Oct. 24, 2025 · by Amy West

Current Status

It's the 23rd day of the government shutdown. Most federal employees, whether still working or furloughed, have begun to miss paychecks. The House has been out of session since September 19 and shows no sign of returning to do any of the work for whichthey continue to be paid.

The Senate comes in a few days a week; votes on a few nominations and re-votes onthe House's continuing resolution. When it fails, as it has every time so far (along with analternative bill from Sen. Johnson which has also failed multiple times, most recentlyOctober 23), they head out for their usual 3 day weekends.

The President apparently isn't concerned about the shutdown given that he's leaving town for a week, but more importantly, the Senate has become passiveas described by Semafor. The President's trip also means that even if a bill passed next week, the shutdown still wouldn't end until he returned to sign it.

Procedural Note: It's possible for a bill to become law without a presidential signature but it requires a lot of time and for both chambers to be in session for that time period, so for all practical purposes, assume any continuing resolution that gets passed will need the President's signature.

What's the Standoff About?

During the Biden Administration, the Democrats used their majorities pass more extensive health insurance premium subsidies for people who pay for their own insurance (as opposed to employer provided insurance or medicare, etc).

The catch was that the subsidies were temporary. Why wouldn't they make them permanent? Maybe they couldn't get agreement from enough of their own members at the time, maybe it was the price of Republican votes ormaybe it was a cynical political ploy as described by the New York Times.

Those subsidies will expire at the end of this calendar year. Democrats have made the extension of these subsidies their primary demand in exchange for their support in the Senate for the House's continuing resolution.

Republicans have refused, so Democrats have refused. To apparently everyone's surprise,but especially Republicans', Democrats have held their ground on this demand.

So here we all are and here we'll stay for at least one more week. FYI, if you are one of the people who pays for your own insurance, you should probably start talking to your insurance company now about what to expect in premium costs for next year, because it does not look like the subsidies will be extended.

Effects of the Shutdown So Far

So far, most essential federal employees have continued to work despite not being paid. Thus, air traffic controllers are at their desks, weather is monitored and so on.

Federally funded cultural institutions in D.C. have closed to the public including the National Zoo, the National Gallery andthe Smithsonian museums. (Yes, the zoo animals are still receiving care - the zoo staff are working without pay just like most other federal employees)

Members of the military got paid on Oct. 15, apparently by shifting around unspent funds originally allocated for other purposes. In this, the Trump Administration is spending funds in ways not authorized by Congress and the legality is unclear. It's also not clear how the military will be paid on Oct. 30.

ICE Officers are being paid. This too represents using funds authorized by Congress for other purposes and is of dubious legality.

People who need food aid will not get it after November 1 if the shutdown is not resolved before then. It's unclear why, if other agencies can repurpose funds (legally or not) to fill gaps from the shutdown, the Department of Agriculture isn't also working to protect poor Americans.

The House simply isn't doing anything at all. They aren't working on regular appropriations bills, they aren't holding hearings, they haven't sworn in a new member elected in September, nothing except for introducing new bills that will see no action any time soon.NOTUS wrote about frustrations in the House and Senate over Speaker Johnson's refusal to allow the House to do its work.

Predictions

Steven Dennis, a Congressional reporter for Bloomberg has a series of posts on standoffs that go something likethis one from 2022:

How the omnibus came together:NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NONO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NONO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NONO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NOYES TO FRAMEWORK NO NO NONO NODEAL! HAS ANYONE TALKEDTO MIKE LEE, RAND PAUL? NO NO NOTIME AGREEMENT LOCKED IN68-29

The point being that public statements may or may not accurately reflect efforts to find compromise behind the scenes and you don't know about it until after the agreement is made when things suddenly move quickly to resolution.

Right now, the public stance of both parties is still firmly in the "NO NO NO NO NO..." stage. There's no evidence of negotiations behind the scenes, but perhaps we'll get a surprise "YES TO FRAMEWORK" next week even if not an actual resolution.

See you next Friday for the next update.