The federal government is staying open. The U.S. House voted 370-48 on Tuesday to pass a short-term spending bill funding federal agencies through Dec. 11, averting a shutdown that would otherwise have begun at midnight Wednesday when the 2026 fiscal year ends.

The continuing resolution now heads to President Trump's desk after the Senate passed it by an overwhelming margin earlier in the week. Trump is expected to sign it before the Wednesday deadline, keeping paychecks flowing to federal workers and services running at agencies from the Pentagon to the Social Security Administration.

The lopsided House vote reflected bipartisan eagerness to avoid a shutdown fight just weeks before the November midterms, when a lapse in federal pay, national park closures and stalled government services could become a political liability for incumbents in both parties. Federal News Network reported that leadership in both chambers pushed to clear the measure early rather than risk a repeat of past standoffs that dragged into the final hours before a deadline.

A Short Runway, Not a Deal

The bill is a "clean" continuing resolution — it largely extends current funding levels rather than settling the dozen full-year appropriations bills still unresolved. That means the same fight returns in mid-December, compressed into the lame-duck stretch right after Election Day. GovExec reported that appropriators on both sides still have to reconcile sharply different spending priorities for fiscal 2027, including defense levels and a long list of policy riders neither party has agreed to trade away.

NEITHER SIDE WANTED TO OWN A SHUTDOWN HEADING INTO NOVEMBER

Federal employee unions had spent weeks bracing for a possible lapse as the Sept. 30 deadline approached. Missing it would have furloughed hundreds of thousands of workers and suspended a wide swath of government services with early voting already underway in several states — a scenario both parties' leadership worked to avoid. The annual budget calendar and the mechanics of the deadline are tracked by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

What happens next depends on whether the same appropriators who wrote this stopgap can finish the dozen full-year bills before the new December deadline, or whether Congress ends up passing yet another short-term patch to clear the decks for the holidays. For now, agencies can plan on staying funded — and campaigning members of Congress can head home without a shutdown hanging over their heads.