The United States federal government shut down on Oct. 1, 2025, after failing to pass a funding bill in Congress. Oct. 12th marks the twelfth day of this shutdown, and the impacts of it can be felt all across the country. The last government shutdown occurred from December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019, and lasted 35 days, where a funding dispute over the southern border had caused it. The reason why the U.S. is facing another shutdown is because Congress could not come to an agreement on the funding for Medicaid and health care subsidies.
Who’s Demanding What
The Democrats are demanding the reversal of recent cuts to Medicaid by President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” passed by Congress back in early July. Other reasons include the health care subsidies, where Democrats were wanting for their inclusion in the funding bill. Republicans are fighting to keep the cuts to Medicaid, to lower the overall spending of the United States.
Impacts
The result of the current stalemate in Congress is the shutdown. Approximately 750,000 federal employees are expected to be suspended from their jobs, and essential government workers continuing to work without pay. This means non-essential government services are stopped until the government re-opens. Non-essential government services include food inspections, national museums, historical sites, research and national parks, where they have all either been halted or severely impacted because of the shutdown. Many others have either lost their jobs or are working without pay until further notice.
Flights have also been severely delayed across the country amid air traffic controller shortages. Because air traffic controllers are classified as “essential workers”, many are calling in sick as they are not receiving pay during the shutdown. President Trump has threatened to cut more programs if the shutdown does not end.
The funding bill that failed to pass through Congress had failed to move forward in a close 54-45 vote. The Senate will not be holding any more votes or hearings next week, as they were scheduled to be on break from Oct. 13th to the 17th. It has not been reported if there will be any changes to this.
As of now, there doesn’t seem to be any progress made in Congress or the Senate on the passage of the funding bill, and we are currently at a disastrous stalemate.
