US federal government shutdown

Subterms

    Latest story

    150 Shares139 Views

    The US government could shut down: here’s what you need to know

    by

    The US stands hours away from a partial government shutdown as Democrats decide whether to play ball with Republicans on the first major legislative hurdle in Trump’s second administration.The House approved a stopgap funding measure called a continuing resolution last week, and the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, has urged Democrats in the Senate to pass the measure in the upper chamber.Lawmakers face a midnight Friday deadline, or the government will be partly shut downIt is an event with the potential to inflict disruption to a range of public services, cause delays in salaries and wreak significant damage on the national economy if it becomes prolonged.Schumer faces intense backlash from House Democrats and others in his party, many of whom see any compliance with the Trump agenda as giving up the little leverage Democrats have.What happens when a US government shutdown takes place?It’s not immediately clear which government services would be affected in this shutdown, as the Trump administration hasn’t warned the public about what could happen.But in past shutdowns, thousands of federal government employees were put on furlough, meaning that they were told not to report for work and go unpaid for the period of the shutdown, although their salaries were paid retroactively when it ended.Other government workers who perform what are judged essential services, such as air traffic controllers and law enforcement officials, continued to work but did not get paid until Congress acted to end the shutdown.Depending on how long it lasts, national parks could either shut entirely or open without certain vital services such as public toilets or attendants. Passport processing could halt, as could research at national health institutes.What causes a shutdown?Simply put, the terms of a piece of legislation known as the Anti-Deficiency Act, first passed in 1884, prohibits federal agencies from spending or obligating funds without an act of appropriation – or some alternative form of approval – from Congress.If Congress fails to enact the 12 annual appropriations bills needed to fund the US government’s activities and associated bureaucracy, all non-essential work must cease until it does. If Congress enacts some of the bills but not others, the agencies affected by the bills not enacted are forced to cease normal functioning; this is known as a partial government shutdown.How unusual are US government shutdowns?For the first 200 years of the US’s existence, they did not happen at all. In recent decades, they have become an increasingly regular part of the political landscape, as Washington politics has become more polarised and brinkmanship a commonplace political tool. There have been 20 federal funding gaps since 1976, when the US first shifted the start of its fiscal year to 1 October.Three shutdowns in particular have entered US political lore:

    A 21-day partial closure in 1995 over a dispute about spending cuts between President Bill Clinton and the Republican speaker, Newt Gingrich, that is widely seen as setting the tone for later partisan congressional struggles.

    In 2013, when the government was partially closed for 16 days after another Republican-led Congress tried to use budget negotiations to defund Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare.

    A 34-day shutdown, the longest on record, lasting from December 2018 until January 2019, when Trump refused to sign any appropriations bill that did not include $5.7bn in funding for a wall along the US border with Mexico. The closure damaged Trump’s poll ratings.
    What is triggering the latest imminent shutdown?Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate but need 60 votes to get the bill ready for passage, meaning they need Democratic support. Democrats in the House near uniformly oppose the measure, with just one member defecting. These budget votes are one way Democrats can exert power with the runaway Trump administration, led by the billionaire Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) slashing the federal workforce.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSchumer plans to vote to move the measure forward, saying it’s worse for Americans if he doesn’t approve the “deeply partisan” Republican stopgap legislation. “If government were to shut down, Doge has a plan in place to exploit the crisis for maximum destruction. A shutdown will allow Doge to shift into overdrive. It would give Donald Trump and Doge the keys to the city, state and country. Donald Trump and Elon Musk would be free to destroy vital government services at a much faster rate than they can right now and over a much broader field of destruction that they would render.”Other Democrats strongly disagree. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, said the bill would be a “devastating assault on the wellbeing of working-class families”. Senators should follow their appropriations leaders, Rosa DeLauro and Patty Murray, who have proposed a four-week funding extension to keep the government operating while both parties work on a bipartisan agreement, she said.“America has experienced a Trump shutdown before – but this damaging legislation only makes matters worse,” Pelosi said.The younger wing of the party is especially incensed by Schumer’s defection. “There are members of Congress who have won Trump-held districts in some of the most difficult territory in the United States who walked the plank and took innumerable risks in order to defend the American people,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said. “Just to see Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing to Elon Musk, I think, is a huge slap in the face.”How could a shutdown affect the wider economy?There is no current estimate of what the costs to the economy could be if the government shuts down this time.However, according to the congressional budget office, the 2018-19 shutdown imposed a short-term cost of $11bn on the US economy, an estimated $3bn of which was never recovered after the stoppage ended.How has Donald Trump reacted?Trump would probably face blowback if the government shuts down, just as he did during the 2018-19 shutdown.He has so far praised Schumer for “doing the right thing”.“Took ‘guts’ and courage!” the president wrote on Truth Social. “The big Tax Cuts, L.A. fire fix, Debt Ceiling Bill, and so much more, is coming. We should all work together on that very dangerous situation. A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights. Again, really good and smart move by Senator Schumer. This could lead to something big for the USA, a whole new direction and beginning!” More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats in Congress see potential shutdown as leverage to counter Trump

