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The longest government shutdown in history could conclude as soon as Wednesday, Day 43, with almost no one happy with the final result.Democrats didn’t get the heath insurance provisions they demanded added to the spending deal. And Republicans, who control the levers of power in Washington, didn’t escape blame, according to polls and some state and local elections that went poorly for them.The fallout of the shutdown landed on millions of Americans, including federal workers who went without paychecks and airline passengers who had their trips delayed or canceled. An interruption in nutrition assistance programs contributed to long lines at food banks and added emotional distress going into the holiday season.The agreement includes bipartisan bills worked out by the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund parts of governmentfood aid, veterans programs, and the legislative branch, among other things. All other funding would be extended until the end of January, giving lawmakers more than two months to finish additional spending bills.Here’s a look at how the shutdown started and is likely to end: What led to the shutdown Democrats made several demands to win their support for a short-term funding bill, but the central one was an extension of an enhanced tax credit that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces.The tax credit was boosted during the COVID-19 pandemic response, again through President Joe Biden’s big energy and health care bill, and it’s set to expire at the end of December. Without it, premiums on average will more than double for millions of Americans. More than 2 million people would lose health insurance coverage altogether next year, the Congressional Budget Office projected.“Never have American families faced a situation where their health care costs are set to doubledouble in the blink of an eye,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York.While Democrats called for negotiations on the matter, Republicans said a funding bill would need to be passed first.“Republicans are ready to sit down with Democrats just as soon as they stop holding the government hostage to their partisan demands,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, said.Thune eventually promised Democrats a December vote on the tax credit extension to help resolve the standoff, but many Democrats demanded a guaranteed fix, not just a vote that is likely to fail.Thune’s position was much the same as the one Schumer took back in October 2013, when Republicans unsuccessfully sought to roll back parts of the Affordable Care Act in exchange for funding the government. “Open up all of the government, and then we can have a fruitful discussion,” Schumer said then. Democratic leaders under pressure The first year of President Donald Trump’s second term has seen more than 200,000 federal workers leave their job through firings, forced relocations or the Republican administration’s deferred resignation program, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Whole agencies that don’t align with the administration’s priorities have been dismantled. And billions of dollars previously approved by Congress have been frozen or canceled.Democrats have had to rely on the courts to block some of Trump’s efforts, but they have been unable to do it through legislation. They were also powerless to stop Trump’s big tax cut and immigration crackdown bill that Republicans helped pay for by cutting future spending on safety net programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.The Democrats’ struggles to blunt the Trump administration’s priorities has prompted calls for the party’s congressional leadership to take a more forceful response.Schumer experienced that firsthand after announcing in March that he would support moving ahead with a funding bill for the 2025 budget year. There was a protest at his office, calls from progressives that he be primaried in 2028, and suggestions that the Democratic Party would soon be looking for new leaders.This time around, Schumer demanded that Republicans negotiate with Democrats to get their votes on a spending bill. The Senate rules, he noted, requires bipartisan support to meet the 60-vote threshold necessary to advance a spending bill.But those negotiations did not occur, at least not with Schumer. Republicans instead worked with a small group of eight Democrats to tee up a short-term bill to fund the government generally at current levels and accused Schumer of catering to the party’s left flank when he refused to go along.“The Senate Democrats are afraid that the radicals in their party will say that they caved,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Lousiana, said at one of his many daily press conferences. The blame game The political stakes in the shutdown are huge, which is why leaders in both parties have held nearly daily press briefings to shape public opinion.Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say Trump and Republicans in Congress have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the shutdown, while 54% say the same about Democrats in Congress, according to the poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.At least three-quarters of Americans believe each deserves at least a “moderate” share of blame, underscoring that no one was successfully evading responsibility.Both parties looked to the November 4 elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere for signs of how the shutdown was influencing public opinion. Democrats took comfort in their overwhelming successes. Trump called it a “big factor, negative” for Republicans. But it did not change the GOP’s stance on negotiating. Instead, Trump ramped up calls for Republicans to end the filibuster in the Senate, which would pretty much eliminate the need for the majority party to ever negotiate with the minority. Damage of the shutdown The Congressional Budget Office says that the negative impact on the economy will be mostly recovered once the shutdown ends, but not entirely. It estimated the permanent economic loss at about $11 billion for a six-week shutdown.Beyond the numbers, though, the shutdown created a cascade of troubles for many Americans. Federal workers missed paychecks, causing financial and emotional stress. Travelers had their flights delayed and at times canceled. People who rely on safety net programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program saw their benefits stopped, and Americans throughout the country lined up for meals at food banks.“This dysfunction is damaging enough to our constituents and economy here at home, but it also sends a dangerous message to the watching world,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas “It demonstrates to our allies that we are an unreliable partner, and it signals to our adversaries that we can’t work together to meet even the most fundamental responsibilities of Congress.” Follow the AP’s coverage of the federal government shutdown at https://apnews.com/hub/government-shutdown. Kevin Freking, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
President Donald Trump boasts that his tariffs protect American industries, lure factories to the United States, raise money for the federal government, and give him diplomatic leverage.Now, he’s claiming they can finance a windfall for American families, too: He’s promising a generous tariff dividend.The president proposed the idea on his Truth Social media platform Sunday, five days after his Republican Party lost elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere largely because of voter discontent with his economic stewardshipspecifically, the high cost of living.The tariffs are bringing in so much money, the president posted, that “a dividend of at least $2,000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”Budget experts scoffed at the idea, which conjured memories of the Trump administration’s short-lived plan for DOGE dividend checks financed by billionaire Elon Musk’s federal budget cuts.“The numbers just don’t check out,” said Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.Details are scarce, including what the income limits would be and whether payments would go to children.Even Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, sounded a bit blindsided by the audacious dividend plan. Appearing Sunday on ABC’s This Week, Bessent said he hadn’t discussed the dividend with the president and suggested that it might not mean that Americans would get a check from the government. Instead, Bessent said, the rebate might take the form of tax cuts.The tariffs are certainly raising money$195 billion in the budget year that ended September 30, up 153% from $77 billion in fiscal 2024. But they still account for less than 4% of federal revenue and have done little to dent the federal budget deficita staggering $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2025.Budget wonks say Trump’s dividend math doesn’t work.John Ricco, an analyst with the Budget Lab at Yale University, reckons that Trump’s tariffs will bring in $200 billion to $300 billion a year in revenue. But a $2,000 dividendif it went to all Americans, including childrenwould cost $600 billion. “It’s clear that the revenue coming in would not be adequate,” he said.Ricco also noted that Trump couldn’t just pay the dividends on his own. They would require legislation from Congress.Moreover, the centerpiece of Trump’s protectionist trade policiesdouble-digit taxes on imports from almost every country in the worldmay not survive a legal challenge that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.In a hearing last week, the justices sounded skeptical about the Trump administration’s assertion of sweeping power to declare national emergencies to justify the tariffs. Trump has bypassed Congress, which has authority under the Constitution to levy taxes, including tariffs.If the court strikes down the tariffs, the Trump administration may be refunding money to the importers who paid them, not sending dividend checks to American families. (Trump could find other ways to impose tariffs, even if he loses at the Supreme Court; but it could be cumbersome and time-consuming.)Mainstream economists and budget analysts note that tariffs are paid by U.S. importers who then generally try to pass along the cost to their customers through higher prices.The dividend plan “misses the mark,” the Tax Foundation’s York said. “If the goal is relief for Americans, just get rid of the tariffs.” Paul Wiseman, AP Economics Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
Jonathan Haidt, author of ‘The Anxious Generation,’ breaks down the psychology behind Gen Zs social media addiction and what digital dependance actually does to a young person’s brain.
Category:
E-Commerce
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