In 2013, then-businessman and actuality TV star Donald Trump shared his imaginative and prescient on Fox Information concerning the position a United States president ought to play in a authorities shutdown: “It’s important to be good and be offended and be wild and cajole and do all types of issues, however you must get a deal.”
Now, as president, Trump has taken a unique strategy. After failing to succeed in a bipartisan settlement, he mocked Democrats by posting an expletive-laced video generated by synthetic intelligence and set to mariachi music, falsely exhibiting US Consultant Hakeem Jeffries sporting a sombrero and US Senator Chuck Schumer saying that “no person likes Democrats any extra”, so the occasion is searching for favour with “unlawful aliens”.
Advisable Tales
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Welcome to the 2025 US authorities shutdown.
At PolitiFact, now we have fact-checked lawmakers’ and pundits’ statements about authorities shutdowns for greater than a decade. When Congress can’t attain a funding settlement, either side of the political aisle whip up speaking factors about what a shutdown means for the financial system, immigration, employee paycheques, catastrophe response and providers for low-income households. The blame is sort of at all times positioned on the opposite occasion.
A reminder: Republicans management the presidency and each chambers of Congress. However passing laws to increase authorities funding at present ranges would require, beneath longstanding guidelines, greater than half a dozen Democrats to facet with Republicans to be able to attain the 60-vote threshold to advance to a vote. This provides Democrats some negotiating leverage, which they’re searching for to make use of within the spending struggle.
Social providers
Girls, Infants, and Youngsters programme will ‘not be funded’
Home Speaker Mike Johnson, in September 29 remarks to reporters.
Johnson omits that enrollees will nonetheless seemingly get providers, not less than initially. However a lot will depend on how lengthy the shutdown lasts.
The Agriculture Division’s shutdown plan stated its Girls, Infants and Youngsters diet programme, which offers meals to low-income households, shall proceed operations “topic to the supply of funding”. The WIC has 6.9 million individuals.
WIC ought to be capable to proceed for not less than one week, stated Alison Onerous, Nationwide WIC Affiliation coverage director. After that, operations will range by state, relying on their funds.
Throughout a shutdown, state WIC programmes have choices to quickly fill the funding hole, together with varied USDA sources, state cash and requesting early rebate funds from their contracted toddler components producers.
Previous shutdowns
‘Again in 2013, Trump stated it was the President’s job to barter and keep away from a shutdown’
Senator Jeff Merkley, in a September 29 X publish
That’s an correct paraphrase of Trump’s remarks.
In an October 7, 2013, interview with then-Fox Information host Greta Van Susteren, Trump criticised then-President Barack Obama for not being a dealmaker throughout the shutdown. In full, he stated: “It’s important to get all people in a room. It’s important to be a frontrunner. The president has to guide. He has to get [the Speaker of the House] and all people else in a room, and so they must make a deal. It’s important to be good and be offended and be wild and cajole and do all types of issues, however you must get a deal.”
Trump made comparable remarks in a September 2013 Fox & Pals telephone interview: “Issues begin from the highest, and so they must get solved from the highest, and the president’s the chief, and he’s obtained to get all people in a room, and he’s obtained to guide.”
Healthcare
Republicans are spiking medical insurance premiums by 75 p.c for on a regular basis Individuals in the event that they don’t lengthen enhanced ACA subsidies
Consultant Katherine Clark, in a September 12 X publish.
That is principally true.
If the Republican-controlled Congress doesn’t lengthen Reasonably priced Care Act enhanced subsidies earlier than they expire on the finish of this 12 months, enrollees should pay extra.
A KFF evaluation of federal information discovered that the typical enhance in out-of-pocket protection value for enrollees can be 79 p.c, with state-by-state common will increase starting from 49 p.c to 195 p.c.
This value enhance would come from a mix of insurance coverage premium will increase and the disappearance of subsidies, somewhat than from “spiking medical insurance premiums” alone.
Greater than two weeks after Clark’s assertion – and after we printed the very fact verify – KFF produced a revised determine for common will increase primarily based on new information: 114 p.c.
‘Democrats so-called proposal is a partisan want checklist with a $1.5 trillion spending enhance tacked onto a four-week funding invoice’
Home Speaker Mike Johnson, in a September 29 information launch.
The Republican speaking level misses the context of the Democrats’ proposal.
The September 17 Democratic proposal latches authorities funding up till October 31, generally known as a “persevering with decision”, to some Democratic priorities, together with healthcare help and limiting Trump’s potential to claw again funds beforehand permitted by Congress.
