member of Mr. Schumer’s leadership team, said on social media. “Nobody in this Senate should have voted for this dangerous bill.”
Mr. Schumer and nine other Democratic senators helped move the bill through a procedural hurdle in the Senate, although ultimately only two members of the party’s caucus, Sens. Angus King of Maine and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, voted for it on final passage.
The president on Friday lauded Mr. Schumer for his decision.
“I appreciate Sen. Schumer and I think he did the right thing,” the president said. “Really, I’m very impressed by that.”
Democrats’ fears were proved valid by a late-night cutting spree under the order of the president that requires seven federal agencies with responsibilities like labor mediation and homelessness, funding state museums and libraries, and overseeing government funding of news outlets around the world to “be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”
- Lindsey McPherson and Jeff Mordock contributed to this report.
