President Donald Trump signed legislation into law on Wednesday (November 12), ending the longest government shutdown in American history, after the Republican-controlled chamber passed the package by a vote of 222-209 in the US House of Representatives to restore food aid, pay many federal workers, and revive a hobbled air-traffic control system.
Meanwhile, Democrats were frustrated that they failed to secure a deal to extend federal health insurance subsidies despite a long-running standoff led by their Senate colleagues.
The bill, signed by Trump and passed by the US Senate on November 11, will bring federal workers idled by the 43-day shutdown back to work starting Thursday, but it is unclear how quickly full government services and operations will resume.
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Reuters reported that the deal would extend funding through January 30, putting the federal government on track to add about $1.8 trillion a year to its massive $38 trillion debt burden.
The end of the shutdown raises some hope that critical services like air travel will have some time to recover, as the Thanksgiving holiday travel wave is just two weeks away and Christmas is in December, when travel and shopping are at their peak.
The US shutdown, caused by a bitter dispute between the two political parties, Republicans and Democrats, over budget approval, has resulted in a loss of more than a tenth of a percentage point of gross domestic product (GDP) in about six weeks, although most of this lost output is expected to be recovered in the coming months, according to economists’ estimates.
Reuters’s reporting contributed to this article.