BREAKINGBREAKING,
The successful vote means the long-delayed bill will now be passed on to President Trump to sign into law.
The House of Representatives has passed a federal government spending package, clearing the final hurdle and bringing an end to the longest government shutdown in United States history – at least for now.
In a vote held late on Wednesday evening in the Republican-held House, the bill was backed by 222 lawmakers – including six Democrats – while 209 voted against it, including two Republicans.
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The long-delayed bill will now be passed on to President Donald Trump to sign into law.
On Monday night, the upper chamber of Congress had approved the spending package by a vote of 60 to 40 to fund the US government through January 30, reinstating pay to hundreds of thousands of federal workers after six gruelling weeks.
All but essential government services had ground to a halt amid the shutdown.
The breakthrough came following negotiations last weekend that saw seven Democrats and one independent agree to back the updated spending package and end the shutdown, which entered its 42nd day on Tuesday.
Crucially, however, the deal has not resolved one of the shutdown’s most central issues – healthcare subsidies for 24 million Americans under the Affordable Care Act, which the Trump administration planned to cut.
For weeks, Democrats repeatedly blocked the bill’s passage in Congress, saying the measure was necessary to force the government to address escalating healthcare costs for low-income Americans.
Shortly before Wednesday’s vote, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson accused his Democratic colleagues of using American citizens as “leverage” in their “political game”, as he denounced them for preventing the resolution’s passage in September.
“Since that time, Senate Democrats have voted 14 times to close the government. Republicans have voted a collective 15 times to open the government for the people, and the Democrats voted that many times to close it,” he said.
As part of the deal breaking the impasse, Senate Republicans agreed to hold a vote on the issue by December, raising fears there could be another shutdown in January.
The agreement had also provoked anger among Democrats, who preferred to keep holding out, including Illinois Governor JB Pritzker – considered a contender for the 2028 presidential election – who called it an “empty promise” earlier this week.
David Smith, an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, also described the agreement as “just a stopgap arrangement”.
“The deal that they’ve reached means most of the government will shut down again in January if they can’t come to another agreement,” he told Al Jazeera earlier this week.
Democrats who supported the deal were Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin from Illinois, John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jackie Rosen from Nevada, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire, and Tim Kaine from Virginia.
Angus King, an independent from Maine, also backed the deal.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow shortly.
