Is The Shutdown Over? EXPLAINER

Written By Leeja Miller

Sources:

Transcript:

Hi welcome to Why, America? I’m Leeja Miller. Today it’s more like um what the fuck? America? Specifically… Democrats? I woke up to the first sprinkling of snow of the season and I couldn’t even muster a giddy sense of youthful wonder because it’s a Monday and Democrats are once again, say it with me, fumbling the fucking ball. Yesterday, Sunday, 8 Democrats defected and agreed to move forward with a vote to end the government shutdown with no extension of ACA subsidies in place, you know, the single line item this entire government shut down was being fought over. There are still procedural hurdles that need to happen which we’ll go over because no major news outlet seems to care about being explicit about the procedural rules of our Congress, THANK GOD I’M HERE this place is a mess, let’s get into it.

Here are the names of the 8 defecting senators who voted last night to move forward with ending the government shut down: Dick Durbin of Illinois. Angus King of Maine. Tim Kaine of Virginia. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. And Jacky Rosen of Nevada.

Dick Durbin and Jeanne Shaheen aren’t seeking re-election, but the other six if you live in their districts in Maine, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, or Nevada, these people need to be primaried out of existence at the first opportunity. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s break down what’s going on here.

The government shutdown started on October 1st. It has now been 40 days, the longest shutdown in US history. On November 1st, ACA or Obamacare marketplaces opened so that people who buy their health insurance through those marketplaces can participate in open enrollment and pick their plan for next year. 24 million people get their insurance this way. And 22 million of them rely on ACA subsidies, that is the government paying a portion of the monthly premium, in order to afford their plans. But those subsidies are set to expire for next year’s plans, so millions of Americans discovered that their insurance costs were about to skyrocket, costing potentially tens of thousands of dollars per year for some families. Costs that are so astronomically unaffordable that the smartest most economically viable option for many families and individuals would be to forego health insurance altogether. If that is you, TikTok is ablaze with videos, mostly from moms because of course they are the ones to be saddled with this labor, explaining how people plan to work around the system to get whatever coverage they can. For some this means going for the cheapest option and storing away as much money as possible in a health savings account to use should they need it. For others that means going directly to their doctor’s office and signing up for a medical membership where they pay a monthly fee directly to their clinic and get routine exams and labs for a heavily reduced cost. Some people have also discovered that paying out of pocket for certain procedures is more affordable than going through insurance. I’m no expert on this, you’ll need to do your own research, which is fucking bullshit the richest country on the planet should be able to provide basic life saving health care to its people for free, and it’s not fair that you need to do this work in order to maybe not go bankrupt if you have a health emergency. But the information is out there if you look for it.

Anyway, all that to say the health insurance costs are too damn high, the people saw that on November 1st, and Senate Democrats were blocking the passage of the continuing resolution to fund the government unless it included an extension of the ACA subsidies that bring down those unconscionably high insurance costs. And many of the American people were uncomfortable and disliked the government shutdown but were nevertheless in favor of Democrats holding out because they were finally using what little power they have to stand up against an out of control tyrannical regime and because for many people the cost of healthcare without those ACA subsidies would be far far worse. And for 40 days the American people lived through an increasingly uncomfortable shutdown. And last week, Democrats saw sweeping election victories, in the middle of the longest government shutdown in history, indicating that perhaps the American people were mostly upset with Republicans, indicating that perhaps the Democrats should keep going given the fact that they now had the leverage of the PR and upswing in confidence that comes from sweeping election victories. Polls were showing that most people blamed Trump and the Republicans for the shutdown. Democrats finally had some leverage, something to point to and say the American people clearly want this, the Republicans are deadset on making that ACA subsidy cut permanent, we are using the leverage we have to make them come to the table and provide for the American people even though they don’t want to. They even attempted to use that leverage further, offering last week to end the government shutdown if Republicans simply agreed to a one year extension of the ACA subsidies to give them more time to hammer out a more permanent solution. Forcing the Republicans to reject even this more tempered measure, one that would allow the government to reopen and ALSO allow millions of Americans to afford their health insurance was a really smart political move–I mean, it would require Democrats to be good at the marketing aspect of things to make sure the American people saw exactly what was happening, but even with those shortcomings it truly was a marketing and PR slam dunk, a simple equation over the balance of power which, for the first time since last November, finally felt like it was ever so slightly tipping towards Democrats. And then they fucking blinked. Or these 8 assholes blinked, at least. And last night they sided with Republicans. I think it’s worth taking a step back to talk about the basics of Congressional procedure here which is really boring but really necessary to follow what’s going on, and not enough people talk about it. I don’t know enough about it, so I Googled that for all of us so you don’t have to.

