Government Shuts Down at Midnight After Senate Fails to Pass Funding Bills

The federal government officially shut down at midnight on October 1st after the Senate rejected two temporary funding bills (continuing resolutions), five hours before the deadline.  One resolution, sponsored by Democrats, was rejected 47-53 along party lines, while the Republican CR failed by 44-45. 

Democrats insisted on the need to reverse healthcare related spending provisions contained in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and also make COVID-era ACA enhanced premium tax credits permanent.  Republicans wanted a short-term extension of current spending levels while lawmakers finalize appropriations for 2026 in order to avoid the shutdown. 

So now thanks to manufactured divisiveness and an unwillingness to compromise and address our $37.5 TRILLION dollar national debt, JP Morgan sees a 70% chance of the shutdown lasting 15 days, while a 3-week shutdown could push the jobless rate to 4.7% as we wait for our elected representatives to figure out how they’re going to spend more of our money.

Meanwhile, the White House has ordered agencies to begin implementing government shutdown plans. As Philip Wegmann notes in RealClearWire, the pain of a government shutdown won’t just be political: Millions of low-income women and children could be left hungry as soon as next week if congressional Democrats and the White House do not come to a deal.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children will soon run out of funding. If they don’t cut a deal to keep the government open, a senior White House official stated that, “Democrats would be turning their back on WIC recipients.”

Called WIC for short, the program provides vouchers for healthy food to low-income pregnant and postpartum women, their infants, and young children. The $7 billion program is funded entirely by the federal government, but that money is expected to be depleted on Oct.1. New beneficiaries will be unable to enroll, and current WIC beneficiaries will be unable to have their cards reloaded.

“The program would run out of money in October, and women and children could no longer receive benefits,” a senior administration official said. “The White House and Republicans in the House-passed CR added $600 million so there will be no loss of benefits – but clearly Democrats are ok with women and children losing these WIC benefits.”

The program has been increasingly strained in recent years as enrollment increased and as the cost of food continues to rise. A small contingency fund does exist, about $150 million, but that is not enough money to provide food assistance for the more than 6.7 million that rely on the program.

The administration has searched for additional money to reprogram but come up short.  “There’s no more quarters in the cushions,” the official said. “It’d get us maybe another day.”

House Republicans advanced a continuing resolution to keep the government open until Nov. 20. Other than additional money for new security for members of the executive and judicial branches, and programmatic change to free up $1 billion for the D.C. city government, it does not make big new spending changes.

Under pressure from their base and led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, congressional Democrats have balked at that deal and tried to open negotiations with the White House. They are seeking concessions on health care spending in exchange for their support. Late Tuesday, President Trump abruptly canceled a meeting with Democratic leadership.

“After reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the Minority Radical Left Democrats in return for their Votes to keep our thriving Country open, I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive,” he wrote on Truth Social.

The blame game commenced shortly thereafter, with Schumer blasting the White House for refusing to talk. “Donald Trump is causing the shutdown,” Schumer said at a Tuesday press conference. “This is a Trump shutdown, and he is barreling right toward it right now, and he knows he is going to be blamed for the shut down.”

The White House then quickly turned up the pressure, threatening to use a government shutdown as an opportunity to further remake the federal workforce. If the lights go off, Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, warned that thousands of government employees could permanently lose their jobs. On the home front, the White House now warns, millions of kitchen tables could begin to go bare.

Ahead of the Senate vote, both parties doubled down on their position.

Democrats repeated their ideas that health care reform is vitally important and requires immediate action.  “Health care creates an urgency,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) commented on Sept. 30. “Republicans are saying, ‘Agree to a clean Continuing Resolution and we'll talk about this stuff later.’ But people get sick regardless of the Republican timetable.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told reporters she would not trust Republicans’ word that they would negotiate over health care during the normal appropriations process.“  There’s no trust,” DeLauro said. “Remember McCarthy–Biden, they walked away from the deal,” she added, referring to a negotiated spending agreement in 2023 that was not passed into legislation.

Republicans continued to say that Democrats’ insistence on placing complex health-related negotiations on a short-term spending agreement was confusing and unnecessary.  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Sept. 29 that he had made proposals to Republicans related to health care, but did not specify what they were. When asked which health care issues Democrats were advancing, Blumenthal spoke instead about the urgency of addressing health care, adding, “I think it ends with some serious compromise on health care.”

During a White House press conference, Trump said the administration could do things that are “irreversible” during a shutdown, such as “cutting vast numbers” of federal workers. “I think the record shows that he is firing people regardless of the shutdown,” Blumenthal said. “He just seems to be on that path.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) expressed optimism that the two sides could strike a deal centered on extending ACA enhanced premium tax credits.  “I just don’t think you’re going to have that much opposition on either side to giving an extension this year to the Obamacare subsidies,” Rounds asserts.

Rounds said that could be coupled with a 45-day continuing resolution to allow further appropriations work. However, he said: “I don’t know whether Democrat leadership can actually accept not going to a shutdown. They may very well feel they have to do a shutdown just to show their far left base that they'll do it.”

However, this strategy could very well backfire.

According to popular Atlanta radio host Erick Erickson, Democrats are walking into a trap with this shutdown.  “The Office of Management & Budget can reduce discretionary agencies in force, i.e., instead of layoffs, they can fire and reduce the workforce.  When the agencies are funded again, because the staff were fired and not laid off, the agencies can be expanded and hiring can happen”.

“New people can fill the jobs and MAGA can embed into the bureaucracy,” he notes. "Protected from firings thanks to both the civil service laws and the rulings of progressive judges against Trump in the last nine months, suddenly Democrat constituencies are out of the bureaucracy and the public sector unions that fund the Democrats are screwed.”

This marks the 15th shutdown since 1980, with the last major one lasting 35 days in 2018-19. Senators are scheduled to return Friday to keep voting on proposals to reopen the government.