After the U.S. Senate rejected two-party appropriation bills on September 30th, at 12:01 AM local time on October 1st, the U.S. federal government “shut down” for the first time in nearly 7 years. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees faced mandatory leave or layoffs, and the services of numerous federal agencies were also “suspended”.
On the evening of the 30th, Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Walter released a memorandum, instructing all government agencies to begin executing their “orderly shutdown” plans. Unaffected departments include the military, law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Postal Service.
Senate Republicans to Vote on Temporary Appropriation Bill Again on October 1st
Senate Republicans decided to hold procedural votes on the Republican temporary appropriation bill and the Democratic proposal again on October 1st. According to the scheduled voting calendar, this session of the Senate can last until October 3rd or 4th (with a recess on October 2nd); the House of Representatives will not hold meetings this week.
Senate Republican Leader Thune hopes that on October 1st, five more Democratic senators will support the Republican proposal, but he has ruled out modifying the bill’s content to win more Democratic votes.
The operational funds for the U.S. federal government should come from annual budget appropriations. The two parties in Congress usually need to pass a new annual appropriation bill before the start of the new fiscal year on October 1st. However, due to intense partisan struggles in recent years, it has often been impossible to reach an agreement on time. Therefore, Congress has attempted to temporarily maintain the operation of the federal government through temporary appropriation bills. Over the past year, the U.S. federal government has faced “shutdown” crises multiple times, and in both December 2024 and March 2025, Congress passed short-term spending bills only hours before federal funds ran out.
Over the past half-century, the U.S. government has “shut down” more than 20 times, with the last one also occurring during Trump’s tenure
Since the 1970s, the U.S. federal government has “shut down” more than 20 times due to funding interruptions caused by policy disagreements between the Republican and Democratic parties. The last and longest shutdown occurred at the end of 2018 to the beginning of 2019, during Trump’s first term. Democrats opposed the Trump administration’s request for funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall, and the two parties’ endless struggle over immigration issues led to a 35-day government shutdown. At that time, about a quarter of federal government agencies were “shut down” for five weeks, affecting more than 800,000 government employees and causing estimated economic losses of over $10 billion.