OKAY to understand what’s going on, we have to understand how Congress handles the budget which, unlike what Trump and his goons like to harp on about, is squarely within the authority of CONGRESS and not the President to handle. But the President does of course play a role. Every year, the President presents a federal budget proposal, which outlines his spending priorities for the given fiscal year specifically for discretionary programs. Discretionary programs are things like defense, education, transportation–they require Congress to appropriate funds to keep them running every year. Mandatory spending is not part of that yearly budget process and impacts spending that has been set by a separate law. This includes things like Social Security, Medicare, things that are funded through separate processes. Those are NOT included in the fiscal year budget talks. Every year, Congress is supposed to pass a federal budget law, also called an appropriations bill, to allocate funding for the fiscal year by October 1st when the next fiscal year begins. So fiscal year 2026 runs from October 1 2025 to September 30, 2026. However, over the last 50 years, Congress has only managed to pass the fiscal year budget before the start of the fiscal year three times. Thrice. In half a century.

Instead, in order to keep the government funded and avoid a shut down, Congress passes “Continuing Resolutions” which basically kick the can down the road for a certain number of days, maybe a month, maybe 3 months, to give them more time to pass the larger appropriations bill. They’ll eventually pass it, but it’ll be like half way through the fiscal year and they’re just passing the appropriations bill for that year. If a continuing resolution or CR is not passed before October 1st, or if a CR runs out and a new CR or full budget bill isn’t passed, then the government shuts down. Again, it’s not a FULL shut down because some spending is mandatory, but all the discretionarily funded programs get shut down–though of course some like TSA and air traffic control are deemed “essential” so they must keep running despite no funding.

In order for an appropriations bill or a CR to pass, it needs to first pass by a simple majority in the House (though some procedures meant to speed up the process require a supermajority) and then it is sent to the Senate where 60 yes votes out of 100 are required for passage. This comes from the Senate’s filibuster rule, wherein a person opposed to a bill can stand up and talk nonstop during debate which delays the vote. The only way to get that person to shut up and sit down is with a 60 person vote also known as cloture. The filibuster process is shortened so people don’t actually have to stand up and speak for hours if the Senate already knows that there won’t be 60 people to vote to end the filibuster. So the vote is held up without the need for all the theatrics. That’s why the senate has held votes over and over again for the last 40 days, the votes themselves were to see whether cloture has been reached so they can move forward without someone standing up and filibustering for hours without the votes to stop them. And so Sunday night was the first time they were able to get 60 yes votes in order to move forward with the vote on whether to vote on the CR. So it was a vote on whether to vote.

Just as an aside because I want to paint the full budget picture in Congress for you, like I said we are dealing with the appropriations process which handles discretionary, yearly funding through full year appropriations bills and continuing resolutions. This is not to be confused with a reconciliation bill, which is a special legislative procedure that allows Congress to fiddle with mandatory spending, taxes, or the federal debt limit. It only requires a simple majority to pass and as such is easier to use for larger policy issues when there is a trifecta in Congress and the White House. The “Big Beautiful Bill” was a reconciliation bill. It has been used 22 times since the process was created by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Ok so Sunday they voted to move forward with a vote, but there are a few amendments to be made first, because they did in the end reach a kind of compromise with Republicans. Kind of. This is still a CR, so the agreement would kick the can down the road and fund the government through the end of January, so we might have to do this all over again in a couple months. The agreement also included a pinky promise from Republicans that there will be a separate vote to address the ACA subsidies in mid-December, something that has no enforceability and just relies on the word of Republicans that they’ll definitely for sure revisit the issue before the new subsidy cut goes into effect in January. Which means nothing good for the Democrats. Either it means the Republicans simply won’t hold the vote at all and will just let the subsidy cut take effect and do nothing about it and hope that by the midterms the American people will have forgotten all about the whole unconscionable healthcare costs and who caused them, which frankly is a very real possibility. OR the Democrats just gave Republicans a lay up, they will vote to extend the subsidies in December and will then be able to present extending the subsidies as their own idea and take credit for saving the people from the Democrat increase to their healthcare costs. Like do you see. How this is fucking stupid??

The new agreement also guarantees that federal workers would get back pay, including furloughed workers, and it would undo the staffing cuts that Trump and OMB Director Russ Vought put in place during the shut down. The agreement also comes along with the passage of a package of 3 bills that would put full fiscal year spending in place for just a few areas. So they’re kicking the can down the road til January 30th for everything except for the provisions in these three full fiscal year bills. Those bills handle the Department of Agriculture and the FDA, then there's the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs funding bill, and finally the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act of 2026 to help fund Congress itself and I took a quick peak at the text of that one and what do you know, the Senate, through the kindness of its heart, found it within themselves to negotiate a compromise that includes kicking the can down the road to January 30th except when it comes to what? Their salaries. Their own salaries. And the salaries of their personal security teams. Don’t worry guys!! The House just got a seven week paid vacation and will now come back to vote on the bill that guarantees their pay for the next fiscal year. Thank god!!

Okay so after Sunday night, the Senate recessed until 11am Monday morning that’s today. Next they have some procedural votes over how long to allow for debate on the bill during which time Senators could pump the breaks or hold up the inevitable for just a while longer, which at this point seems like a waste of everyone’s time like there’s no further debate really happening now that they have 60 votes, prolonging the process will just prolong the shutdown and the pain its causing.

