On Sep. 30, the Senate adjourned, making the possibility of a government shutdown all but a certainty. President Donald Trump has been placing all the blame on the Democrats as the GOP refuses to negotiate what Democrats describe as “unreasonable” cuts to the Affordable Care Act. It’s as good a time as any to revisit how things got here — and what it means now that the lights are off at the federal level.
First things first, more than 2 million federal employees will be affected. For the duration of the shutdown, they will reportedly not be paid. However, essential federal employees such as TSA staff and air traffic controllers are still expected to keep working with no pay. Access to public parks and museums will also be limited. When the government reopens, federal employees will be compensated for the lost time — but this protection will not extend to federal contractors.
This shutdown has been a long time coming. Opinion writer Ezra Klein recently argued in a New York Times op-ed that Democrats should shut down the government. His conversations with top party leadership revealed what motivated Democrats to finally bite the bullet — despite the finger-pointing they knew would come from Trump as people lost paychecks and jobs.
The forward-facing reasons are fairly direct. Democrats are trying to extend the premium tax credits for ACA plans, which are due to expire at the end of 2025. Unless Republicans meet them at the table, Democrats warn of an “impending healthcare crisis.” Trump, however, pushed back in remarks reported by NBC: “They want to have illegal aliens come into our country and get massive healthcare at the cost to everybody else, and we don’t have it.” Democrats dismissed his comments as yet another distraction based on immigration fearmongering.
In his op-ed, Klein revealed that Democrats had considered forcing a shutdown as far back as March but held off for several reasons. At the time, Trump was already losing most cases challenging his executive orders, the markets were unstable and vulnerable to a blame game over Trump’s ever evolving tariff policies, and Democrats feared Trump would exploit the chaos to cut even more jobs. Klein noted that none of those conditions apply now. Refusing to help Trump fund what Democrats view as an ongoing assault on checks and balances, he argued, is no longer just unwise opposition — it’s a matter of complicity. As Barack Obama reportedly told party members, Democrats had to “stop whining” and finally take a stand in the one legal way they could.
Currently, Republicans hold 53 Senate seats, but they need 60 votes to pass a funding bill. Trump has threatened to use the shutdown not just to furlough federal employees who don’t fit his agenda, but to fire them altogether. For the agendas he does support, such as the National Guard troops deployed in various cities, they too will be expected to go without pay. Certain litigation from the Justice Department will also be forced to stop. As for the functions that are expected to remain unaffected, those include the U.S. Postal Service, along with payments from Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
The longest government shutdown in U.S. history also happened under Trump, lasting 35 days during his first term in office. Hopefully he doesn’t beat his own record.
