US Government officially shuts down

US Government officially shuts down

The United States government officially shut down after the Senate failed to pass a stopgap funding bill before the midnight deadline on Tuesday, September 30, 2025. This is the first shutdown in six years and marks a significant disruption in government operations. The shutdown began on Wednesday, October 1, 2025, and will affect non-essential activities, potentially leading to disruptions in services and payment of social safety net benefits.

The impasse over funding has been fueled by deep divides between Republicans and Democrats, particularly over healthcare spending and stopgap measures. Senate Democrats blocked a House-passed stopgap bill that would extend current funding levels for seven weeks but without enhanced Obamacare subsidies. A Democratic proposal to fund the government and extend those subsidies also failed to gain the necessary support.

The 55-to-45 vote in the Senate on Tuesday all but ensured that the government would shut down. The clock is ticking, and the deadline for a government shutdown has been reached, with no breakthrough between Democrats and Republicans to fund the government beyond Tuesday.

The shutdown will halt non-essential activities, potentially disrupting the payment of many social safety net benefits and leaving hundreds of thousands of civil servants temporarily without pay. The White House has directed agencies to draw up plans for mass firings if the government closes down, although no agencies have explicitly called for layoffs in their shutdown plans.

The shutdown is deeply unpopular, and both Democrats and Republicans are trying to avoid the scenario while blaming the other camp in the event of a closure. House Republicans have passed a stopgap measure to extend funding until late November, pending negotiations on a longer-term spending plan. However, Democrats want to see hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare spending for low-income households restored, which the Trump administration is likely to eliminate.

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