Agreement to end the US government shutdown this week

Washington is poised to end the longest government shutdown in its history. Late Sunday, the Senate passed a motion with 60 votes in favor and 40 against, advancing a temporary funding bill that will allow the government to reopen this week.

To achieve this, eight Democratic senators broke party discipline and joined the Republican majority to unblock the bill after fourteen failed votes since the shutdown began on October 1. Although the vote had already taken place, at the time of this writing, the bill had still not completed the full legislative process in the Senate.

It will then be sent back to the House of Representatives , where swift passage is expected, as the current text was their initiative. The vote will take place as soon as members of Congress from across the country are able to travel to Washington between today and tomorrow.

It should be noted that the chaos at airports caused by the lack of air traffic controllers and security personnel following the federal government shutdown has led to numerous cancellations. Yesterday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called on members of Congress to return to the Capitol so they can vote within 36 hours.

"After 40 days of unnecessary suffering, it appears that our long national nightmare is finally coming to an end," he declared. Johnson promised "long days and nights of work" to make up for lost time and get the legislative agenda back on track, which has been stalled since mid-September.

US President Donald Trump yesterday urged air traffic controllers to return to work. On social media, he complained that many professionals are still not working, "even though they know they will receive their full pay," despite Sunday night's announcement.

Trump promised a $10,000 bonus to "great patriots who didn't take time off" during the government shutdown. At the same time, he made it clear that he was "not happy" with "those who did nothing but complain and took time off, even though everyone knew they would be fully paid in the near future."

While normalcy returns to airports, procedures are progressing on Capitol Hill so that the regulatory project can pass the final stages and come into effect this week to reopen the Government.

Even so, this is not a definitive solution. The agreement includes extending public funding until the end of January 2026 and accompanying that extension with three long-term spending projects for the most urgent departments. In exchange, Republicans have agreed to hold a vote before the end of the year on expanding Obamacare tax credits, one of the Democrats' main demands.

However , the commitment is only verbal and does not guarantee the approval of the subsidies, which has caused deep unease in the progressive wing of the party with the eight dissidents who have supported this agreement, since what was initially sought was a binding pact to save Obamacare funding.

The negotiations have broken the deadlock amid intense social and economic pressure. Hundreds of thousands of government employees are still not being paid, beneficiaries of the federal food assistance program were on the verge of losing their benefits, and the country's air traffic control system is on the brink of collapse due to a shortage of air traffic controllers.

Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen defended her decision to support the agreement, asserting that "keeping the government shut down for another week or month would not change the outcome" of the negotiations and reminded everyone that " public employees and the most vulnerable families cannot continue to pay the price for this political standoff."