Senate ends longest US government shutdown with 60-40 vote, but many questions remain
The US Senate on Monday approved a compromise measure to reopen the federal government, ending what lawmakers called the longest shutdown in American history but stopping short of resolving a host of lingering political and practical problems.
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The 60-40 vote — carried by nearly every Senate Republican and eight Democrats — restored funding for agencies whose budgets expired on Oct. 1 and pushed a final decision on health insurance subsidies for 24 million Americans to December. That delay has left advocates and beneficiaries uneasy that those benefits may still be at risk.
What the deal does — and does not — deliver
The agreement extends government funding through Jan. 30 and explicitly prevents scheduled federal workforce reductions until that date. It also secures the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — the nation’s principal food aid programme — through Sept. 30 of next year, a concession that sought to blunt fears of an immediate hunger crisis for millions of low-income families.
But it does not guarantee the continuation of health insurance subsidies beyond the short-term fix: a separate vote in December will decide their fate. Critics on the Democratic side say the temporary settlement abdicates leverage and leaves crucial programs vulnerable to future negotiations.
“We wish we could do more,” said Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat. “The government shutting down seemed to be an opportunity to lead us to better policy. It didn’t work.”
Political fallout and market reaction
The compromise came just days after Democrats celebrated high-profile wins in New Jersey and Virginia and an upset in New York City politics, developments that sharpened tensions inside the party over how to respond to a shutdown that many voters blamed on Republicans. A late-October Reuters/Ipsos poll indicated 50% of Americans held Republicans responsible for the stalemate and 43% blamed Democrats.
Financial markets responded positively to news of a reopening: US stocks rose on the expectation that reduced political uncertainty would ease short-term economic worries. But analysts warned the pause in hostilities is fragile. The deal will add to federal borrowing pressures — keeping the government on a trajectory that lawmakers say could add roughly $1.8 trillion a year to a national debt that is already around $38 trillion.
Air travel chaos underlined human cost of the shutdown
Air traffic control shortages and the president’s blunt response
One of the clearest and most immediate consequences of the shutdown has been disruption in the nation’s airports. The Federal Aviation Administration said the system was strained as thousands of air traffic controllers worked without pay, took second jobs, or missed shifts because they could not afford childcare or other expenses.
Over a recent weekend, airlines said about 1.2 million passengers experienced delays or cancellations tied to air traffic problems. The FAA reported that at the 30 largest airports, between 20% and 40% of controllers were absent on any given day during the worst of the crisis; the agency had been roughly 3,500 controllers short of its target even before the shutdown.
President Donald Trump took an unusually personal tack, demanding that air traffic controllers return to work and threatening to “substantially ‘dock'” the pay of anyone who did not. On social media he vowed $10,000 bonuses for those who stayed on the job and invited resignations from those who would not.
“All Air Traffic Controllers must get back to work, NOW!!! Anyone who doesn’t will be substantially ‘docked,'” he posted, adding later in a television interview, “I don’t know — I’ll get it from some place,” when asked how the bonuses would be paid.
Union leaders and legal analysts questioned whether the White House could lawfully deny pay under existing contracts once the government reopens or how the proposed bonuses would be funded without Congressional approval.
Wider implications: governance, trust and the next fights
The shutdown exposed acute tensions in a system where the executive branch has at times tried to unilaterally adjust spending, prompting questions about the balance of powers. Democrats pointed to recent executive actions to cancel spending and trim payrolls as an encroachment on Congress’s constitutional authority over the purse.
For federal employees and beneficiaries of social programmes, the shutdown was more than a political standoff; it was a week-to-week crisis affecting paychecks, food security and public services. The deal’s authors sought to limit immediate pain, but they left unresolved the broader political battles that produced the shutdown in the first place.
As lawmakers contemplate a December showdown on the subsidies and an expiration date in late January for the current funding patch, observers are left to ask: will this temporary truce lead to more durable policy compromises, or simply reset the clock on the next confrontation? And for international travellers and investors, can anything be done to inoculate critical infrastructure and markets from the instability of domestic politics?
For now, the lights are back on in Washington — for the agencies at least — and hundreds of thousands of federal workers can expect to receive back pay. But the price of reopening may be deferred fights over health insurance, spending priorities and the rules that govern how the United States funds itself. Those debates will shape not only Washington’s calendar but daily life for millions across the country.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
