President Trump on Friday signed the $854 billion spending package that had been passed by the House and Senate. The signing, announced by Senate Republicans, averts a partial government shutdown after the fiscal year ends on September 30.
The legislation provides full funding through fiscal 2019 for broad swaths of the federal government, including defense programs and the departments of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services. Between this package and an earlier one that provided funding for the legislative branch, energy and water, military construction and veterans affairs, some 75 percent of 2019 discretionary funding has now been passed. But the latest package provides only funds some parts of the government — including the Department of Homeland Security — through December 7, setting up a late-year showdown over funding for Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico.
The signing marks the first time since 1996 that the government has gotten five of the 12 annual spending bills signed into law before the start of the new fiscal year, according to The Hill.