      by

      With the US federal government expected to shut down in one month unless Congress approves a funding bill, Democratic lawmakers are wrestling with just how far they are willing to go to push back against Donald Trump’s radical rightwing agenda that has thrown American politics into turmoil.Specifically, Democrats appear divided on the question of whether they would be willing to endure a shutdown to demonstrate their outrage over the president’s attempted overhaul of the federal government.The stakes are high; unless Congress passes a bill to extend funding beyond 14 March, hundreds of thousands of federal employees may be forced to go without pay at a time when they already feel under attack by Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”. And given Trump’s eagerness to flex his presidential authority, the fallout could be particularly severe, depending on how the office of management and budget (OMB) handled a shutdown.To be sure, Republicans are taking the lead on reaching a funding deal, as they control the White House and both chambers of Congress, but party leaders will absolutely need Democrats’ assistance to pass a bill. While Republicans hold a 53-to-47 advantage in the Senate, any funding bill will need the support of at least 60 senators to overcome the filibuster.In the House, Republicans hold a razor-thin majority of 218 to 215, and hard-right lawmakers’ demands for steeper spending cuts will likely force the speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, to also rely on Democratic support to pass a funding bill.“There’s no reasonable funding bill that could make its way through the Senate that wouldn’t cause uproar in the Republican party on the House side,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible. “That is the fault of the Republicans in the House, not anybody else. But because of that, it is something that is giving Democrats in the House leverage.”In recent weeks, a bipartisan group of congressional appropriators from both chambers have met to hash out the details of a potential funding agreement, but Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, suggested on Thursday that Johnson had instructed his conference members to “walk away” from the talks.“At this moment, there is no discussion because the speaker of the House has apparently ordered House Republican appropriators to walk away from the negotiating table,” Jeffries told reporters. “They are marching America toward a reckless Republican shutdown.”Johnson shot back that Democrats appeared “not interested in keeping the government funded”, adding: “So we will get the job done. We’re not going to shut the government down. We’ll figure out a path through this.”The dynamics of the funding fight have empowered some Democrats to suggest that the negotiations could become a powerful piece of political leverage as they scramble to disrupt Trump’s efforts to freeze federal funding, unilaterally shutter the foreign-aid agency USAid and carry out mass firings across the government.“I cannot support efforts that will continue this lawlessness that we’re seeing when it comes to this administration’s actions,” Andy Kim, a Democratic senator of New Jersey, said on NBC’s Meet the Press last weekend. “And for us to be able to support government funding in that way, only for them to turn it around, to dismantle the government – that is not something that should be allowed.”Progressive organizers have called on Democratic lawmakers to hold the line in the negotiations to ensure Congress passes a clean funding bill that Trump will be required to faithfully implement.On Monday, prominent congressional Democrats rallied with progressive groups outside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in Washington, and 15 of them pledged to withhold their support from a funding deal until Trump’s “constitutional crisis” comes to an end.“We’re not just looking for statements. We’re not looking for protest votes. We’re also asking them to identify where they have power, where they have leverage and use that power,” Levin said. “And because of the nature of this funding fight, this is a clear opportunity.”Other Democrats have appeared much more cautious when it comes to the possibility of a shutdown, even as they insist that Republicans should shoulder the blame for any funding lapse.The senator Cory Booker, a Democrat of New Jersey, argued that Democrats must now embrace their role as “a party of protecting residents, protecting veterans, protecting first responders, protecting American safety from [Trump’s] illegal actions”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The Republican party has shown year after year that they’re the party of shutdowns. They’re the party of government chaos,” Booker said on CNN’s State of the Union last weekend. “So we’re not looking to shut down the government. We’re looking actually to protect people.”The political fallout of past shutdowns may give Democrats pause as well.The last shutdown occurred during Trump’s first term and began in December 2018, eventually stretching on for 35 days and becoming the longest shutdown in US history. It started after Trump demanded that Congress approve billions of dollars in funding to construct a wall along the US-Mexico border, and it ended with Trump signing a bipartisan bill that included no money for the wall. At the time, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed 50% of Americans blamed Trump for the shutdown, while 37% said congressional Democrats were responsible.“Historically, I think it has been the case that shutdowns are costly, and they’re disruptive. When they conclude, you look back and wonder, what did we get for all of that? The answer is usually nothing,” said Gordon Gray, executive director of Pinpoint Policy Institute and a former Republican staffer for the Senate budget committee. “For people who have to interact with the government during a shutdown [and] for the workforce, there’s real downsides. Politically, there just seems to be more downside than upside.”This shutdown, if it occurs, could be unlike any other.Trump has shown an extraordinary willingness to test the bounds of executive power, and while past presidents have taken steps to alleviate the pain caused by shutdowns, he may choose not to do so. Considering his apparent fixation on eliminating government “waste”, some fear Trump and the new OMB director, Russell Vought, might use the shutdown as an opportunity to sideline federal agencies and departments that the president deems unimportant.“There’s a tremendous degree of discretion that OMB can exert in its interpretation of this,” Gray said. “Clearly this administration is willing to contemplate its discretion more expansively than we’ve seen. It would not surprise me if we saw novel developments under Trump.”Levin agreed that it is entirely possible Trump and some of his congressional allies may want to “shut down the government so that they can more easily steamroll” federal agencies. He expects some House Republicans to propose funding provisions that will be absolute non-starters with Democrats, such as eliminating the health insurance program Medicaid, to potentially derail negotiations.“I absolutely think it’s possible that the Republicans’ plan is to drive us into shutdown. I think that it is giving them the benefit of the doubt to say that they are interested in making any kind of deal,” Levin said. “Democrats have some amount of leverage here, but if we head into shutdown, there should be no illusion of who benefits and whose grand plan this is.” More

