国会通过法案，结束美国历史上持续时间最长的政府停摆
【中美创新时报2025年11月12日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）众议院周三最终通过了一项旨在重新开放政府的支出方案，并将该法案提交给特朗普总统签署，几乎可以肯定地结束了美国历史上持续时间最长的政府停摆。《纽约时报》凯蒂·埃德蒙森对此作了下述详细报道。
在政府停摆的第43天，众议院以222票对209票通过了这项支出法案。此前几天，民主党参议员打破了党内阻挠，与共和党人联手推动该法案的通过，此举在民主党内部引发了强烈反弹。这是众议院近两个月来首次举行投票，此前众议院因政府停摆而休会了很长时间。
六名民主党议员与共和党议员一起投票赞成该法案。只有两名共和党议员投了反对票，他们分别是来自肯塔基州的托马斯·马西和来自佛罗里达州的格雷格·斯图布。
特朗普先生原定于周三晚签署该法案。当天早些时候，他的预算办公室在一份声明中称赞该法案，称其不包含“民主党人要求的任何党派偏见、‘毒丸条款’”。
这指的是民主党在政府停摆斗争中的主要诉求：延长将于年底到期的联邦医疗保健补贴。大多数国会共和党人强烈反对延长补贴。虽然特朗普最初曾表现出就此问题达成两党协议的意愿，但随着政府停摆的持续，他明确表示自己无意谈判。
他拒绝这样做，最终导致参议院中一群重要的民主党人得出结论：数十万联邦雇员被迫休假，数百万美国人面临失去食品援助的风险，还有数百万人面临航空旅行中断，现在是时候找到摆脱政府停摆的途径了。
在众议院，投票支持重新开放政府的六位民主党众议员分别是：加利福尼亚州的亚当·格雷、华盛顿州的玛丽·格鲁森坎普·佩雷斯、缅因州的贾里德·戈尔登、德克萨斯州的亨利·奎利亚尔、纽约州的汤姆·苏奥齐和北卡罗来纳州的唐·戴维斯。他们都来自摇摆选区。
“历史告诉我们，政府停摆永远不会改变结果，只会增加美国人民付出的代价，”俄克拉荷马州共和党众议员、拨款委员会主席汤姆·科尔说。“过去43天里，事实没有改变，所需的票数没有改变，前进的道路也没有改变。”
参议院民主党人的倒戈引发了众议院民主党人的愤怒，他们和参议院的大多数同僚一样表示，他们的党派应该团结一致，坚决反对任何未能解决医疗保健成本问题的政府拨款法案。
“全国各地都有联邦雇员领不到工资，”纽约州民主党众议员亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯说。“全国数百万领取食品券的民众，他们的食品保障受到了威胁，我们必须弄清楚这究竟是怎么回事。”
奥卡西奥-科尔特斯女士表示，特朗普政府在政府停摆期间对美国人民施加了“残酷”的待遇，包括试图停止向食品券提供全额联邦资金。
“我们不能用我们的懦弱来纵容这种残忍的行为，”她说。
民主党人将医疗保健补贴提升为一个政治议题，他们急于继续向共和党人施压，要求他们延长补贴期限，否则将面临选民的强烈反对。民调显示，绝大多数选民都希望保留这些补贴。
纽约州民主党领袖、众议员哈基姆·杰弗里斯表示，他和党内其他领导人将提交一份解除议事规则申请——这是一种绕过领导层、强行将法案提交众议院审议的程序性策略——以将补贴期限延长三年。这项措施不太可能获得共和党的大力支持。
杰弗里斯先生在众议院发言时说：“这场斗争只有两种结局。要么共和党人最终决定今年延长《平价医疗法案》的税收抵免，要么美国人民明年将共和党人赶下台，并彻底结束唐纳德·J·特朗普的议长生涯。”
众议院周三批准的妥协方案包括一项支出方案，该方案将为政府提供资金直至明年一月，以及三项单独的支出法案，分别涵盖与农业、军事建设、退伍军人和立法机构相关的项目，直至 2026 年的大部分时间。
该方案包含一项条款，旨在撤销政府停摆期间对联邦雇员的裁员，并确保为被强制休假的雇员提供追溯工资。
其中包括一项措施，该措施将为共和党参议员提供广泛的法律途径，使他们的电话记录在杰克·史密斯（前特别检察官）对 2021 年 1 月 6 日国会大厦袭击事件的调查中被查获，从而可以起诉政府，每人至少获得 50 万美元的赔偿。
参议院领导人悄悄地将这项条款塞进了支出法案，引发了众议院两党议员的广泛愤怒。他们表示正在寻找各种途径来否决这项条款。如果他们试图将其从支出法案中移除，将会延长政府停摆，因为众议院的任何修改都会使法案被送回参议院进行最终批准。
来自德克萨斯州的保守派共和党众议员奇普·罗伊曾是拜登司法部最严厉的批评者之一，他表示：“我完全无法理解为什么这项条款会被写入法案，这也是人们对这个小镇评价如此之低的原因。”
众议院议长迈克·约翰逊周三在投票前表示，众议院共和党人将提出立法废除该条款，并将加快该措施的审议，最早下周进行投票。
Robert Jimison和Michael Gold对报道亦有贡献。
题图：众议院议长迈克·约翰逊在众议院周三通过一项结束政府停摆的法案后举行的新闻发布会上发表了讲话。（图片来源：Tierney L. Cross/《纽约时报》）
附原英文报道：
Congress clears a bill to end the nation’s longest shutdown
Catie EdmondsonReporting from the Capitol
The House on Wednesday gave final passage to a spending package to reopen the government, sending the legislation to President Trump’s desk and all but guaranteeing an end to the longest shutdown in the nation’s history.
