The United States government effectively shut down Wednesday, October 1st, after the U.S. Senate members were unable to pass funding proposals for the new fiscal year.
The deadlock is a result of harsh partisan disagreement over which program funds to cut and which to provide funding for.
Democrats have refused to support the majority-led Republican senate in their funding plan that omits medical insurance benefits through the Affordable Care Act that are due to expire at the end of the year. Democrats have also introduced their own plan, which would permanently extend tax-credit benefits allowed through programs from the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans have refused to support.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, in a press release said “Democrats’ so-called proposal is a partisan wish list with a $1.5 trillion spending increase tacked onto a four-week funding bill. Democrats demand: Free health care for illegal aliens.”
“It seems everything is a partisan issue now instead of having things that everyone is working to accomplish,” said Sophie Falco, a sophomore who is majoring in political science.
With both proposals failing to pass, Republicans and Democrats blame each other for the shutdown.
“This is sort of the tip of the spear of the polarization debate because it manifests almost every year in the budget,” said Dr. David Sprick, adjunct professor of the political science department at UMKC.
“I think the argument could be made that it’s both sides that are at fault for it. The point of having Congress approve the budget is for both sides to come together and agree on things,” said Falco.
This is the first government shutdown since 2018, during President Trump’s first term. It lasted 34 days. This shutdown may be different from previous ones.
In late February, the House of Representatives passed their budget resolution, which mainly concerned changes in tax law, changes in spending toward Medicare and Medicaid, and contained specific targets for committees in the Senate to reconcile for an official budget to be passed. The Senate is stuck on these resolutions.
“This one’s a little strange in that the House pretty easily passed their resolution, and the Senate’s just a few votes shy,” said Sprick.
The shutdown could lead to massive service cuts and layoffs for hundreds of thousands. Millions of federal employees are faced with potential loss of pay.
“There’s lots of services that just aren’t happening for all kinds of Americans and all kinds of things. It’s got quite a broad reach of people who get affected, however small to however great,” said Sprick.
“The biggest budget item in the discretionary spending is defense, so that would affect active duty people. They could be going without pay right now,” said Dr. Sprick. “There’s all kinds of people who provide services to the federal government. Their invoices probably won’t be processed.”
The shutdown may impact students at UMKC. Should the shutdown continue, financial aid officers may be unable to assist students with any issues that come up with their loans or grants.
New federal grant proposals will also be indefinitely paused. Civil rights violation complaints will also go largely unanswered by federal employees in the Department of Education.
The shutdown also impacts nonprofit organizations, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP) benefit recipients. If the shutdown extends to mid-October, people relying on government programs will not receive November payments. Other food assistance programs, such as Harvesters in Kansas City, will be without funds and therefore unable to provide food to people in need.
President Trump warned Democrats that in the event of a shutdown, he would “do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them. Like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”
“It worries me, everything you see in the news always comes back to both sides blaming one another,” said Falco.
A proposal with bipartisan support, or a stopgap measure that would provide a short-term spending plan before a long-term plan could be passed, would be needed to end the shutdown.