The invoice requires completely extending enhanced Reasonably priced Care Act subsidies that have been handed in 2021 throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and prolonged in 2022. These are set to run out on December 31 this 12 months. The Democratic invoice would additionally reverse cuts to Medicaid and different well being programmes that Republicans enacted of their signature tax and spending laws.
The Democrats’ measure would restore funding for public broadcasting that Republicans nixed in July and consists of not less than $320m for safety for lawmakers, the chief department and the Supreme Court docket. (Republicans have proposed $88m in safety funding of their decision invoice.)
The invoice additionally incorporates mandates for a way the Trump administration can spend cash and would hinder the White Home’s current try to cancel virtually $5bn in overseas help.
The Committee for a Accountable Federal Finances, a bunch that’s hawkish on the deficit, stated in a September 18 information launch that Democrats’ proposal in its entirety would add $1.5 trillion to the nationwide debt over the following decade.
“The [continuing resolution] itself – the half that funds the federal government – wouldn’t add $1.5 trillion to the debt, however the invoice that Democrats have proposed consists of different provisions that may,” Chris Towner, the group’s coverage director, wrote in an electronic mail. “The invoice repeals the well being spending cuts that have been included within the One Massive Lovely Invoice Act, which might value about $1.1 trillion over a decade to repeal.”
Towner additionally stated the Democrats’ provision to make the improved ACA subsidies everlasting would value about $350bn over a decade.
If enhanced subsidies should not prolonged, folks with insurance coverage via the Reasonably priced Care Act will see their premiums rise ‘twice as a lot within the rural areas’
Senator Amy Klobuchar, in a September 28 interview on CBS’s Face the Nation
That is principally true.
There are not less than two methods to interpret Klobuchar’s assertion: that she was evaluating rural enrollees’ prices with folks residing elsewhere, or evaluating their prices with what they paid earlier than.
Klobuchar’s workplace informed PolitiFact that the senator was referring to rural enrollees seeing will increase that have been double what that they had paid earlier than, and that interpretation aligns with what Klobuchar has stated in different settings.
An evaluation by the Century Basis, a progressive assume tank, discovered that out-of-pocket insurance coverage prices would enhance on common in rural counties from $713 to $1,473 – a 107 p.c enhance, or barely greater than a doubling.
Evaluating rural enrollees’ value will increase with folks elsewhere, it quantities to a disproportionately massive enhance for rural areas, however it’s not twice as a lot.
Enrollees in rural counties would see common out-of-pocket losses of $760 from expiring enhanced subsidies, in contrast with $624 for all counties and $593 for city counties. That’s 22 p.c extra for rural enrollees in contrast with all others, and 28 p.c extra in contrast with city enrollees.
Authorities staff
‘If the federal government shuts down, members of Congress nonetheless receives a commission. The janitors by no means receives a commission’
Daniel Koh, on The Folks’s Cupboard podcast episode, September 29.
That is principally true.
Members of the Home and Senate proceed to receives a commission throughout a shutdown. Federal legislation says federal staff get again pay, however the legislation doesn’t lengthen to contractors, a bunch that features many janitors. Some non-public employers with federal contracts could discover methods to pay their staff, however there’s nothing in federal legislation that requires it.
‘FEMA received’t be funded’ throughout hurricane season due to the shutdown
Home Speaker Mike Johnson, in September 29 remarks to reporters
Johnson was right that Congress had not agreed on Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA) funding, however a Division of Homeland Safety shutdown procedures plan estimates that 84 p.c of FEMA staff will proceed working. (The DHS oversees FEMA.)
“Backside line: hurricanes don’t care about politics. FEMA will nonetheless reply. However restoration will stall if Congress can’t do its job,” stated Craig Fugate, who led FEMA throughout President Barack Obama’s administration after main Florida’s emergency administration beneath then-Republican Governor Jeb Bush. “This isn’t new – each events personal the blame.”
The company’s restoration efforts are most in danger, Fugate stated, as a result of they rely on how a lot cash stays within the Catastrophe Reduction Fund. “These {dollars} aren’t tied to the shutdown, however they normally run low this time of 12 months. Usually, Congress passes a unbroken decision so as to add cash. A shutdown implies that doesn’t occur. That slows restoration tasks, not the instant response.”
The fund had about $2.3bn on the finish of August, which is taken into account low.