WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump signed a massive spending package of about $1.2 trillion on Tuesday, ending a partial federal government shutdown that began three days earlier but setting the stage for a heated debate in Congress over Homeland Security funding.
The president moved quickly to sign the bill after the House passed it by a vote of 217-214.
“This bill is a huge victory for the American people,” President Trump said.
Tuesday’s vote concludes Congress’ work on 11 annual spending bills that fund government agencies and programs until Sept. 30.
Despite their personal frustrations with the bill, President Trump and Republican leaders had urged lawmakers to go along, hoping to avoid a debilitating government shutdown like the one that paralyzed Washington for 43 days last fall.
The House passed the bill early Tuesday in a hard-fought victory for Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, who had to appease a fractious Republican conference to support a deal that only temporarily funds DHS but excludes certain conservative priorities.
Both Republican leaders have made frantic efforts in recent days to quell a last-minute revolt by conservatives led by Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna over demands for stricter voter ID laws. Luna and others had requested that a voter ID request form be attached to the funding package. It ignored party leaders who wanted to shelve the issue and avoid a protracted funding battle.
President Trump met privately with Luna and others at the White House, called each member of Congress to urge them to contain votes and sent a team to the Capitol to end the partial shutdown early. Republican leaders have privately sought to appease conservative resistance by finding other ways to push through stricter voter ID legislation, even as they acknowledge they lack the votes in the Senate.
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Rep. Andy Ogles, who held up his vote because of the voter ID bill, said he didn’t get any promises from leadership, but added, “I think they’re working on a plan.”
For many government agencies, Congress’ spending bill brings much-needed certainty after months of contentious funding talks and an extended shutdown in the fall. The bill would fund three-quarters of government agencies and make modest cuts to overall Congressional spending, but it declines to cut programs like the NIH, Pell grants and election security grants.
It also funds President Trump’s priorities, such as raising military pay and making new investments in aviation safety. And funding for international aid programs has also been cut following the White House’s decision last year to shut down USAID.
But Congress was unable to agree on a budget for one key department: the Department of Homeland Security.
“The real battle begins over the Homeland Act,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday, foreshadowing a painful political battle ahead with Democrats over changes to federal immigration enforcement.
President Trump had privately agreed to stopgap funding for DHS with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as a way to defuse the national debate over ICE, which has heated up in the wake of the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Preti in Minneapolis. — Agency
