A continuing resolution (CR) to prevent a partial shutdown of the U.S. federal government passed the U.S. Senate on August 8 (local time).

The temporary spending bill, approved during a morning plenary session of the Senate, keeps federal government operations funded at current levels until December 11, which is a month after the midterm elections.

Once the stopgap spending bill takes effect, it will buy more time to process the main budget.

This means that even if the main budget is not processed and the fiscal year ends in late September, a shutdown can still be avoided.

The second administration of Donald Trump failed to process the main budget by the end of September last year and also failed to arrange a stopgap bill, plunging into a shutdown that triggered chaos such as aviation disruptions and the suspension of subsidy payments before ending on November 12.

This was the longest shutdown in history at 43 days.

Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security also entered a partial shutdown due to the Trump administration's hardline immigration policies, which ended after 76 days on April 30.

It remains uncertain whether the stopgap spending bill will be finalized in the form passed by the Senate.

This is because a separate stopgap bill passed by the House of Representatives partially conflicts with the one prepared by the Senate.

A prime example is the provision banning changes to the "subsidy approval procedures," which prevents the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from blocking or arbitrarily altering federal subsidy executions.

While the House bill does not contain this provision, the Senate included it on the grounds that the Trump administration should not weaponize subsidies paid to states or organizations for political purposes.

The Senate's stopgap bill also did not include funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which enforce the Trump administration's anti-immigration policies.

In other words, the House—led by Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican and "Trump loyalist"—and the Senate—where some Republicans have been out of sync with President Trump—could clash over the temporary spending bill.

If a compromise between the two stopgap bills is not reached starting in mid-September when both the Senate and House summer recesses end, the possibility of a shutdown cannot be ruled out.

President Trump called Republican leadership late the previous night to repeatedly urge that the voter identification strengthening bill (Voter ID bill), which he has emphasized, be processed alongside it, but it ultimately failed to pass.

Commonly known as the SAVE Act, this bill focuses on requiring voters to present identification, prove citizenship, and essentially ban mail-in ballots.

President Trump has maintained that the bill should be processed by utilizing the budget reconciliation process, which requires only a simple majority rather than 60 votes to neutralize the Democrats' filibuster, but the Republican leadership has opposed this, saying it violates congressional customs and rules.

As an alternative, centring on the pro-Trump faction within Senate Republicans, a 150 billion dollar package budget bill has been floated that would prepare a budget resolution not subject to a filibuster, and embed parts of the SAVE Act in a way that impacts the budget alongside defense spending needed for wars such as with Iran, but it was not brought to a vote during this session.

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