Congressional leaders have agreed to a short-term funding deal in a move that aims to avoid the damage of a pre-election government shutdown and also send a cold shoulder to Donald Trump.
The likelihood of a government shutdown had been increasing when current government funding expired on September 30th, as Republicans insisted on tying future funding to a bill requiring voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship (known as the SAVE Act and supported by President Trump but opposed by Democrats).
After weeks of behind-closed-doors maneuvering, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson announced a compromise that would provide three more months of funding while separating it from the SAVE Act, adding that any other path would have been “political malpractice.”
The new budget maintains current spending levels but provides the beleaguered Secret Service with an emergency budget of $231 million to provide extra protection to Trump, the Republican presidential nominee who has been the victim of two assassination attempts, and his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election.
It marks a concession for Johnson, who has so far stuck to Trump’s demand that government funding be conditional on passage of the SAVE Act, an article of faith for the former president and his allies because of their unsupported belief in widespread election fraud.
In a letter to fellow MPs, Johnson made clear his resignation to the inevitable outcome.
“While this is not the solution any of us would like, it is the most prudent course under the current circumstances,” he wrote. “History teaches us, and current polls prove, that shutting down the government with less than 40 days until a fateful election would be political malfeasance.”
The interim reconciliation, known as a continuing settlement and which would have the effect of postponing spending negotiations until after the presidential election, was welcomed by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who said the settlement could have been reached sooner.
“I’m pleased that bipartisan negotiations were able to quickly result in a government funding deal without budget cuts or poison pills, but this same deal could have been made two weeks ago,” Schumer said. “Instead, Speaker Johnson followed MAGA’s lead and wasted valuable time.”
Trump is believed to have favored triggering a shutdown by insisting on passing the SAVE Act, fearing that the Biden administration, including Vice President Harris, would be blamed, just as he did when he instigated a five-week shutdown in 2018 while he was president.
Johnson has held talks with Trump about how to resolve the impasse, including a visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Politico wrote in its Playbook column on Monday that the compromise was a “formal stab in the back at President Trump,” noting that Trump had not responded to Johnson’s move as of publication.
The website Punchbowl argued that Johnson and President Trump made a political mistake in pushing the Save Act, and suggested the speaker weakened his own position in the process.
“The SAVE Act was not the political hit Johnson or Trump had hoped for,” the Post wrote. “So Johnson got very little — not nothing, but close — and he will be negotiating a spending deal during a lame-duck session in a highly polarized post-election period with his own political future on the line.”