Federal Government Shuts Down Again Under Trump

By: Benjamin J. Hulac, Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON — After lawmakers on Capitol Hill were unable to reach agreement, the U.S. government lurched into a shutdown early Wednesday, a threshold that triggers federal agencies and departments to send staff home and forces employees considered “essential” to work without pay.

People who work military or security jobs, like airport personnel, will remain on their beats, as will agency heads and senior staffers who lead government offices. But across the government, workers who execute many of the daily tasks to provide public services and run the U.S. government — a massive enterprise of more than 2 million civilian workers — will be sent home.

“There are very few people who can stay on,” Vicki Arroyo, a former senior Environmental Protection Agency staffer, said Monday.

About 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed each day at a cost of about $400 million each day, the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency that advises Congress on economic policy, said Tuesday in an estimate.

The CBO based its analysis on the previous full shutdown of the U.S. government — 35 days that spanned 2018 and 2019, during President Donald Trump’s first administration.

“As time goes on, it gets worse and worse,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th) said in an interview Tuesday with NJ Spotlight News.

Now what?

Shutdowns spill into daily life in a whole host of ways, Gottheimer said. A few examples: after-school programs for kids, veterans help, food aid, funding for Women, Infant and Children (WIC) centers and Meals on Wheels. “There’s like 50 different things that automatically occur.”

Firing federal workers, which the administration floated as a negotiating tactic, “will hurt our economy and hurt a lot of services that people depend on,” Gottheimer said.

Trump said late Tuesday, without specifics, that federal employees would be laid off: “When you shut it down, you have to do layoffs so we’d be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected.”

The shutdown cost will increase the longer the closure lasts, said Phillip Swagel, the CBO director. “In general, a longer lapse will have larger effects than a shorter one will,” he said in a letter to members of Congress.

Roughly 22,700 federal workers were employed in New Jersey as of September 2024, a number likely lower now after Trump’s changes to the workforce, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Two weeks ago after the Republican-controlled House passed a short-term bill and left Washington, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate blocked one another’s spending proposals to keep the government running.

As of late Tuesday, there was no public bill text and House Republicans, who control the agenda of that chamber, were not in Washington. They were not scheduled to return until next week.

As threats increase, so may protection for CongressNegotiations deteriorated this week after Trump met at the White House with Democratic leaders Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, who both represent New York, without breakthrough.

“We have very large differences,” Schumer said after those talks.

Monday night, Trump, who has routinely called Democrats “crazy people” during the funding talks, posted a distorted video online mocking Schumer and Jeffries.

In the cartoonish and false video, the Trump team depicted Jeffries with a mustache and sombrero, and duped audio to make it appear that Schumer cursed and said he was pandering to undocumented people for votes.

Republicans want a seven-week funding extension, which the House passed two weeks ago.

Sticking points

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who sets the floor agenda in the Senate, told reporters before the shutdown Democrats were using the healthcare provisions as a “hostage.”

“We are willing to sit down and work with them on some of the issues they want to talk about, whether it’s the extension of premium tax credits, with reforms, we’re happy to have that conversation,” Thune said Monday. “But as of right now, this is a hijacking of the American people.”

Democrats have insisted on funding for Medicaid, the national health insurance option for the disabled and indigent, and an extension of tax subsidies to support the health care markets created through the 2010 national law known as Obamacare.

Insurance premiums for people who receive coverage through that system will increase 15.9% in New Jersey next year unless Congress extends those subsidies.

About 454,000 people enrolled under the 2010 law are expected to pay more for their coverage next year, according to state health officials.

New Jersey House members Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd), Tom Kean Jr. (R-7th) and Gottheimer are co-sponsors of legislation to extend those credits a year.

Republicans argued negotiations about extending the subsidies can wait, though Democrats maintain they will not budge, saying the extensions are urgent since enrollment periods start in November.

The average cost of premium benefits will more than double next year, according to analysis KFF, a nonprofit health policy research, polling and news organization, published Tuesday.

“Imagine another $20,000 a year for a family who just won’t be able to afford healthcare,” Gottheimer said.