The government shutdown, one month in
It's been a month and a day since the US federal government crossed from its 2025 into its 2026 fiscal year. Because there was no statutory authority to keep spending money on October 1, the government shut down.
I wrote about the legislative and budgetary details back then. I want do do a quick check-in on the situation now.
1.4 million civilian government workers are going without paychecks right now. 730,000 of them are required to work anyway. I traveled to the US Midwest last week and met off-duty TSA employees leafletting the crowd at the airport, asking them to call their members of Congress to demand an end to the shutdown, without regard to party. TSA is one of the groups required to show up without pay.
Another 1.3 million members of the military have been paid through the end of October, using extraordinary (and possibly illegal) mechanisms, but the Trump administration says that service members unlikely to get their mid-November paychecks.
The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, provides debit cards and other support to 42 million Americans, low-income individuals and families, to make sure that they have enough to eat. The Administration has announced that that program cannot be funded during the shutdown. Numerous states have sued the federal government to demand that officials use reserve funds to cover distributions for the time being. District courts have ruled in favor of spending that money, but the Administration is dragging its feet and it's not clear when or how funds will be released this month. In the meantime, a few states have stepped in to cover the gap for their residents.
Besides that, November is when most Americans choose the insurance plans they'll use for the coming calendar year. With the mid-year Republican budget eliminating the subsidies that made the Affordable Care Act affordable and cutting spending on Medicare and Medicaid, premiums are set to jump. Premiums are set to go up 26% on average, but because of the loss of ACA subsidies, out-of-pocket costs for ordinary folks will more than double.
Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, has sent all his members home. The move means the two parties cannot negotiate a spending bill in the House to resolve to the shutdown. That leaves the Senate to hold a series of symbolic votes to pass the continuing resolution sent there by House Republicans before they left town. Those votes are almost precisely along party lines, making no progress.
A month ago, I said that a shutdown, if it happened, would suck. Of course that was right. As this one drags on, it'll get worse – discretionary funds will get spent, cutting pay for the military and ending any temporary relief for SNAP users. Workers will exhaust their savings and be forced into very difficult financial straits. Important national programs and projects will remain stalled.
I predicted three possible outcomes in my earlier post. In order of likelihood, I thought: (1) Trump would pressure Senate Republicans to repeal the filibuster, they'd do that and then pass a continuing resolution along party lines; (2) neither Democrats nor Republicans would blink, but Russell Vought would chicken out and not fire large numbers of federal employees; or (3) nobody blinks and Vought does fire whole departments.
What's happened so far is a blend of my options 2 and 3. Vought and the Administration began notifying workers in early October that they'd been fired. A number of parties filed lawsuits challenging the firings, and judges at the District Court level have issued rulings that bar the government from getting rid of the workers. The Administration will no doubt appeal, and the case is likely bound for the Supreme Court. I won't predict the eventual outcome, but if you were notified that you'd been fired, the court cases are small consolation and don't really solve your immediate problem. You're still not getting paid.
I still believe my first choice – a repeal of the filibuster and passage of the continuing resolution with only Republican support – is how this shutdown will end. Political pressure on the President is rising; his approval ratings are falling fast. In response, he has demanded that Senate Republicans scrap the rule.
In its story about the President's social media posts, USA Today reports:
“I will never support ending the filibuster, and I think Republicans have made that very clear,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, told the Wall Street Journal, which also quoted Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, as against the idea.
“It’s a nonstarter,” Cornyn said.
It's honestly shocking to see Republican members of Congress directly challenge Donald Trump. Were enough of them to hold firm on this point, the only path out would be negotiation with Democrats on the ACA subsidies and Medicare/Medicaid cuts. That would be a major defeat for a President concerned most of all about dominance. My bet is that this is a transitory display of spine by Tillis and his colleagues. I expect them to cave as the real pain mounts in their districts and as the President's polling gets worse.
