As of Wednesday, October 1, the United States federal government has been shut down due to a failure for both Democrats and Republicans to agree on a Democrat-backed funding plan. This shutdown had the potential to end on Friday, October 3, however, they could not agree once again and the shutdown is expected to last indefinitely or until it is resolved.
That deadlock on the Democrat-backed bill has caused the federal government to officially run out of money. This bill would have worked to extend health care as it would go under the umbrella of the Affordable Health Care Act. There was another bill that caused problems which was a Republican-backed bill
This shutdown has been used by Republicans to target the Democratic party with them claiming that Democrats as the people to blame for the shutdown. The reason for this is the health care law giving free health care to illegal immigrants, as stated by the Republicans. However, upon a deeper inspection, this is false. The law only works to give health care to families that have been deemed “lawfully present” by the federal government, but not yet given legal status. These are not undocumented people as the government formally knows they exist. It does not work to give people who have entered the country illegally free health care, it works to give to the people who are trying to legally enter, which is what Republicans want. They support the idea of people trying to enter through the legal means so voting against and trying to sway public opinion against this bill is counter intuitive.
As the days of the shutdown went on, more and more federal programs were shut down. This includes national parks, courts, and museums, which means all types of federal workers have been forced to work with no pay. These include federal workers both in and out of Washington D.C., a big example being the National Guard soldiers who have been sent to cities around the country under the orders of President Trump in an attempt to reduce the crime rates at these cities by show of force. They have not been getting paid since this shutdown started, and likely will not be until an agreement is reached and the shutdown is lifted. President Trump has claimed that he will work to pay these troops soon, but without congress support, it is an illegal move. Thus, it probably will not be happening soon.
The Trump administration has stated that they will be laying off federal employees and JD Vance did reassure that it would not be by political alignment. However, any plans to lay off any federal employees have been temporarily suspended by a federal judge.
So far, the Senate has rejected their bill a total of 10 times. The shutdown is expected to last until at least the 20th of October when the House of Representatives get back in session. If it reaches November 4th and there is still a shutdown, it will set the record for longest shutdown at 35 days since the longest one previously lasted for 34 days from December to January of 2019.
