What does a government shutdown mean and why is this year’s threat more serious?

The US government has shut down because Congress couldn’t reach a funding agreement. Here’s what to know about what happens next

  • US government shutdown – live updates

Much of the federal government officially began to shut down on Wednesday, after Congress failed to reach a funding agreement before the midnight deadline. The shutdown will have a wide range of effects on government services and potentially the US economy.

Republicans put forward a stopgap...

Why healthcare spending was at the center of the US government shutdown battle

Democrats said they won’t vote for legislation unless Republicans reversed Medicaid cuts and extended subsidies

  • US government shutdown – live updates

The federal government shut down on Wednesday in part, due to a battle between Democrats and Republicans over healthcare spending.

Democrats had said that they would not vote for legislation to keep the government open unless Donald Trump and Republicans, who hold the majority in Congress, agreed to reverse...

HUD plasters shutdown warning about ‘radical left’ on website

The Department of Housing and Urban Development plastered a statement across its homepage Tuesday blaming the “radical left” for threats of a government shutdown.

“The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands,” the website statement reads.

“The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people,” it added. 

C...

Tensions expected as Trump meets with top Democrats and Republicans in effort to avoid shutdown

Trump and Republicans are unfazed at prospect of shutdown, and talks with Democrats are anticipated to be confrontational

  • US politics – latest updates

Democrats and Republicans are gearing up for a crunch White House meeting with Donald Trump in an 11th-hour bid to avert a potentially damaging federal government shutdown.

Monday’s gathering is aimed at reaching an agreement over funding the government and largely hinges on Democrat demands for an extensi...

The pandemic is over — let Biden’s health insurance handouts expire

Ronald Reagan once quipped that “nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program.”

He could have been talking about the effort to extend — for a second time — former President Joe Biden’s Affordable Care Act-enhanced tax credits, a set of extremely generous federal health insurance subsidies intended to help Americans get through the COVID-19 crisis.

That crisis ended two years ago. Biden’s extra help, enacted by a Democratic-majority Congress in 2021 and ex...

ACA tax credits at center of shutdown fight 

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Democrats worry about stumbling into shutdown

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Democrats haven’t won a positive campaign since Obama

Democrats haven’t won a national election without running against Trump since 2012.

This poses a problem for them: In 2028, Trump will be off the ballot. This span of more than a decade epitomizes the breadth of the Democrats’ dilemma: In three years, do they want to run on the past and what has worked, or positively on the future, which hasn’t succeeded for them in 16 years?

The last time Democrats won a national election running for someone, that someone was Barac...

We need more budget bipartisanship, not less

The director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, was recently quoted saying that “the appropriations process has to be less bipartisan.”

While it’s easy to think this would lead to less of the frustrating gridlock that can overtake the budgetary process, Vought is both procedurally and substantively wrong: The answer is more bipartisanship.

If this sounds naïve, consider the alternative.

The first and most obvious issue is realism. Thanks ...