During the early morning hours of Thursday, President Obama signed the bill passed by Congress the day before to re-open the government, ending 16 days of shutdown just as the credit extension deadline had been reached.

On Wednesday, the Senate passed the legislation on a vote of 81-18, as 27 Republicans joined 54 Democrats in voting for the bill. A short time later, the same bill was presented to the House and it was promptly passed there as well on a vote of 285-144, when 87 Republicans voted with 198 Legislators across the aisle. None of the Republican leaders of the House came to the floor to debate the bill.

Thus ends for now the futile Republican fight led by Senator Ted Cruz who months earlier predicted, wrongly, that the Democrats would cave from pressure by the Republican and strip funding for the Affordable Care Act if Republicans shut down the government. The Freshman Senator set the Congress up for the showdown with a 21-hour filibuster on the Senate floor late in September.

Although Cruz’s stand has damaged the Republican party, alienating him from many of his red collegues, cost the U.S. economy an estimated $24 billion and kept 800,000 government workers from their jobs, Cruz’s campaign pulled in just under an estimated $800,000 for the quarter and made him the darling of the Tea Party.

But, the Affordable Care Act, that was linked to the shutdown by Republican legislation and demands, came through the deadlock that lasted over two weeks relatively unscathed, the only change being stricter income verification for those seeking subsidized insurance under the act.

President Obama said on Thursday that, “Americans are completely fed up with Washington.” and that the shutdown instigated by the Republicans caused “completely unnecessary” damage to the economy after signing the legislation earlier in the day.

With the bill signed, government websites and services on the Internet will now be back up and running, National parks, monuments and museums will begin opening back up and the 800,000 government workers will be back on the job.

All three of our Congressional delegates in Alaska voted for the bill ending the shutdown on Wednesday. Senator Murkowski said on the Senate floor early Wednesday, “The thing that I have found encouraging is that there have been a nucleus of folks who would come together as the need arose, or perhaps just for a little moral support, and continue the effort to try and find common ground. We went from a small group to a group of six on each side to a group with seven on each side and I think with every passing day we had more colleagues that were interested in helping and trying to find that common ground…”

Alaska’s junior Senator, Mark Begich said after the Senate reached an agreement on funding the government, “This shutdown and pushing the global economy to the edge of catastrophic collapse was absolutely unnecessary. Today’s bipartisan agreement took too long to reach but shows what’s possible when rational members of Congress are willing to put politics aside for the good of the country.”

Alaska’s sole Representative to Congress, Don Young stated in a release, “After weeks of gridlock, today Congress finally broke the stalemate, passing bipartisan legislation to reopen the government, ensure that the United States honors its financial obligations and tightens requirements for new health insurance subsidies to prevent fraud and abuse,” said Rep. Young.

“Throughout this shutdown, Congress has regrettably lost more credibility with the American people, but throughout my 40 years in here in Washington, I have remained optimistic and hopeful about our country’s future, and I still am.” Young added.