H.R. 5371

FORTY-THREE DAYS.

That’s how long MAGA chaos yanked the federal government off its hinges this fall — turning paychecks, food benefits, and veterans’ care into bargaining chips. H.R. 5371 is the bill that finally pried open the hostage door. Now the question is: will we treat it as the end of a crisis, or as a warning flare?

WHAT H.R. 5371 ACTUALLY DID

H.R. 5371 — the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Other Extensions Act, 2026 — is the law that ended the 2025 shutdown. It reopened the government and keeps most agencies funded at last year’s levels through January 30, 2026. It also folds in full-year funding for three crucial areas:

• Agriculture (including SNAP, WIC, and school meals),

• Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and

• The Legislative Branch.

In plain language: it turned the lights back on, got federal workers paid, and stabilized key programs that were days away from disaster.

During the shutdown, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was staring over the cliff. USDA warned that funds to load November benefits simply weren’t there; roughly 42 million people — elders, children, disabled folks, working poor — were told their food money might not arrive.

Court orders and emergency maneuvers bought time. H.R. 5371 turned that temporary reprieve into full funding for the rest of the fiscal year in the Agriculture bill.

That’s not an abstraction. That is groceries. That is rent and gas not being raided to fill the fridge.

THIS WAS A SHUTDOWN ABOUT POWER, NOT “FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY”

The 2025 shutdown was never really about “tightening belts.” It was about testing how far a president and a captured party could go — how much pain they could inflict on ordinary people to force through an agenda that voters never approved:

• starving safety-net programs while protecting tax breaks for billionaires,

• undermining the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid reimbursements via broader funding freezes,

• and normalizing the idea that any president can unilaterally withhold congressionally-approved funds when it suits his politics.

That’s not budgeting; that’s soft-coup rehearsal. You don’t need tanks in the streets when you can rule by shutdown, impoundment, and threats: “Fund my vision, or your constituents don’t eat.”

H.R. 5371 ended this particular standoff — but it did not dismantle the weapon. It simply hit pause.

WHY MAIN STREET SHOULD CARE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

If you work for the federal government or a contractor, you already felt the shock: delayed paychecks, mounting bills, and the cold realization that your family’s stability can be flipped off like a light switch.

If you’re on SNAP, WIC, or rely on school meals, you watched officials play roulette with your next grocery run. If you’re a veteran, you saw the headlines about VA infrastructure and care being caught in the crossfire — then folded into H.R. 5371 only at the eleventh hour. 

And if you’re simply trying to run a small business on Main Street, every day of uncertainty — every rumor of missed benefits, delayed grants, or frozen loans — shows up in your cash-flow, your customer base, and your stress level.

This is why we cannot just “breathe a sigh of relief” and move on. A continuing resolution that expires on January 30, 2026 is not stability; it’s a countdown clock.

WHERE PROGRESS FOR AMERICA STANDS

As a 501(C)(4), Progress for America exists to turn outrage into organized power. Here’s what H.R. 5371 teaches us — and what we intend to say loudly:

1. Governing by crisis is a choice.

Any member of Congress who keeps voting for manufactured shutdowns is choosing Wall Street drama and Main Street pain over basic competence.

2. Food, health care, and veterans’ benefits must be off-limits to hostage politics.

SNAP, WIC, school meals, Medicaid and ACA subsidies should never again be dangled over the abyss to score ideological points.

3. We need structural reform, not just another patch.

We should be talking about automatic continuing appropriations, stronger guardrails on impoundment, and explicit protections for core benefits when extremists force a lapse in funding.

4. Elections are our firewall.

The same faction that cheered this shutdown is already threatening the next one. H.R. 5371 bought us time — time to organize, to educate, and to send different people to Congress who treat government as a tool for the common good, not a battering ram.

The shutdown showed us what happens when extremists treat our lives as leverage.

H.R. 5371 showed us that they back down when enough pressure builds.

Our task now is simple, and urgent: turn that pressure into permanent power — so our communities never again have to wonder whether their next meal or next paycheck depends on the whims of one man.