President Donald Trump signed legislation on Tuesday to end the partial government shutdown, which began on Sunday.
Trump signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act in the Oval Office while flanked by Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY), among others.
The legislation funds five appropriations bills to end the shutdown and includes a continuing resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security until Friday, February 13, at midnight.
“I’m thrilled to sign the Consolidated Appropriations Act to immediately reopen the federal government and fund the vast majority of operations through the rest of the fiscal year,” Trump said during the signing ceremony, adding:
This bill is a great victory for the American people. Instead of a bloated and wasteful omnibus monstrosity full of special interest handouts, we’ve succeeded in passing a fiscally responsible package that actually cuts wasteful federal spending, while supporting critical programs for the safety, security, and prosperity of the American people.
He underscored many features of the bill, including ending taxpayer subsidies for “woke programming” on PBS and NPR, cutting “nearly $10 billion in wasteful foreign aid spending,” continuing USAID’s closure, and establishing an “America First Opportunity Fund for responsibly providing foreign assistance to nations where it actually serves American interests.”
Trump noted, “This bill also cuts funding to abusive and weaponized IRS programs…It builds on the Republican recissions package passed last summer, which saved Americans billions and billions of dollars.”
“It fully funds our military, includes a well-deserved pay raise for all American service members, and makes historic investments in the American shipbuilding industry, which is great. We’re really starting to do something incredible with shipbuilding,” he added.
It also includes measures to continue combating crime in Washington, DC; to continue funding deportation flights; and to designate within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) the Melania Trump Foster Youth to Independence Initiative. Trump’s efforts to restore law and order to the nation’s capital have had pronounced results, as Breitbart News noted Monday.
