DAY 22: Are government shutdowns the new normal?
- Agora
- Oct 22
- 3 min read
AGORA SHUTDOWN UPDATE
October 22, 2025
Government shutdowns used to be major news, dominating the headlines and commanding the public’s attention.
These days? Not so much.
An analysis by Agora shows that news coverage of this year’s crisis in the Washington Post pales in comparison to the first major impasse in 1995, suggesting that in the intervening 30 years, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing the government close for long stretches of time.
And as this shutdown drags on into its fourth week, the lack of progress in Washington, coupled with the lack of wall-to-wall coverage, has worrisome implications for the future.
CONGRESS
Senate Republicans are increasingly chattering about changing the filibuster’s rules if Democrats do not end the shutdown, even though Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) says he opposes weakening a tool safeguarding the minority’s power.
A group of front-line House Republicans on Tuesday called on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to “immediately” address the expiring enhanced Obamacare tax credits once the government shutdown ends.
As Congress still appears far from reaching a spending agreement to end the partial government shutdown, hundreds of thousands of federal employees are expecting to miss their first full paychecks this Friday.
When Washington first woke up to a government shutdown earlier this month, there was one hope for a quick exit: A bipartisan clutch of rank-and-file senators were at least talking. But three weeks into the shutdown, there are no signs that the conversations are anywhere close to generating a solution to what is now the second-longest shutdown in U.S. history.
WHITE HOUSE
Head Start programs for preschoolers are scrambling for federal funds. The federal agency tasked with overseeing the U.S. nuclear stockpile has begun furloughing its 1,400 employees. Thousands more federal workers are going without paychecks. But as President Donald Trump welcomed Republican senators for lunch in the newly renovated Rose Garden Club he portrayed a different vision of America, as a unified GOP refuses to yield to Democratic demands for health care funds.
FEDERAL AGENCIES
The judicial branch announced that starting this week, there is not enough funding to sustain full, paid operations.
The ongoing federal shutdown has eclipsed the final stretch of negotiations on an updated agreement to guide restoration of the Chesapeake Bay, leaving partner states to contemplate a less ambitious pact with scaled-back targets and modest cleanup goals.
THE IMPACT
Hawaii, Alaska and New Mexico are among the states being hit hardest by the partial government shutdown. A new report by WalletHub, a personal finance company, ranked the impact of the shutdown across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Minnesota, Indiana and Iowa are the three states at the bottom of the list.
The Trump administration’s proposed layoffs would have wide-ranging impacts felt by Americans across the country, congressional Democrats said this week, with consequences ranging from higher energy bills to compromised preparation for the next pandemic.
What does a shutdown mean for government contractors, employees, grantees and the general public? Click here for more information.
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