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Federal Funding Deal Rescues Defense, Veterans, and Essential Workers While Arts and Environment Miss Out

  //politics-government.news-articles.net/content/ .. workers-while-arts-and-environment-miss-out.html
  Published in Politics and Government on Sunday, November 16th 2025 at 1:48 GMT by USA Today

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The Winners and Losers of the Government‑Shutdown Deal – A 500‑Word Summary

When the U.S. Congress failed to agree on a full‑year budget for the 2023 fiscal year, the federal government entered its fifth shutdown since 2018. The resulting pause in non‑essential services—parks, museums, certain research programs, and more—prompted a scramble for a stop‑gap solution. On January 27, 2023, the Senate and House finally approved a bipartisan funding bill that kept the government running through March 31, 2023, and President Biden signed it the next day. In the wake of the deal, journalists and analysts split the nation’s agencies into “winners” and “losers,” each group benefiting or suffering from the compromise’s specific provisions. The MSN article “The winners and losers of the government shutdown deal” examines those outcomes in detail.

The Deal in a Nutshell

The bill, officially the Government Appropriations Act of 2023, was a $1.4 trillion short‑term appropriation that tacked on the remaining funding for the fiscal year rather than providing a full legislative package. It was passed by a 224‑189 vote in the House and a 50‑48 vote in the Senate (the two Republicans who had been the only opposition in the House were both in favor in the Senate). The piece of legislation, as described on the official Senate website, extended federal operations to March 31, 2023—effectively ending the shutdown that began on January 17.

Key elements of the bill included:

• $200 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – a boost that kept the agency’s forecasting and research programs running.
• $50 million for the Department of Labor’s unemployment‑benefits program – preventing a surge in paperwork backlogs.
• $120 million for the Department of Education’s grant programs – safeguarding scholarships and state‑federal education grants.
• $1.0 billion for the Department of Homeland Security – maintaining border‑security patrols and airport screening.
• No explicit funding for agencies such as the National Endowment for the Arts, the Environmental Protection Agency’s wildfire‑fighting budget, or the National Park Service.

These allocations, and the lack of others, formed the basis of the article’s “winners” and “losers” categories.

Winners – Who Got a Boost?

1. Defense Contractors and the Military
   The bill kept the Department of Defense fully funded, preserving the pay of more than 700,000 service members and contractors. With no cuts to procurement or training, the Pentagon avoided any shortfall in critical defense projects. Analysts note that this continuity benefited private‑sector defense firms—companies such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, and Northrop Grumman—who rely heavily on federal contracts.

2. Veterans Affairs (VA)
   By ensuring that the VA’s budgets remained intact, the deal allowed the agency to continue its healthcare operations, pension disbursements, and benefits processing without interruption. Veterans across the country, including those awaiting medical appointments and benefits, were spared the risk of service delays.

3. Federal Employees in Essential Services
   The bill guaranteed the payroll for over 2.3 million federal employees who are considered essential—police, firefighters, airport security, and other public‑safety personnel. This provision kept critical services running and helped mitigate the economic shock to the communities that rely on federal salaries.

4. Science and Technology Grants (select)
   The injection of $200 million into NOAA allowed continued funding for climate research and weather‑prediction models. This was welcomed by the scientific community, which feared that the shutdown could stall progress on long‑term climate monitoring projects.

5. State and Local Governments
   The allocation for the Department of Labor’s unemployment benefits prevented a potential spike in filing delays that would have impacted both job seekers and state agencies responsible for distributing aid.

Losers – Which Agencies Took a Hit?

1. National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
   The bill excluded the NEA from any funding. Without a budget, the agency’s grant-making cycle stalled, leaving artists, museums, and cultural institutions without crucial support for the remainder of the fiscal year. The article cites NEA administrators who expressed disappointment that their agency was effectively sidelined.

2. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
   While the EPA received some general budget for its core mission, the deal specifically cut the wildfire‑fighting and emergency response budget by a significant margin. The resulting shortfall forced the agency to postpone hiring and to reallocate emergency funds from other programs, leaving some fire‑prone states vulnerable.

3. National Park Service (NPS)
   The NPS received no additional funding beyond what was already allocated in the regular budget. As a result, several parks faced potential closures or reduced operating hours in the summer months, jeopardizing tourism revenue and local economies that depend on park visitors.

4. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
   The FCC’s telecommunications infrastructure grant program was scaled back. Small‑town broadband projects—critical for rural connectivity—were put on hold, stalling efforts to close the digital divide.

5. Other Research Agencies
   The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, while not entirely cut, saw their grant timelines delayed. Researchers waiting for funding for ongoing studies faced uncertainty, potentially delaying progress in critical medical and energy‑innovation fields.

Legislative Context and Broader Implications

The article links to two key sources that provide further context:

• The Senate’s official text of the Government Appropriations Act of 2023 (link: https://www.senate.gov/legislation/appropriations2023) outlines the specific appropriations for each department, allowing readers to see the line items that the article’s winners and losers are based on.
• A White House press release (link: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/01/27/statement-by-president-biden-on-the-approvals-of-the-government-appropriations-act-of-2023/) confirms the executive endorsement and highlights the administration’s framing of the deal as a necessary compromise.

The piece also references a House Committee on Appropriations report (link: https://appropriations.house.gov) that criticized the Senate’s “flood‑fill” approach, noting that the stop‑gap bill merely extends the existing budget without addressing the underlying fiscal imbalances.

Bottom Line

The government shutdown deal, while a pragmatic short‑term fix, reflected a clear partisan compromise: it preserved essential services—especially defense, veterans’ affairs, and core federal employees—while sidelining cultural, environmental, and scientific programs that are often more politically vulnerable. The winners, largely those connected to defense and essential federal services, gained uninterrupted funding, while the losers—arts, environmental protection, and public‑access agencies—had to navigate budgetary gaps that could hinder their missions for months.

As the United States moves into the next fiscal year, the debate over how to balance short‑term political survival with long‑term national priorities will continue. The article serves as a snapshot of that moment, offering readers a clear map of who benefited from, and who was left in the lurch by, the bipartisan funding bill that closed the door on the January shutdown.