The United States government is experiencing a full closure.
Beginning in the early hours of Wednesday Washington time, government operations exhausted its funding.
Federal offices and bureaus tasked with safeguarding consumers, workers, and investors are now officially closed, along with museums and national parks.
The majority of government employees are not being paid – as many as 750,000 could be furloughed – including those who are required to remain on the job, such as military personnel and air-traffic controllers.
Certain mandatory expenditures, including Social Security and Medicare payments, will proceed, although checks could be delayed. The construction of Trump’s new White House ballroom won’t be affected.
Shutdowns are symptoms of a government off the rails.
I’ve been directly involved in two, one when I was secretary of labor. The ensuing fear, frustration, and chaos are difficult to convey. I recall spending the first day consoling employees – with numerous employees leaving in tears.
There have been eight shutdowns since 1990. Trump has now presided over four.
But this shutdown is different.
To begin with, it results from a choice made in July by Trump and Senate Republicans to approve Trump’s massive legislative package (which I call the “big ugly” bill) without any Democratic votes.
This was possible due to the Senate’s “reconciliation” process, enabling the bill to pass with a simple majority rather than the normal 60 required to overcome a filibuster.
The final tally was a squeaker. All Senate Democrats opposed the legislation. After three Senate Republicans sided with them, JD Vance was called in to break a tie. Certain Republicans boasted about passing it without Democratic support.
The legislation drastically shifted government priorities. It cut about $1tn from healthcare programs, affecting Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, causing health insurance premiums to skyrocket for millions come January.
The big ugly also cut nutrition assistance and environmental protection, while boosting immigration enforcement and cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations.
Trump and Senate Republicans didn’t need a single Democrat then. But this time, they couldn’t employ reconciliation to fund the government.
Now they needed Senate Democratic votes.
Yet keeping the government going meant keeping all the priorities included in the big ugly bill that all Senate Democrats opposed.
Which is why Senate Democrats refused to sign on unless most of the big ugly’s cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act were restored, to prevent premium hikes next year.
Even with that concession, the GOP funding bill would keep tax cuts for the rich and corporations, plus nutrition cuts and heightened immigration funding.
A deeper irony exists.
In practice, the government has been partially closed for over eight months, since Trump’s return to office.
Trump and the sycophants surrounding him, including OMB director Russell Vought, and previously Elon Musk, have had no compunction about shutting down parts of the government they don’t like – such as USAID.
They’ve also moved to fire, furlough or extend buyouts to hundreds of thousands of federal employees doing work they don’t value, including staff at consumer protection and public broadcasting agencies.
They’ve impounded appropriations from Congress for activities they oppose, ranging across the entire federal government.
On the first day of the shutdown, Vought announced that the administration was freezing $18bn on infrastructure funds for New York City (where Democratic leaders reside).
These actions are unlawful, but it seems unlikely that courts will act soon enough to prevent the administration from harming vast numbers of Americans.
Vought menaced further permanent firings if the Democrats didn’t vote to continue funding the government. But nothing stopped Vought from doing it before the shutdown, and the shutdown presents no greater opportunity for him to do so.
Actually, the administration’s readiness to ignore Congress and shutter government parts is another reason Democrats should have held firm.
If Democrats had approved funding, what guarantee would they have had that Trump would in fact keep the government going?
Democrats finally have some bargaining leverage. They should use it.
If tens of millions of Americans lose their health insurance starting in January because they can no longer afford to pay sky-high premiums, Trump and his Republicans will be blamed.
It would be Trump’s and his Republicans fault anyway – it’s part of their big ugly bill – but now, in the fight over whether to reopen the government, Americans will have a chance to see Democrats standing up for them.
