U.S. House Passes Stopgap Budget, Averting Shutdown Until December

WASHINGTON — The U.S. federal government will avoid a shutdown through December 11, past the November midterm elections, ending a pattern of funding standoffs that has recurred since the start of Donald Trump's second term.

The House passed a stopgap spending bill extending federal funding until December 11 by a vote of 370-48 on the 1st, according to The Hill and other congressional news outlets. Nineteen Republicans and 29 Democrats voted against the measure. The Senate had approved the bill by an overwhelming margin on the 8th of last month, just before recessing.

The bill now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature.

The measure freezes federal spending at current levels until December 11, one month after the midterm elections. The current fiscal year's budget expires September 30, and avoiding a shutdown would normally require passage of a fiscal 2027 budget. But none of the 12 appropriations bills has cleared Congress, leaving lawmakers to extend funding as a stopgap.

Last year, the first year of Trump's second term, Congress failed to pass either a full-year budget or a stopgap measure, triggering a shutdown. Federal employees went unpaid and large numbers were furloughed, disrupting air travel and halting benefit payments. That shutdown lasted 43 days, the longest on record. This year, the Department of Homeland Security endured a 76-day partial shutdown amid Democratic resistance to the Trump administration's hardline immigration policies.

Analysts attribute the unusual bipartisan support to reluctance on both sides to be blamed for a shutdown ahead of the midterms. With voter frustration already running high over rising oil prices stemming from the Iran war and inflationary pressure from tariffs, lawmakers worried that a shutdown could accelerate an uncontrollable erosion of public support.

The final step is Trump's signature, though it remains uncertain whether he will sign. Trump has repeatedly said he will not sign any legislation until Congress passes a voter identification bill, the Save America Act, that would require proof of citizenship to vote and sharply restrict mail-in voting. There is precedent for another path: a large-scale housing supply bill passed with bipartisan support in June took effect automatically 10 days after transmission without a presidential signature, and the spending bill could become law the same way.

Passage of the stopgap measure pushes politically sensitive items past the midterms, including a $95 billion (about 130 trillion won) emergency aid package for the Iran war and a $350 billion (about 478 trillion won) increase in the Defense Department's base budget.

The bill also incorporates Democratic demands. It includes provisions barring the White House Office of Management and Budget from arbitrarily intervening in or altering procedures for disbursing federal grants, and blocking the Border Patrol from using legal loopholes to secure additional funding for immigration enforcement.