Times Now
Funding for the US government has been cut off after President Donald Trump’s Republican Party disagreed with Democrats on a way forward on a spending bill.
It means that some, but not all, US government services are coming to a temporary halt.
Why did this happen?
This has happened because the Republicans and Democrats couldn’t come together and pass a bill funding government services into October and beyond.
The Republicans control both chambers of Congress, but in the Senate, or upper chamber, they are short of the 60 votes they need to pass a spending bill.
Both sides have been in a bitter standoff over healthcare spending, and the Democrats have refused to back a Republican bill that they say will make it harder for Americans to afford healthcare.
They are calling for an extension of tax credits, which are set to expire, that make health insurance cheaper for millions of Americans, and for a reversal of cuts to Medicaid that have been made by Trump. Democrats also oppose spending cuts to government health agencies.
A stopgap bill was earlier passed in the House, or lower chamber, but is yet to clear the Senate.
And so, at 12:01 AM Wednesday, it became official: the US had its first shutdown in nearly seven years.
When will it end?
There is no guaranteed date. The longest shutdown in US history lasted for 35 days, which was in 2018; the last time it happened.
Government shutdowns are easy to get into, but not so easy to get out of. In this case, it solely depends on when, or if, one of the parties will agree to a compromise.
There are two main ways this could end – either the Republicans negotiate an extension to the healthcare subsidies that the Democrats are demanding, or the shutdown becomes so disruptive that the Democrats back down and agree to fund the government, at least temporarily, to get things up and running again.
So far, the Trump administration has been been unwilling to offer any substantive concessions, and believe the Democrats will bear the pressure of the public’s blame because they are the side making demands in exchange for keeping the government open.
So, who is affected by the shutdown?
Not all of the government will shut down – those deemed essential workers continue as normal, although without pay for the time being.
Border protection, law enforcement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, in-hospital medical care, and air-traffic control workers are expected to continue to operate as usual.
While social security and Medicare checks will still be sent out, benefit verification and card issuance may stop.
Government employees deemed non-essential are temporarily put on unpaid leave. In the past, these workers have then been paid retrospectively.
Mail will still be delivered and post offices will remain open because the US Postal Service does not depend on Congress for funding.
Most American schools are state-funded, however the federal government is responsible for billions of dollars in grants and student loans, which could effectively come to a halt. That said, because the grants are awarded during the summer, they will be largely unaffected during this shutdown, the education secretary told BBC
Your next flight
A federal shutdown could hit fliers in a variety of ways, potentially leading to long security queues, and delays caused by unpaid air traffic controllers choosing to stay home rather than work for free.
Air traffic control and Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) workers are considered “essential”, so they will continue to go to work.
But they will not be paid until the shutdown ends. When this last happened, in 2018-2019, these workers increasingly began to call in sick, leading to delays that had a ripple effect across the country.
Americans planning to travel abroad could also be impacted, with US passport agencies warning that it could take longer than usual to process travel documents.
No work, or pay, for federal workers
According to CBS News, the five government departments with the most furloughed staff are:
Department of Defense (civilian staff): 334,904 furloughed, 406,573 retained
Department of Health: 32,460 furloughed, 47,257 retained
Department of Commerce: 34,711 furloughed, 8,273 retained
Department of State: 16,651 furloughed, 10,344 retained
NASA: 15,094 furloughed, 3,124 retained
AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a release Saturday that the Trump administration’s “threats to potentially fire tens of thousands of federal employees” because of the shutdown “is not only illegal — it’s just plain wrong.”
“Mass illegal firings will not only harm federal workers and their families, but will devastate vital services that the American people depend on,” he said.
National parks with no staff
Federal lands, including National Parks and National Forests, have been closed off to visitors during past shutdowns, since the rangers and other employees were asked to stay at home.
During the last shutdown, the Trump administration made the decision to leave parks open, with few to no federal workers there to staff them.
According to park advocates, the decision led to vandalism in parks, as visitors drove through protected landscapes, looted historical sites, and rampantly littered.
A group of more than 40 former park superintendents have appealed to the White House to completely close the parks in the event of a shutdown.
“We don’t leave museums open without curators, or airports without air traffic controllers – and we should not leave our national parks open without National Park Service workers,” Emily Thompson told BBC, who is a member of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.
What’s different about the White House response this time?
What stands out about this current standoff is the position of Trump’s team.
In the past, long shutdowns were usually seen as politically dangerous, hampering both voters’ everyday lives and the images of lawmakers and the president.
But this time, the Trump administration appears more than happy to shutter large parts of the US government for an extended period. In fact, officials have threatened to use a shutdown to identify “non-essential” workers who could then be permanently let go.
When was the last shutdown?
US government shutdowns have become quite common over the past 50 years. There were three during Trump’s first term alone. Seven years later we are living through another one under the Trump Administration.
We last saw a shutdown in late 2018, which lasted 35 days. The longest in history.
It was brought about by disagreements over funding a wall on the Mexico border. It finally ended in part because air traffic controllers, who had been working for a month without pay, started calling in sick en masse. Flights were cancelled or delayed because of the lack of staff, and the shutdown came to an end shortly afterwards.
But shutdowns pre-date Trump. The second longest to date was 21 days, under Democrat Bill Clinton in 1995. Barack Obama, also a Democrat, saw a 16-day shutdown during his time in the White House, and Republican Ronald Reagan oversaw eight shutdowns during his presidency in the 1980s – though all were relatively brief.
How could this shutdown affect the economy?
The scale of the damage will depend in part on how long the shutdown lasts, and how wide ranging it is.
In the past, disruption has tended to be temporary, with any lost activity mostly made up in the months after the shutdown ends.
Analysts estimate a shutdown this time could shave roughly 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points off economic growth for each week that it lasts, though much of that could be recouped.
But, again, there are some ways that this shutdown could look different.
For one thing, Trump has threatened to fire, not just furlough, some workers. Which would make the impact more long lasting.
The fight is also injecting more turmoil into an economy already being roiled by changes like tariffs and artificial intelligence, with the likely delay of key data, such as the official US monthly jobs report, expected to add to the uncertainty.