    • 188 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      House Democratic leadership will support Johnson stopgap bill to avert shutdown – US politics live

      by

      House Democratic leadership have released a joint statement to support the resolution to avert the government shutdown:
      House Democrats have repeatedly articulated that any continuing resolution must be set at the fiscal year 2023 spending level, be devoid of harmful cuts and free of extreme right-wing policy riders. The continuing resolution before the House today meets that criteria and we will support it.”
      Earlier, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said he and the White House support the resolution.The full statement from House Democratic leaders here:A Michigan judge rejected an effort to remove Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot, a blow to advocates who were arguing that his role in the January 6 insurrection made him ineligible for the presidency.The AP reports that James Redford, a court of claims judge in the key swing state, has ruled that the former president will remain on the ballot:
      Redford wrote that, because Trump followed state law in qualifying for the primary ballot, he cannot remove the former president. Additionally, he said, it should be up to Congress to decide whether Trump is disqualified under a section of the US constitution’s 14th amendment that bars from office a person who ‘engaged in insurrection’.
      Redford’s further wrote, “The judicial action of removing a candidate from the presidential ballot and prohibiting them from running essentially strips Congress of its ability to ‘by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such a disability.’”The effort to disqualify Trump was citing a civil war-era constitutional clause.Earlier analysis from our voting rights reporter Sam Levine here:The House of Representatives is expected to vote within the next hour on new speaker Mike Johnson’s unconventional two-tier funding bill that will keep the government operating beyond the current shutdown deadline of Friday.Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has expressed confidence the bill will pass, despite a declaration by the 50-strong House Freedom Caucus that it does not support it. The speaker told reporters earlier that there appears to be enough of a groundswell of members on either side of the aisle who want to get a deal done and “get home” for next week’s Thanksgiving holiday.The bill was filed under an expedited process that removes certain procedural obstacles but requires a two-thirds majority of House members – 290 votes – to pass.I’m handing over the blog to my colleague Sam Levin on the west coast to guide you through the rest of the day. Thanks for joining me.While we wait for the vote, here’s Lauren Gambino’s report of what to expect, and why Johnson says he’s confident of passing his first real test as speaker.A person connected to the fabulist New York congressman George Santos pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a charge of wire fraud relating to the politician’s campaign finances.Samuel Miele, 27, pleaded guilty in federal court in Islip to impersonating a House staffer while soliciting funds for Santos, the New York Times reported.Last month Nancy Marks, a former aide to Santos, pleaded guilty to embellishing campaign finance reports with fake loans and donors.Santos is facing a House ethics committee investigation, and survived a House vote to expel him earlier this month.He has pleaded not guilty to 23 federal charges accusing him of multiple frauds, including making tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges on credit cards belonging to some of his campaign donors.Miele’s lawyer, Kevin Marino, said that his client accepted responsibility but declined to say whether the plea included an agreement with federal prosecutors to testify against Santos, the Times reported.The “elbowgate” episode involving former speaker Kevin McCarthy wasn’t the only hint of violence on Capitol Hill on Tuesday: a heated discussion in a Senate committee almost turned into a physical fight after a verbal argument escalated between Oklahoma Republican Markwayne Mullin and Teamsters president Sean O’Brien.During a hearing for the Senate’s Help (health, education, labor and pensions) panel, Mullin began reading a social media post in which O’Brien had criticized him.“Quit[e] the tough guy act in these senate hearings. You know where to find me. Anyplace, Anytime cowboy,” O’Brien had written, according to Politico.“This is a time, this is a place to run your mouth. We can be two consenting adults, we can finish it here,” Mullin said before standing up from his chair to confront O’Brien.“You want to do it now?” Mullin demanded, to which O’Brien said he did. Both then taunted each other to “stand your butt up”.