The government shutdown continues as Republicans and Democrats continue
Washington is entering the fourth week of the federal government shutdown with no concrete signs that it will end anytime soon.
Senate Democrats insist that any bill to fund the government include extending expiring tax credits to offset rapidly rising health insurance costs. Republicans still refuse to negotiate while the government remains closed. President Donald Trump and his administration sought to maximize the sting for Democratic lawmakers.
“We’re in full freeze mode,” says Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia state senator and a member of the Senate GOP leadership.
Why did we write this?
Republicans and Democrats are not negotiating to end the weeks-long government shutdown, as its effects are felt more widely. However, some pressure points for each side loom.
Monday marks the 20th day of the lockdown. The second longest period in US history lasted 21 days.
The longest period on record spanned 35 days in late 2018 and early 2019, due to President Trump demanding that money be included in a funding bill to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are openly speculating that this shutdown could last much longer than that.
Mr. Trump agreed to reopen the government in 2019 amid declining poll numbers. Republicans abandoned their 2013 attempt to force repeal of the Affordable Care Act through a shutdown after 16 days for similar reasons. The House GOP shutdown of the mid-1990s, which was on the verge of being overshadowed, also ended when public sentiment turned against Republicans.
But for now, neither side feels like it is losing this political battle. Modern AP-NORC poll It found that 58% of Americans blame President Trump and Republicans in Congress for the shutdown, and 54% blame Democrats.
There has also been almost no movement on the question of which party voters plan to support in next year’s midterm elections. On October 1, the first day of the shutdown, Democrats led by 3 percentage points in an average of exit polls that asked people which party they planned to vote for. They hold the same lead today.
Democrats felt much more pressure from their base to do something, anything, to stand up to the Trump administration before this shutdown. This has not changed.
Previous federal shutdowns have dominated news headlines. But that news was overlooked by other major news, including President Trump’s crackdown on immigration, his attempt to deploy National Guard members to some US cities, and the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
With both sides holding their ground and this closure generating less press coverage than previous ones, it remains an open question as to what real-life events could break through and force one side or the other to the negotiating table.
The longer the lockdowns last, the more painful they become for everyone, as the parts of the government that were able to transfer money run out of reserve resources. Senator Capito says this could happen soon with programs including Head Start, which provides services to low-income children and families.
Open enrollment for private health insurance begins November 1, and letters to Americans informing them of increased premiums are now being published. Democrats say that as more people receive notice that their health care premiums will rise significantly next year, that will force the issue.
“The pressure is going to be very intense in this place once open enrollment starts, and people are going to come to terms with the fact that they might go broke because of these insurance increases,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told Al-Monitor.
If subsidies passed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic are not extended, average individual premium payments will double from $888 to $1,904 annually. according to Non-partisan KFF. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office Estimates 4 million people will lose health insurance if these benefits are not extended.
The statewide election results in Virginia and New Jersey in early November mark another moment when lockdown politics could force one party or another to reconsider its positions. The gubernatorial elections in those states are major off-year indicators, and if one side performs much worse than expected, it could change their thinking.
Barring that, staffing problems at airports are leading to longer and longer delays, making the Thanksgiving holiday – one of the busiest travel periods of the year – another potential inflection point.
The Trump administration seems intent on maximizing the damage of the shutdown for Democratic voters — and lawmakers — and minimizing it for Republicans.
“Democrats are getting killed during the shutdown because we’re shutting down programs that are Democratic programs that we were opposed to … and they’ll never come back in many cases,” Trump said last week.
The administration has already halted infrastructure projects in Democratic areas and states, while vowing to fire up to 10,000 federal workers it considers Democratic-leaning. A federal judge last week ordered a temporary halt to at least some of the layoffs.
On Friday, in the latest round of cuts, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought announced that the Army Corps of Engineers “will immediately halt and consider canceling more than $11 billion in low-priority projects, including projects in New York, San Francisco, Boston and Baltimore” — all heavily Democratic cities. On the same day, the National Nuclear Security Administration – the agency that helps the Pentagon maintain and secure the US nuclear arsenal – Announce It will furlough nearly 80% of its 1,800 employees and contractors starting this week.
However, the active-duty US military appears to have been spared, at least for now. The Trump administration sees them as natural allies. After public criticism from military service members and their families over the potential loss of pay, President Trump unilaterally announced that they would be paid on time on October 15, even as other federal employees were not receiving their paychecks. This decision has raised questions about its legitimacy from across the aisle.
But these moves did not change the feeling of Groundhog Day on Capitol Hill.
The House has not met since September 19, when Republicans passed a bill to keep the government open at current levels until mid-November, then left town for a month. With Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson keeping the House in recess again this week, he has now canceled more than a quarter of the days the House was scheduled to be in session this year, since GOP leaders released their planned calendar.
A small group of bipartisan lawmakers in the House of Representatives has been pushing for a one-year extension of existing health care subsidies, but congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle have rejected the proposal.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has publicly offered a guarantee that Democrats will vote on a bill to extend Affordable Care Act benefits if they first relent and reopen the government.
He added: “I will not negotiate under the conditions of the hostages, and I will not pay ransom.” It was posted on the social media platform X Friday.
But Democrats rejected what they called a show vote that would go nowhere in the House, as GOP leaders refused to promise a vote even if the Affordable Care Act subsidies passed the Senate.
“We want a deal that actually produces health care for the American people,” says Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, blaming the long shutdown on Republicans who “will not come to the table to negotiate.”
Senator Capito blames what she calls a “march of misery” on Democrats who see “political advantage” in the shutdown — and want to “do everything they can to bring down the president.”