WASHINGTON, D.C. – The deal to break through the Senate stalemate over immigration and border security that shut down the government is a bare-bones accord. It provides temporary funding to keep the government operating for just under three weeks.
Senate Democrats dropped their objections to a stopgap spending measure. In return, Senate Republican leaders promised to soon take up immigration and other prickly issues.
A look at what the deal has and doesn't have:
What's in the deal
—Short-term funding for the government through Feb. 8. The Republicans had been insisting on longer, at least a month.
—The long-delayed, six-year renewal of a popular health insurance program for children in low-income families. The program known as CHIP became an unshakeable pillar for the Republicans throughout the budget drama, and Democrats were hard-pressed to reject such a universally accepted plan.
—Delays to three taxes under the Obama-era health care law: the medical device tax through 2019, the so-called Cadillac tax on generous employer-paid health care plans through 2021; and a tax on health insurance companies through 2019.
What's not in it
—Any move to halt deportation efforts aimed at immigrant "Dreamers," who were brought to the U.S. as children and are now in the country illegally. President Donald Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, late last year, but he gave Congress until March 5 to pass legislation extending it. DACA protects some 700,000 immigrants from deportation.
—New funds to toughen border security, including money to start building Trump's long-promised wall spanning the U.S.-Mexico border. The wall was one of his leading campaign promises, and a number of congressional Republicans have continually stressed border security in the budget talks.
—Longer-term funding for the government.
Federal workers fear prospect of another shutdown
The swift steps ending a messy and expensive government shutdown has enabled hundreds of thousands of federal workers to return to work Tuesday, but some say they fear they could find themselves in limbo again in a few more weeks.
Congress sped toward moving to reopen government after Democrats reluctantly voted to temporarily pay for resumed operations on Monday afternoon. The House approved the measure shortly thereafter, sending the spending bill to President Donald Trump, who quickly signed it.
Ali Niaz, a Department of Labor employee who was sent home Monday, took advantage of the partial three-day federal paralysis to tap into shutdown discounts offered by a tavern in the nation's capital. He asked the bartender if the same deals would be "offered next month when the government shuts down again" — already pointing to when a temporary spending measure ends in early February.
For days, the shutdown effectively cleaved the federal workforce in half as hundreds of thousands of workers were sent home while others declared essential employees stayed on the job.
Felicia Sharp, a lab tech with the Defense Department at Fort Belvoir in northern Virginia, was deemed essential and reported to work Monday. She said the whiplash that occurs when employees are furloughed makes it hard to plan upon returning to work.
Sharp, who also serves as a local president for the American Federation of Government Employees, said the deal that keeps government open for a few weeks, "only just postpones the inevitable for a while." When the next deadline approaches, she predicted, "it will be the same situation all over again."
During the 2013 shutdown, which lasted more than two weeks, Sharp took on two part-time jobs to make sure her bills were paid.
J. David Cox, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 700,000 federal and D.C. government workers, said his members have been exasperated with the inability of Congress and Trump to negotiate a budget.
"We can't be the ball for the pingpong game," Cox said, after Senate Democrats dropped their objections Monday to a temporary funding bill in return for assurances from Republicans leaders that they will soon take up immigration and other hot-button issues.
-By Matthew Barakat, Associated Press. Associated Press writers Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia, and Ashraf Khalil in Washington contributed to this report.