“You’re a United States senator. Sit down please,” committee chair Bernie Sanders chided Mullin, and urged the pair to focus on the economic issues at hand. The argument lasted several minutes.Politico has video of the confrontation here.Matt Gaetz, the architect of Kevin McCarthy’s downfall as speaker, has now filed an ethics complaint against him over this morning’s alleged assault on Tennessee congressman Tim Burchett.The firebrand Florida congressman, leader of the group of eight Republicans who sided with Democrats to oust McCarthy last month, says there’s “substantial evidence” that the California lawmaker breached an obligation to act with decorum.“This incident deserves immediate and swift investigation by the ethics committee,” Gaetz wrote, reported on X, formerly Twitter, by Politico reporter Olivia Beavers.“While Rep Burchett is within his rights to decline to press charges against Rep McCarthy, [the House ethics] committee does have a duty to investigate breaches of the binding code of official conduct, whose first rule is that ‘a member … shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House’.“There is substantial evidence Rep McCarthy breached this duty.”Gaetz, one of the brashest and loudest members of the Republican House caucus, claims that he himself has “been a victim of outrageous conduct on the House floor as well, but nothing like an open and public assault on a member committed by another member”.Joe Biden won’t be afraid to take on Chinese president Xi Jinping “where confrontation is needed” during their meeting on Wednesday, the White House says, but is confident of a productive bilateral summit addressing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.The two leaders will talk during the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation (Apec) summit in San Francisco and have a “full agenda”, John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator for the national security council just told reporters aboard Air Force One:
      These are two leaders that know each other well, [have] known each other a long, long time. They can be frank and forthright with one another. I fully expect that that’ll be the case.
      The table has been set over the course of many weeks for what, what we hope will be a very productive, candid and constructive conversation here. The president wants to make sure that we’re handling this most consequential of bilateral relationships in the most responsible way forward.
      Kirby wouldn’t be drawn on exactly what the discussions will look like, but expanded on “confronting” Xi where Biden thought fit:
      He means to compete with China. He’s coming into this discussion with the wind at his back from an economic perspective. We think the US well poised in that competition with China.
      He’s not going to be afraid to confront where confrontation is needed on certain issues where we don’t see eye to eye with President Xi and the PRC, but we’re also not going to be afraid, nor should we be afraid, as a competent nation to engage in diplomacy on ways which we can cooperate with China on climate change, for instance, and clean energy technology. There’s going to be an awful lot on the agenda.
      Other areas of possible cooperation, Kirby said, were Ukraine and Israel:
      The president will make clear that we’re going to continue to support Ukraine against Russia’s aggression, and that China could play a role here in helping us support Ukraine but also to helping advance [Ukraine president Volodymyr] Zelenskiy’s vision of a just peace here for when the conflict is over.
      I won’t speak for the Chinese but I have every expectation that the fighting in Ukraine will come up.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has begun her “gaggle” with reporters aboard Air Force One.Jean-Pierre began by sharing achievements made by the Biden administration on climate change, including Biden signing legislation on climate action as well as protecting lands and waters.Jean-Pierre’s announcements comes after a new federal report shows that climate change is impacting every area of the US and will worsen in the next 10 years.The report also details that extreme weather events are happening every three weeks, costing the US $1bn.Read more on the federal report here.House Democrats seem prepared to help the GOP spending bill pass amid faltering support from far-right Republicans, Politico reports.In a private meeting on Tuesday, the House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries outlined why the spending bill was a win for Democratic party, highlighting that the bill did not come with spending cuts or any “poison pill” additions, Politico reported.Other ranking House members have similarly colored the bill as a win for Democrats given the lack of cuts or attempts to insert Republican legislative priorities.