The United States government has partially shut down after lawmakers failed to pass a critical spending bill. Yet Senate Republicans continued to throw last-ditch measures over the funding cliff. Their 11th-hour proposal was thrown out with a 55-to-45 vote. The lapse in funding officially took effect at 00:01 EDT (04:01 GMT) on Wednesday, leaving many federal employees facing uncertainty as they were placed on temporary leave.
If this recent shutdown holds, it will be the 15th such government shutdown since 1980 as counted by the Bipartisan Policy Center. Recent developments have raised new concerns about a potential crisis that might be worse than the debilitating impacts of previous shutdowns. This fear is based on no small part on President Donald Trump’s promises to use such a funding lapse to make devastating cuts to the public workforce.
As Congress struggled through a contentious budget standoff. In very short order, Democrats rejected a Republican-drafted stopgap spending bill that would have kept the government funded for another nine weeks. They pushed health groups and providers to include provisions to keep expanding healthcare coverage, something Republicans failed to do. Tipped minimum wage Republicans unanimously voted down a Democratic alternative. That proposal stuck funding levels through the end of October and vastly increased healthcare expenditures by more than $1 trillion.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer expressed frustration, stating, “Republicans are plunging us into a government shutdown rather than fixing their healthcare crisis.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune had said he hoped Democratic senators would join Republicans in crossing party lines. He did intend for their votes on a “clean” bill in subsequent vote that would ultimately fail 47-53.
President Trump has signaled that he’s willing to use the shutdown in pursuit of his own political gain. He remarked, “And they’re Democrats; they’re going to be Democrats,” referring to his opposition’s stance on the spending bill. As a reminder, Trump himself warned that shutdowns risk making permanent changes. He pointed out that it would force cuts to numerous programs that the average American relies on. He stated, “We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out.”
In past shutdowns, the hundreds of thousands of federal workers who were furloughed were ultimately made whole with back pay when the government opened for business again. This time, though, the stakes are bigger as Trump has made no secret of his desire to fire thousands of federal employees. Richard Painter, a former chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, criticized Trump’s stance, saying, “He is threatening federal workers with termination if there is a shutdown.”
Yet it lasted a remarkable 34 days, from late 2018 into early 2019. The current state reflects deepening divisions within Congress. Bipartisan cooperation is unsurprisingly faltering. Both parties have made it clear that they are unwilling to budge on key budgetary topics.
