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1h ago

Government Shutdown Looks Likely at Midnight as Health-Care Standoff Blocks Stopgap

Agencies are activating contingency plans after White House guidance to prepare for possible layoffs.

A partisan standoff over health care and spending is threatening to trigger the first U.S. government shutdown in almost seven years, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., right, talk with reporters following their meeting with President Donald Trump and Republican leaders on the government funding crisis, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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Overview

  • The government will close at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday unless the Senate secures 60 votes for a short-term funding bill that Democrats oppose without an immediate extension of ACA subsidies and reversals of recent Medicaid cuts.
  • House Republicans passed a seven-week continuing resolution through Nov. 21, but repeat Senate votes expected Tuesday were not projected to clear the filibuster threshold.
  • The Office of Management and Budget told agencies to ready reduction-in-force plans, and President Trump said “a lot” of federal workers could be fired, a move Democrats denounced as intimidation.
  • Agencies posted shutdown playbooks that would halt many nonessential operations, with the Labor Department pausing its monthly unemployment report, SBA loans stopping, and public lands advocates urging park closures such as locked gates at Joshua Tree.
  • Cybersecurity capacity would be strained as CISA plans to keep an estimated 889 of 2,540 employees on duty, and experts warn information sharing could suffer if the 2015 cyber data-sharing law lapses without renewal.