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A group of Democratic senators joined with Republicans to strike a deal on Sunday night that would take the first step in ending the longest US government shutdown in history.
At least eight Democrats were willing to vote in favour of a negotiated deal with the White House and Senate Republicans, according to a source familiar with the closed-door talks.
That would be enough for the plan to pass the Republican-controlled Senate and be sent to the House of Representatives. A procedural vote was expected to be held later in the Senate on Sunday night.
US President Donald Trump told reporters as he returned to the White House on Sunday evening: “We’re getting very close on the shutdown . . . it looks like we are getting close to the shutdown ending. You’ll know very soon.”
The deal would reopen the federal government and keep it funded until the end of January. It would also reverse all of the lay-offs initiated by the White House during the five-week shutdown, and guarantee furloughed workers receive back pay.
But the agreement also included a concession on healthcare tax credits, which had been a key sticking point for many Democratic lawmakers.
Democrats have for weeks demanded an extension for the tax credits, which are due to expire at the end of the year. But under the terms of the deal struck on Sunday, there are no guarantees on the future of the tax credits, only an assurance that a vote will be held on the issue no later than mid-December.
Many Democratic lawmakers in both the Senate and the House expressed outrage over the move.
Hakeem Jeffries, the senior Democrat in the lower chamber, said he opposed the bill because it failed to protect healthcare tax credits for American households.
“We will fight the GOP bill in the House of Representatives,” Jeffries said in a statement on Sunday.
“As a result of the Republican refusal to address the healthcare crisis that they have created, tens of millions of everyday Americans are going to see their costs skyrocket.”
The move came after top Trump administration officials warned on Sunday — the 40th day of the shutdown — that US air travel would slow to a “trickle” and US economic growth could turn negative if the stalemate continued for much longer.
US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said the economic impact of the shutdown would only get “worse and worse” as the impasse disrupted air travel and cut the flow of much-needed food stamps for low-income Americans.
The US government first shut down on October 1, after Republican and Democratic lawmakers failed to agree on a plan to fund the government for the new federal fiscal year.
The shutdown has led to the furlough of hundreds of thousands of federal workers, while hundreds of thousands more have been expected to continue to work without pay.
But the stalemate has hit millions more Americans in recent days, imperilling benefits for the poorest Americans, disrupting air travel and piling political pressure on Republicans and Democrats alike.
Funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or Snap, lapsed on November 1 for the first time in the scheme’s more than 60-year history, affecting the more than 40mn poorer Americans who rely on the food stamp benefits.
More recently, on Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates air travel in the US, ordered airlines to begin reducing flight numbers from Friday, rising to a 10 per cent reduction by November 14.
Republicans on Capitol Hill have long pushed for a stop-gap measure called a continuing resolution that would keep the government funded at current levels. Democrats have said they would only agree to a continuing resolution if Republicans agreed to restore healthcare tax credits due to expire at the end of the year.
In a series of social media posts on Saturday, Trump attacked health insurance companies and rejected the idea of extending the tax credits. Instead, he floated the idea of direct government payments to taxpayers, writing: “PAY THE PEOPLE, NOT THE INSURANCE COMPANIES!”