So this vote in the Senate is to approve the continuing resolution including these new provisions that were not in the House bill that was originally passed and sent to the Senate to kick this whole thing off. So once the Senate actually passes the meat of the CR, it goes back to the House so they can agree to it, or further amend it at which point it would have to go back to the Senate, etc. Once the two chambers agree on the same bill, it goes to Trump’s desk for signature. This all has to happen before the government shutdown ends. Then comes the administrative headache of getting the whole government up and running again, including issuing massive amounts of back pay, getting workers back to work, and managing the levels of chaotic disruption that are caused by an office just fully shuttering for seven full weeks.

This also means that Mike Johnson has given notice to the House to return to Washington from their seven week paid vacation, to go back into session, at which point he will have to FINALLY swear in Adelita Grijalva who will be the final vote necessary to force a vote on whether to make the Epstein files public. It’s still not guaranteed that they would be made public but at the very least it would force everyone to go on the record and say plainly that they’d rather keep the files from the public, which would enrage a huge portion of the Republican base because we all know at this point it’s a ploy to protect the reputations of powerful people, including likely the President of the United States, who were known friends of a deplorable pedophile. Mike Johnson was able to drag his feet on this since Adelita Grijalva was elected in SEPTEMBER, an unprecedented amount of time for an elected official to have to wait to get sworn in, but the jig is up at least on this tactic. Lord knows Mike Johnson will seek out any other way imaginable to drag his feet and avoid facing the Epstein Files music. A lot of this will likely get ironed out over the next week, unless he uses the CR as an excuse to just prolong the shutdown to avoid the Epstein Files vote, saying no no we’re far to busy to hold a vote on that yet and using the shutdown as a thinly veiled excuse to continue protecting his friends. We are in uncharted territory with this, so it’s unclear what the next few weeks will hold on the Epstein Files front. I am not holding my breath.

Okay so the key takeaway here is that, once again, no one is coming to save us. The government will reopen so hopefully at least our experience at the airport won’t be quite so heinous–just a reminder as an aside that people who fly in private jets get to use our same airspace and exploit the FAA and the air traffic controllers time but it was we the people and the major commercial airlines that felt the brunt of the shutdown fallout at the airports. If they had just grounded all private jets to make more space available for commercial airlines this shutdown wouldn’t have lasted a week. I can’t stop thinking about that.

Anyway, the government will reopen, Trump and his goons will continue dismantling it further, ignoring the rule of law, disappearing people off the streets, increasing funding for the gestapo, and completely undermining our elections, and Democrats have proven once again incapable of forming a united opposition to stand up to any of this. No one is coming to save us. We have to save us. This is not an “every man for himself” salvo, I mean quite the opposite–now is the time to form or join that neighborhood coalition if you haven’t already. To open that free store, to donate your time or money to that mutual aid group down the street, to form that book club, to do the community building work that’s unglamorous and doesn’t create immediate change but that creates the support networks we will need to endure the next three plus years and beyond in a country and with a government that has proven, time and again, that it quite literally does not care whether we live or die. We have to put our oxygen masks on first before we can even begin to think about rebuilding this incredibly broken system. There are immediate, dire needs not being met in our communities. Just look outside, look for the needs not being met and figure out how to give your time or money to help meet those needs in your own community, and form those networks so that if and when YOU have needs you know where to turn. I’m talking food banks and shelters for the unhoused and support networks for tracking ICE and protecting your neighbors from the Gestapo but also the only bastions of socialism in this country: public schools and public libraries. Make sure they are funded, make sure they are being run by people who care about open and free expression and free flow of information. Put whatever money you can towards your values–buy local produce, buy local artisans, buy your local newspaper, donate to mutual aid networks. And spend whatever free time you have supporting your community, even if it’s as simple as finding your local library’s Kanopy app and deleting one or two streaming services in favor of watching what the library is carrying. Yes your local library probably partners with Kanopy that’s k a n o p y it’s a public library video streaming service with millions of shows and movies you can watch from the comfort of your own home. They also have HUGE collections of physical media–CDs, DVDs, even Vinyl. The central minneapolis library has a vinyl revival listening room that seems to almost never be utilized. You can book a private listening session for up to two hours a day. I know we’re all fucking exhausted, myself included, most days I do not have the energy to do anything other than be a slug sausage on my couch, it’s embarrassing to admit, but hey at least I’m reading e-books from my local library and giving money to local organizations that need it and meeting once a week at a local coffee spot with my closest friends. It’s not revolutionary and frankly I am not thriving at the moment, most people aren’t that’s kind of the point, but there are small things we can do every day to remove ourselves from this late stage capitalist hellhole and do the things necessary to connect with and support our communities. That’s what we must do at this point to survive this.

And if you’d like to support my work, consider joining here on YouTube by clicking the big join button below, or supporting me over on Patreon, patreon dot com slash Leeja miller, where you get access to all these episodes completely ad free. Thank you to my multi-platinum patrons Marc, Sarah Shelby, Art, David, L’etranger (Lukus), Thomas Johnson, and Tay. Your generosity makes this channel what it is, so thank you!

And if you liked this episode, you’ll like the one from last week about whether Zohran Mamdani will save us all!

Leeja Miller
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