Congress fails to pass a government funding bill

Federal government agencies with yearly funding are set to shut down tonight (or did last night, if you’re reading this tomorrow).

How this might affect you, or how long this might last, is anyone’s guess. About 60% of federal funding is unaffected by this, and of the rest some functions are deemed essential and continue anyway.

This was entirely predictable.

President Trump made sweeping changes to the federal government’s revenues and spending this year: A major increase in spending on immigration enforcement. A near total cut to foreign aid. Major cuts to student loans and food and medical benefits for the poor. Workforce reductions throughout much of the federal government. New across-the-board taxes on imports. Extensions of tax cuts primarily benefiting the wealthy. And, according to Republicans, a growing national debt.

Any one of these would have been a major change. All of them is major, major change, as Trump might say, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. (Not to mention countless other major policy changes that aren’t related to government funding.)

Of those policies that were passed by Congress, most Democrats and even some Republicans voted against it. Republicans passed them with slim majorities using special “reconciliation” and “rescission” rules that allow a simple majority vote in the Senate to cut spending.

But yearly appropriations bills require 3/5ths of the Senate, a supermajority, to agree because of the rules around filibusters.

Republicans knew they didn’t have the votes to pass yearly appropriations other than by making it a must-pass bill: Sign-off on policies Democrats just voted against or the government shuts down. You could call it holding the government hostage. House Republicans left town a week ago rather than be present to negotiate. (That part is not a uniquely Republican tactic.)

And since Republicans might use reconciliation and rescission rules again next year to cut anything Democrats agree to now, there was little incentive for Democrats to negotiate.

Republicans are trying to spin this as Democrats making excessive demands. What Democrats actually asked for is pretty underwhelming — a continuation of some health insurance subsidies for the poorest Americans. Compare that to how far Republicans moved the goal post to the right since President Trump took office.

So it didn’t work. At least for tonight. Republicans took on more than they could chew. Though if only a few Democrats switch position, a funding bill could be passed at any time.

Tonight Republicans got 55 votes in the Senate, that’s 5 short, on a bill to fund the government. (It wasn’t even a bill to fund the government for the whole 2026 fiscal year but just for another 7 weeks, after which point we’d be back facing a shutdown again.)

And maybe this is what Republicans wanted anyway.