By Richard Rubin, Olivia Beavers and Katy Stech Ferek
WASHINGTON -- The GOP-led House was set to approve a spending package late Wednesday that reopens the government after a record-length shutdown, with the measure expected to overcome last-minute bipartisan complaints about a provision offering potentially lucrative payouts to some Republican senators.
The package extends funding for the federal government through Jan. 30 and includes full-year funding for the Agriculture Department, military construction and the legislative branch. The bill also includes language guaranteeing the reversal of federal layoffs initiated by the Trump administration during the shutdown -- and a moratorium on future cuts.
The House vote is coming days after a band of senators who caucus with the Democrats broke with the party in that chamber to advance a legislative package to reopen the government.
Senate Democrats had insisted for more than a month that any deal to reopen the government include an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies. Some Republicans were sympathetic to the demands because more than 20 million Americans get the tax credits to lower the cost of their health plans and are set to see their premiums rise sharply next year. President Trump and GOP leaders said, however, that they would only negotiate after the government was reopened.
In the end, eight members of the Senate Democratic caucus crossed over to back the GOP plan funding the government, alongside a pledge by Republican leaders for a vote on ACA subsidies by mid-December. While Republicans have a 53-47 majority, Senate rules require 60 votes to advance most legislation.
Republicans have a thin margin in the House, and most Democrats are set to oppose the measure. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) has expressed confidence that the measure will pass. In a good sign for GOP leadership, the House Freedom Caucus backed the bill, praising the funding patch in a memo as a "total win for HFC, conservative leadership, and messaging." Rep. Victoria Spartz (R., Ind.), who was one of two GOP lawmakers to vote against the House stopgap bill in September, said she would vote in favor of this one.
House Democratic leaders are pressuring members to oppose the bill, and most are expected to hold the line, citing anger over the lack of healthcare provisions. Some possible defectors include Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, who previously voted for the House-passed version in September, and Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas.
In a late wrinkle, House lawmakers took issue with a provision that allows senators to seek damages of $500,000 if federal investigators collect their phone records without their knowledge as part of an investigation. The provision is seen as designed to help eight senators whose records were obtained as part of former special counsel Jack Smith's probe into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Democrats and Republicans alike attacked it. But several GOP lawmakers indicated they didn't want their objections to derail reopening the government and instead would try to kill the provision with separate legislation afterwards.
"That provision needs to get fixed," Rep. Chip Roy (R., Texas) said Tuesday during a House Rules Committee meeting.
The shutdown, which began Oct. 1, furloughed hundreds of thousands of federal workers and required others to work without immediate paychecks. The lapse in funding led to delayed flights and prevented the release of important economic data. It also threatened food benefits for millions of households, closed museums, limited national park access and prevented people from resolving tax questions with the Internal Revenue Service.
Pausing government spending doesn't end up saving money for the government. A bipartisan 2019 Senate report found that shutdowns caused the U.S. to spend more than $300 million on extra administrative work, lost revenue and late fees. Also, while the White House fired thousands of workers during the shutdown, the legislation funding the government requires that they be rehired. Federal workers, whether they were on the job or not, will get back pay.
The end of the federal government shutdown will leave behind a modest but real scar on the U.S. economy and see taxpayers compensating furloughed employees who stayed home and didn't work during the funding lapse.
"It was an irritant more than a shock to the economy but that irritant was becoming greater and greater," said Gregory Daco, chief economist at the accounting firm EY. "It takes more than a couple of weeks of a government shutdown for there to be a lasting mark on the economy, and we were just starting to see that."
The combined effects of a six-week shutdown will reduce growth in gross domestic product by 1.5 percentage points for the fourth quarter, according to a Congressional Budget Office report issued last month. The government's reopening would reverse most of those effects as back pay makes its way to workers.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said lawmakers "gave new meaning to fiscal irresponsibility" with their behavior during the shutdown by forgoing the usual legislative process when discussing very expensive policies, such the healthcare subsidy extensions.
"Lawmakers should stop papering over their fiscal recklessness and face the tough decisions head on," she said.
Ultimately, there will still be a net loss of about $11 billion in GDP from the shutdown, according to CBO. Some canceled travel plans won't get rescheduled, and some federal contractors won't be able to recoup all their losses. Longer shutdowns are more painful because they mean more missed paychecks that eat into federal workers' savings.
Write to Richard Rubin at richard.rubin@wsj.com, Olivia Beavers at Olivia.Beavers@wsj.com and Katy Stech Ferek at katy.stech@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 12, 2025 13:32 ET (18:32 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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