Elections & Politics Brief #197 | Nate Iglehart | October 2, 2025
Summary
Push has come to shove, and for the first time in six years, the United States government has shut down. Driven by disagreements over the Republican federal spending bill, which would let tax credits for many American’s healthcare insurance expire at the end of the year, this shutdown is shaping up to be different from the rest.
The last shutdown, in 2018, also occurred under a Trump administration and lasted a record 35 daysover a disagreement regarding funding Trump’s border wall. But with this shutdown, President Donald Trump has stated that it presents an “unprecedented opportunity” to continue his push to slash the federal workforce and gut federal agencies.
With pressure from Democratic constituents not to yield anymore to Trump’s pressure, the shutdown could drag on for weeks. So what exactly sets this shutdown apart from the rest, what will its repercussions be, what changes might Trump make while it continues, and how might it end?
Analysis
The main issue, at least nominally, regards the Trump-backed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Over the summer, cuts to the healthcare programs were predicted to cause nearly 12 million people to lose Medicaid coverage and another 5 million people to lose health insurance because of a reduction in government subsidies to private insurance.
These cuts are a big policy sticking point for Democrats, and are also seen as generally unpopular with Americans. Now, with separate health care tax credits expiring at the end of the year, Democrats have chosen this as the hill to die on, or rather, to shut down the government on.
The broader reason why Democrats are willing to shut down the government is to push back on Trump’s wide-reaching agenda that many see as an expansion of power beyond its limits that threatens democracy.
By finding a win here with healthcare spending, Democrats are looking for a political win before the midterms that will also help halt Trump’s funding cuts across the board. They also want to show Republicans that they must make legislative concessions across the aisle, and that they can’t just pass bills without meeting in the middle.
Republicans, on the other hand, want to show that they can keep the government funded and functioning, and passing a stopgap bill to maintain funding at current levels until late November would show their capability. Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has said that he won’t negotiate, and blames any consequences of the shutdown on Democrats
But the position of both parties is tenuous. Right now, Republicans control both chambers of Congress, with a 53-47 seat majority in the Senate and a 220-213 majority in the House. This means that for the spending bill to pass, 60 Senators would need to vote yes, and that would require at least 7 Democrats to give in (six if Republican Sen. Rand Paul continues to vote no) in order to pass the spending bill.
There have already been some Democrat senators who have voted yes to the bill, including Catherine Cortez Masto and John Fetterman, believing Republican claims that they are willing to negotiate the healthcare cuts after the spending bill is passed.
For the moment, the two parties are at an impasse, and the longer the impasse continues, the more damage will be done.
Government shutdowns have both short and long-term effects. Off the bat, about 40% of the federal workforce – nearly 750,000 people – will be furloughed on unpaid leave.
This will leave agencies like the civilian arm of the Departments of Defense, Health, Commerce, and State relatively gutted, along with the threat of shuttering US financial regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Additionally, national parks and federally funded museums will likely be disrupted, on top of canceled immigration hearings, delayed visa processes, and delayed federal loan approvals. Finally, social programs like Medicaid and food assistance programs will also be disrupted.
Other services like the postal service and many federally funded schools will likely only face minor disruptions, but if the shutdown drags on, things could change.
The damage in the event of an extended shutdown could be drastic in the long-term, as analysts estimateit could shave 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points off economic growth for each week. Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office found that the 2018-2019 shutdown cost the U.S. economy $11 billion in economic output, including $3 billion that it never regained. Another analysis upped that number to $20 billion.
But on top of the economic effects, Trump has vowed to inflict extra pain on Democrats and use this shutdown to further push his agenda through. Already he has halted about $26 billion in previously approved funding for infrastructure and green energy projects that are mainly in Democrat-run states.
Russel Vought, the Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget and a key author of Project 2025, reportedly told Republican lawmakers that mass layoffs targeting federal workers who don’t align with Trump’s agenda could be imminent.
These moves are partially what sets this shutdown apart already. The administration’s seeming giddyness at shutting down the government and pulling every lever it can to inflict the maximum amount of damage on its political opponents does not bode well for any cross-aisle cooperation.
Broadly speaking, there are three rough ways this shutdown ends: the Democrats cave and vote the budget through without healthcare protections, the Republicans cave and mix healthcare protections into the spending bill, or nobody caves and that 35-day record gets broken with everyone suffering.
The first path, Democrats caving, is certainly possible; the two previous senators mentioned who’ve voted yes so far (Fetterman and Masto) don’t bode well for an already disunified party. As time goes, more people will likely blame the shutdown on the Democrats, and with Trump putting pressure on blue states and legislators, the pain may cause a few more Senators, some of whom might be up for reelection, to cross the aisle.
However, this shutdown is the stiffest resistance Democrats have put up to the Trump agenda so far, and they may choose this hill to die on. If their plan is to simply outlast a handful of Republican Senators (who might also have constituents to answer to at the midterms), it is not an impossible one.
In Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin, GOP Congressmen faced heated town halls of voters angered over Trump’s rule-of-law breaches and Medicare cuts. The GOP is also not as unified under the MAGA banner as it was when the election was won.
There have been occasional breaks from Trump’s agenda by Senators arguing against things like ignoring nationwide injunctions and the U.S.’s involvements in foreign wars military operations, even from the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene.
On the healthcare front, Republicans are also split on the healthcare cuts. So while there is an advantage for the Republicans in the Senate, it is one that could be strained enough to cause a few defections.
The final path, an extended shutdown without an end in sight, would arguably be the worst case scenario. Blame against both parties would mount to new heights, while preventing an enormous array of public services from functioning.
On top of all of the normal consequences of a shutdown, the postal service would likely eventually halt, federal research grants would be completely stalled, and even airlines would be stressed to their absolute max.
Those airline issues actually were what helped end the last shutdown after 35 days, and air traffic controllers are bracing for another ordeal. This time, however, the stakes are much higher, and the air traffic controllers might not be the backstop this time.
Additionally, an already stretched Fed is now operating in the blind, as federal agencies responsible for key economic data collection said they will suspend the collection and distribution of data in the event of a government shutdown.
Whichever way these negotiations go, a government shutdown has very few winners amongst its citizens. As the shutdown drags on, pain will begin to be felt across the country, and with an already tense political atmosphere, it comes down to the legislators on Capital Hill right now to prevent hell from breaking loose.
Engagement Resources
- AP News is providing live updates on the shutdown, as is The New York Times.
- While the government won’t be providing economic data, private companies such as the ADP also release data on job openings, hiring, and wages. But it’s not as comprehensive or authoritative as official government data.