As the US government shutdown comes into effect, here what it means and why it happened

Amidst a political deadlock between the Republicans and the Democrats, the US government has shutdown on 1st of October 2025. This shutdown has happened for the first time in six years and third time under Donald Trump’s presidency. The US federal government shutdown came after the Senate failed to pass a spending bill, pushing the country into a severe crisis. The Democrats voted down the Republican bill to keep funding the government. On Wednesday, the 55-45 Senate vote left hardly any chance of keeping the government open past midnight. The shutdown clock ran out at 12:01 a.m. The trigger for the shutdown The situation arose from the expiration of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies. Due to these subsidies, millions of Americans were able to purchase coverage during the pandemic. Democrats are calling for an extension. Republicans are rejecting the demand, referring to it as “hostagetaking,”.  While Democrats maintain that health care cannot be negotiated, the GOP wants a clean funding measure free of what it refers to as “left-wing policy riders.” What happens when the US government is shutdown? All non-essential government operations are suspended during a US federal government shutdown. From access to national parks, social security, to air travel, all these facilities will be affected by the government shut down.For the president to sign budget legislation for the upcoming fiscal year, some federal agencies must receive funding that has been approved by Congress. If they are unable to approve financing, those agencies are compelled to close during the shutdown. This implies that the workers are unpaid and unable to report to work. Several others, however, will continue collecting pay cheques since their jobs are not funded through annual appropriations from Congress. As per the rules, law enforcement services, flights and mail services will continue. As per the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), 7,50,000 federal workers will be taking unpaid leave each day until the shutdown is lifted. The total daily cost of their compensation will be approximately $400m (£297m). While this situation arose due to the intransigence of Democrat and Republican senators, they will continue to get paid. The federal system of government in the United States, which was established by the country’s founders to promote discussion, permits different branches of government to be governed by various parties. This continued till 1980. During Jimmy Carter’s presidency, the government was barred from engaging into contracts without the consent of Congress due to a restrictive interpretation of the 1884 Anti-Deficiency Act. This resulted in a ‘no spending, no budget’ stance.In the US today, rival political parties essentially exploit the government’s daily operations as a bargaining instrument to pressure the opposition into making concessions. The impasse: Political ideology and egos take precedence over smooth functioning of the government Both Democrats and Republicans have been at loggerheads and remained adamant that they will not be blamed for the funding lapse. Republicans argue that the Democrats need to just agree to extend current funding for another seven weeks. However, Democrats refuse to do so without significant concessions for lending their votes to pass any spending measure in the Senate Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer have blamed the US President Donald Trump and Republicans for this embarrassing shutdown of the government. Chuck Schumer just admitted that he is holding this CR hostage until he gets what he wants. All they have to do is give in and there you go! SCHUMER IS SHUTTING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT! #SchumerShutdown pic.twitter.com/U5s5armMOz— Lorrie Ann (@LorrieAnn25) September 30, 2025 “After months of making life harder and more expensive, Donald Trump and Republicans have now shut down the federal government because they do not want to protect the healthcare of the American people,” the Democratic leaders said in a joint statement. Interestingly, ahead of the voting on Tuesday, Donald Trump added fuel to the fire by threatening to halt programs favoured by Democrats and fire more federal workers if the government shuts down. He told the media: “We’ll be laying off a lot of people. They’re going to be Democrats.” On Wednesday, the official White House handle on X, called the federal government shutdown a “Democrat Shutdown”. As this shutdown has become more of an ego clash between Democrats and Republicans, it remains to be seen which side softens its stance first. It must, however, recalled that back in 2019, Trump administration held the government hostage over border wall funding, resulting in a federal government shutdown that lasted for 35 days. Reports suggest that while the 2019 shut down was more about Trump putting up a show just to bolster his strongman image, this time, it’s more ideological and will cause much mor