US government shuts down for the first time in six years

Despite frenetic, last-minute negotiations in Congress, Democrats and Republicans remained deadlocked over funding the government beyond Tuesday (September 30), the final day of the fiscal year. In the 100-member Senate, 60 votes are needed to pass funding legislation—leaving Republicans seven votes short to pass the bill.

What a shutdown means?

If the US government shuts down, essential personnel—including military service members—would be required to work without pay, while non-essential federal employees would face furloughs. According to the Congressional Budget Office, up to 750,000 workers could be temporarily impacted, even if President Donald Trump opts not to pursue permanent layoffs.

However, escalating tensions over the shutdown, President Trump had told reporters on Tuesday that his administration may permanently dismiss “a lot” of federal employees if the funding impasse continues. Traditionally, government shutdowns have led to temporary furloughs, with affected workers receiving back pay once operations resume.

A government shutdown would bring non-essential operations to a standstill, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal employees temporarily without pay and potentially disrupting the distribution of key social safety net benefits.

Shutdowns are widely unpopular across the United States, with both Democrats and Republicans typically seeking to avoid them—while each side blames the other when closures occur.

The longest shutdown in history and the latest came during Trump's first term, when government functions were halted for 35 days beginning December 2018.

What will function?

Despite the government shutdown, several critical functions will continue uninterrupted. These include NASA’s space missions, Trump’s immigration enforcement initiatives, and select public health operations carried out by the Food and Drug Administration and the US department of agriculture.

Essential services such as hospital care, border security, law enforcement, and air traffic control will also remain active. Social Security and Medicare payments will still be distributed, although processes like benefit verification and issuance of new cards may be temporarily suspended.

Heading for a shutdown

The vote was 55 to 45 on Tuesday evening, which showed that both parties were unlikely to relent, even as a federal funding deadline loomed. Government funding was set to expire at 12.01 am unless the Senate went ahead and approved a measure to extend federal spending for seven weeks, giving lawmakers additional time to finalise the annual budget bills.

With only hours remaining, Senate Republicans had tried to swiftly approve a temporary funding bill passed by the House. However, they failed to secure the necessary Democratic votes required to send it to President Trump’s desk.

"We'll probably have a shutdown," Trump had told reporters in the Oval Office before the vote. This comment came after a last-ditch meeting at the White House on Monday yielded no deal, with top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer saying afterward that "large differences" remained between the sides.

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At a subsequent White House event, President Trump remarked that many of those impacted by the looming layoffs would be Democrats, stating, “They’re going to be Democrats.” He went on to suggest that shutdowns could have beneficial outcomes, saying they might be used to eliminate programmes and policies he opposed—ones he described as “Democrat things”.

This potential shutdown would further strain government employees, many of whom are still reeling from widespread job cuts earlier in the year, initiated by Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency.

The rift

Despite the looming crisis, Bloomberg reported that President Trump and Congressional leaders were unwilling to negotiate or seek a compromise. Instead, Trump warned that his administration may dismiss “a lot” of federal employees if the shutdown proceeds.

The reason for this stalemate is that House Republicans passed a stopgap measure to extend funding until late November, pending negotiations on a longer-term spending plan.

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But Democrats wanted to see hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare spending for low-income households restored, which the Trump administration is likely to eliminate. The Senate Democrats have said that they would not vote for the package unless it includes an extension of expiring health care benefits, among other demands.

Republicans, meanwhile, have defended the funding proposal as a straightforward, “clean” bill, insisting it should be passed without controversy.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, after a bipartisan White House meeting that led to little progress, said Republicans were trying to “bully” the Democrats. Meanwhile, Trump posted a fake video mocking the Democrats after the meeting. “They lost the election in a landslide, and they don’t change,” the US President said.

Gridlocked Congress

The gridlocked Congress regularly runs into deadlines to agree on spending plans, and while the negotiations are typically fraught, they do not result in shutdowns.

After the expiry of government funding at midnight, the White House Budget Office will issue a memo, triggering a formal shutdown.