The 222-to-209 vote came on Day 43 of the shutdown and days after eight senators in the Democratic caucus broke their own party’s blockade and joined Republicans in allowing the spending measure to move forward, prompting a bitter backlash in their ranks. It was the first time the House had held a vote in nearly two months, as it took an extended recess during the shutdown.
Six Democrats joined Republicans in approving the bill. Only two Republicans voted against it, Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Greg Steube of Florida.
Mr. Trump was scheduled to sign the bill on Wednesday night. Earlier in the day, his budget office championed it in a statement as devoid of “any of the partisan, ‘poison pill’ provisions demanded by the Democrats.”
That was a reference to what had been Democrats’ chief demand in the shutdown fight, the extension of federal health care subsidies set to expire at the end of the year. Most congressional Republicans strongly oppose such an extension. And while Mr. Trump had initially shown a flash of interest in brokering a bipartisan deal on the issue, as the shutdown dragged on he made it clear that he had no interest in negotiating.
His refusal to do so ultimately led a critical group of Democrats in the Senate to conclude that with hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, millions of Americans at risk of losing food assistance and millions more facing air-travel disruptions, it was time to find an off-ramp from the shutdown.
In the House, the six Democrats who voted to reopen the government were Representatives Adam Gray of California; Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington; Jared Golden of Maine; Henry Cuellar of Texas; Tom Suozzi of New York; and Don Davis of North Carolina. All represent swing districts.
“History reminds us that shutdowns never change the outcome, only the cost paid by the American people,” Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said. “Over the last 43 days, the facts did not shift, the votes required did not shift and the path forward did not change.”
The Democratic defections in the Senate prompted outrage among House Democrats who, like most of their colleagues in the Senate, said their party should have held together firmly against any government funding bill that failed to address health care costs.
“We have federal workers across the country that have been missing paychecks,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, said. “We have SNAP recipients, millions of SNAP recipients across the country whose access to food stability was imperiled, and we have to figure out what that was for.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said that the Trump administration had inflicted “cruelty” on the American people during the shutdown, including by trying to halt full federal funding for food stamps.
“We cannot enable this kind of cruelty with our cowardice,” she said.
Having elevated the health care subsidies as a political issue, Democrats are eager to keep the pressure on Republicans to extend them or face the consequences from voters who polls show overwhelmingly want to see them protected.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, said he and other party leaders would file a discharge petition — a procedural maneuver to steer around the leadership and force a bill to the floor — to extend the subsidies for three years. Such a measure is unlikely to pick up much Republican support.
“There are only two ways this fight will end,” Mr. Jeffries said on the House floor. “Either Republicans finally decide to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits this year. Or the American people will throw Republicans out of their jobs next year and end the speakership of Donald J. Trump once and for all.”
The compromise measure the House approved on Wednesday includes a spending package that would fund the government through January, as well as three separate spending bills to cover programs related to agriculture, military construction, veterans and legislative agencies for most of 2026.
The package includes a provision that would reverse layoffs of federal workers made during the shutdown and ensure retroactive pay for those who have been furloughed.
And it includes a measure that would provide a wide legal avenue for Republican senators whose phone records were seized as part of the investigation by Jack Smith, the former special counsel, into the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to sue the government for at least half a million dollars each.
That provision was quietly slipped into the spending deal by Senate leaders, and provoked wide, bipartisan ire among House lawmakers who have said they are looking for future avenues to strike it down. If they had sought to take it out of the spending deal, it would have prolonged the shutdown, because any changes the House made would have sent the measure back to the Senate for final approval.
Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a conservative Republican who was one of the Biden Department of Justice’s harshest critics, said it was “beside my comprehension that this got put in the bill, and it is why people have such a low opinion of this town.”
Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday ahead of the vote that House Republicans would introduce legislation to repeal that provision, and would fast-track the measure for a vote as early as next week.
Robert Jimison and Michael Gold contributed reporting.