“I think those are very significant wins for us,” Washington representative Pramila Jayapal said to Politico, noting that the bill did not contain cuts or other insertions.Jeffries did not instruct members on how to vote for the bill, which is scheduled for a floor vote on Tuesday afternoon.But many Democrats have privately noted that support for the GOP spending bill could be high, as members of the Republican House Freedom Caucus have opposed the measure.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has said that he and the White House support the stopgap funding bill, as the deadline to avoid a shutdown approaches.Schumer told reporters on Tuesday that the bill achieves the main aim of avoiding a government shutdown, Politico reported.“We all want to avoid a shutdown. I talked to the White House and both of us agree, the White House and myself, that if this can avoid a shutdown it’ll be a good thing,” Schumer said to reporters.Schumer added that the latest bill also does not cut spending, a demand coming from far-right representatives.It’s lunchtime, so time to take stock of where we are on a busy Tuesday in US politics:
      Mike Johnson, the House speaker, says he’s “confident” his bill that would keep the government funded and open beyond 17 November will pass a vote scheduled for about 4.20pm ET. The Louisiana Republican made a case to colleagues that the “clean” bill he’s proposing will allow the party to “stay in the fight” for spending battles ahead.
      But the House Freedom Caucus, an alliance of about 50 hard-line Republicans, said it cannot support the bill, leaving Johnson dependent on support from Democrats to get it over the finish line.
      Former speaker Kevin McCarthy, ousted last month by rebel Republicans for working with Democrats to pass the previous stopgap funding bill, elbowed one of them in a hallway assault, one of them claims. Tim Burchett of Tennessee says McCarthy gave him a sharp dig in the kidney then ran off with his security detail. McCarthy denies the allegation.
      Joe Biden is on his way to San Francisco and a meeting with China’s premier Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
      At the White House earlier, Biden unveiled a $6bn package of spending to bolster climate resilience, coinciding with the release of the government’s fifth annual national climate assessment.
      Still to come: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and strategic communications coordinator to the National Security Council John Kirby will “gaggle” with reporters aboard Air Force One en route to the west coast.Former speaker Kevin McCarthy, accused of a devious elbow in the back of Tennessee congressman Tim Burchett earlier Tuesday, has form, it seems.The ousted Republican delivered more than one “shoulder charge” on another rebel who displeased him, the former Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger, according to a book Kinzinger released last month.In it, he calls the California lawmaker “notably juvenile” for his treatment of Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman who like Kinzinger served on the 6 January House committee investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.And he detailed two times he says McCarthy physically “checked” him, “as soon as I started speaking the truth about the president who would be king,” Kinzinger wrote.“Once, I was standing in the aisle that runs from the floor to the back of the [House] chamber. As he passed, with his security man and some of his boys, he veered towards me, hit me with his shoulder and then kept going.“Another time, I was standing at the rail that curves around the back of the last row of seats in the chamber. As he shoulder-checked me again, I thought to myself, ‘What a child.’”McCarthy has denied he elbowed Burchett, one of eight Republicans who voted to oust him from the speaker’s chair last month. But the circumstances of that alleged assault and the ones Kinzinger describes in his book are almost identical: a sharp dig then scurrying off with his security detail.McCarthy, Kinzinger said, is “an attention-seeking high school senior who readily picked on anyone who didn’t fall in line”.Joe Biden has just boarded Air Force One at Maryland’s Join Base Andrews, on his way to the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation (Apec) summit in San Francisco.While he’s in California, the president will meet Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to try to allay growing tensions between the two nations as global conflicts flare in Ukraine and Gaza.The Guardian’s Amy Hawkins says their meeting, which could last several hours, is the culmination of months of lower level dialogues which took place over the summer, with Washington sending more delegates to China than Beijing did to the US.Read more: More