The United States is preparing for a government shutdown as members of Congress struggle to negotiate a last-minute budget deal that would maintain funding for federal services through the new year.
Early Friday, US media reported that the Office of Management and Budget under outgoing President Joe Biden had already signaled that federal agencies should prepare for the shutdown.
The government funding will expire at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time (05:01 GMT), just after midnight on Saturday.
But at a midday news conference on Friday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was optimistic, saying there might not be a government shutdown if a bipartisan deal can be passed.
“There is still time. We believe there is still time for this not to happen,” said Jean-Pierre. “Our focus is on keeping government open. That’s what we want to see.”
One final clash between Trump and Biden
But as congressional negotiations continued throughout the day, Democrats and Republicans traded recriminations and the budget bill turned into a final battle royal between Biden and his successor, President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump, a former Republican president who will take office again on Jan. 20, was a key figure on Wednesday in blocking a bipartisan bill that would keep the government running through March.
He repeatedly noted that if there were to be a shutdown, it should happen under Biden, his Democratic rival.
“If there is a government shutdown, let it begin now, under the Biden administration, not after January 20, under ‘TRUMP,'” the president-elect said in a statement Friday Social media post.
Biden, meanwhile, has not spoken directly to the public about the budget debate, but in Friday’s press conference Jean-Pierre emphasized that her voice represents that of the president.
She placed the blame on Trump and his allies such as tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who was among the prominent Republicans who opposed the bipartisan bill.
The press secretary also called on House Speaker Mike Johnson, another Republican leader, to “clean up the mess” after the bipartisan agreement failed.
“There was a bipartisan deal on the table. They moved forward. The speaker agreed to do this to advance the bipartisan agreement. And they stopped that because of what the president-elect and Elon Musk said,” Jean-Pierre said at the press conference.
“They wanted to clear the way for their billionaire friends.”
Fight against bills
Wednesday’s bipartisan legislation ran a whopping 1,547 pages. That included $10 billion in agricultural aid and $100 billion in disaster relief, following another major hurricane season in the United States.
Other provisions provided money for child care programs, gave members of Congress a 3.8 percent pay raise for higher living costs and allowed the District of Columbia to build a stadium for the Washington Commanders football team on federal land.
Still, Republicans bristled at the bill’s length, with Trump accusing it of being stuffed with “Democratic giveaways.”
On Thursday, the party unveiled its own Trump-approved version of the budget stopgap bill, which aims to temporarily keep the government open. Winnowed to 116 pagesThe bill retained the disaster relief allowance and money earmarked for farmers, but eliminated many other provisions.
Also crucial was the proposal to raise the national debt ceiling by January 2027, right in the middle of Trump’s upcoming presidency. This was a central demand that Trump brought into the discourse.
How high is the debt limit?
The debt ceiling regulates how much money the federal government can borrow to pay its bills, but was not originally part of the budget negotiations. The draft budget referred to government spending, not borrowing.
However, as the Jan. 1 deadline for raising the debt ceiling approaches, Trump has expressed concern that it would fall to his administration.
In recent days, the president-elect has increasingly advocated for Republicans to raise the debt ceiling — or eliminate it altogether — under Biden’s leadership.
“If Republicans try to pass a clean continuation resolution without all of the Democratic bells and whistles that will be so destructive to our country, after January 20, that will only result in the Trump administration dealing with the debt ceiling mess “,” Trump wrote on social media on Wednesday.
“Everything should be done and fully negotiated before I take office on January 20, 2025.”
But critics on the left warned that eliminating the debt ceiling would make it easier for Trump to impose drastic tax cuts during his term. Others rejected it as a path to unlimited national debt.
Ultimately, the Trump-backed bill failed in a vote Thursday night in the House of Representatives, with 235 members voting against and 174 in favor. 38 Republicans joined the opposition.
“The Musk-Johnson proposal is not serious. It’s ridiculous. Extreme MAGA Republicans are driving us toward a government shutdown,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said earlier this week, taking a swipe at Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.
Another Democrat, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, told reporters she doesn’t believe the debt ceiling should be a “negotiating tactic” in the current spending bill.
“You want to negotiate the debt ceiling? Fine. “This will be a discussion that will take place in the spring, not at the eleventh hour of an already agreed, negotiated agreement on the ongoing solution,” she said Thursday.
By Friday, negotiators in both the House and Senate had largely moved away from a bill that would include changes to the debt ceiling.
What is a government shutdown?
Unless a cross-party agreement can be reached and passed by Friday evening, the government could be forced to close all non-essential services in the early hours of Saturday.
The threat of a government shutdown has become a regular phenomenon in U.S. politics in recent years — and the stakes can be high, especially for federal employees, contractors and Americans who rely on federal programs.
If the government stalls, hundreds of thousands of non-essential government workers will be furloughed until a budget can be passed.
As a rule, you will receive an additional payment as soon as financing is resumed. In the meantime, however, members of the military and other federal agencies report difficulty making ends meet.
Certain government services that are also deemed non-essential could also be suspended. A closure could mean a temporary halt to food and safety inspections, civil litigation in federal courts and access to national parks and monuments.
Low-income families’ ability to access the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, could also be affected in the event of a prolonged shutdown.
On Friday, Jean-Pierre emphasized the dangers of an impending shutdown in her remarks to reporters.
“The impact would harm our veterans and harm vulnerable Americans across the country,” she said. “That’s what we’re talking about. Republicans need to do their job and hold up their end of the bargain here.”
The last government shutdown occurred during the first Trump administration in late 2018 and early 2019.
It lasted 34 days — the longest shutdown ever in modern U.S. history. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) appreciated that the funding gap at the time delayed government spending by nearly $18 billion.
Due to slower economic activity, the shutdown also reduced inflation-adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) by approximately $3 billion in the final quarter of 2018 and by $8 billion in the first quarter of 2019.
Although much of these economic losses were ultimately recovered, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that $3 billion would not be the case.
Republicans against Trump
Political careers are also likely to depend on the outcome of this week’s tense budget negotiations.
Just a year earlier, in October 2023, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, another Republican, was ousted from his leadership post in a first-of-its-kind vote.
Members of his own party had moved to vacate his post after McCarthy passed a permanent resolution to keep the government funded and prevent a shutdown.
McCarthy’s departure plunged the Republican caucus into weeks of chaos, and Johnson eventually emerged as his successor and took up the speaker’s gavel.
However, some political insiders speculate that Johnson could suffer the same fate, especially when a new Congress convenes in January.
Other Republican officials are also in the crosshairs. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas was among the most outspoken Republicans on Thursday in opposing Trump’s proposed budget bill.
He accused his fellow Republicans of being “deeply dubious” about reducing the federal deficit and compared them to the Democrats.
“I am absolutely disgusted by a party that advocates for fiscal responsibility and has the audacity to turn to the American people and say you think this is fiscally responsible,” Roy said.
But his vehement opposition to the Trump-backed proposal was rebuked by the president-elect himself, who harshly criticized Roy in a social media post.
“The very unpopular Texas ‘Congressman’ Chip Roy is, as always, standing in the way of another major Republican victory – all to get himself cheap publicity,” Trump said wrote. “Republican obstructionists must be eliminated.”
Trump has before called for Republicans who oppose his debt ceiling plan to be “pre-selected” – in other words, voted out in the primaries of the next federal election in 2026.
