Trump Announces Deal To Temporarily Reopen Federal Government

For three weeks at least, the federal government will be open once again.

In a televised address in the White House Rose Garden Friday, President Donald Trump announced he had reached a deal with congressional leaders to reopen the federal government without any funding for his border wall proposal. The deal is set to expire on Feb. 15, and is meant as a stopgap until a more comprehensive agreement is reached, Trump said. The Senate and House of Representatives still have to ratify the deal, but leaders of both have said they will do so Friday.

Under the terms of the deal, all federal employees who have been furloughed or working without pay will receive back pay, NPR reports. Friday was the 35th day of the shutdown, the longest in the nation's history, and marked the second missed paycheck for those employees.

From FBI enforcement to air traffic, the pressures of the shutdown had been mounting steadily in all parts of the government. Those organizations, in turn, had been applying increasing pressure on Trump and Senate leaders Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer to reach a deal, going so far as to threaten a strike.

The effects of the shutdown have also affected real estate, with thousands of residents of federally funded affordable housing staring down eviction at the end of the month, and owners of affordable housing preparing to do without rental income. The Department of Housing and Urban Development had over 1,100 contracts in its Section 8 program that were up for renewal on Jan. 3 and were not approved prior to the shutdown.

It is not yet clear what will leap to the front of the legislative agenda in the three weeks until the next deadline. Among the items that had been postponed from January was the IRS' next hearing on the details and proposed regulations of the opportunity zone program signed into law at the end of 2017.