The US government has reopened after a historic shutdown. What does that mean, exactly?
The US government has reopened after a historic 43-day shutdown that started during a federal funding dispute on October 1.
Thousands of federal workers went without pay, travellers were stranded at airports, and people lined up at food banks for almost eight weeks.
US Donald Trump has signed off on legislation that resumed funding after a group of moderate Democrats caved and began the process to end the shutdown.
In case you need a refresher, this is what that means.
The US government was shut down for the first time in more than six years in early October. (AP)
What is a government shutdown?
Federal agencies across the country were shuttered, with non-essential workers, like park rangers, put on leave without pay.
Essential federal workers, like the military, immigration and airport security, continued to work but would not get paid until after the shutdown.
UNSW international relations professor William Clapton said a shutdown is “more of a pause”.
“What normally happens is that there’s a core set of services that don’t stop, and that’s things like defence, law enforcement, social security, Medicare,” he said.
“Those have generally continued through all the previous shutdowns.”
Shutdowns usually arise over disagreements about the federal budget, and are sometimes used as a tactic to use the country’s pain to push through policy.
“The American people get caught up in the middle, because they lose access to services that the government normally would provide,” Clapton said.
The last shutdown was sparked by US President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar request to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. (AP)
Why was the US government shut down?
Democrats were fighting the Republicans on healthcare benefits and made good on their threat to shut down the government if their opponents did not extend tax credits to subsidise health insurance.
Those credits are set to expire by the end of the year.
Both sides have been at an impasse in the days leading up to the start of the new fiscal year on October 1 — the date when the Senate was set to pass a new appropriations bill.
The Republicans introduced a bill that would keep funding the government for seven weeks while legislators finish working on the appropriations bill, but it was voted down by the Democrats.
It set the path for the shutdown, which began just hours later.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 750,000 workers were furloughed each day in the shutdown, with the total daily cost of their compensation reaching $US400 million ($600 million).
House Democrats expressed great scepticism that the Senate effort would lead to a breakthrough. (Nine)
How did the shutdown end?
Democrats with a majority in the Senate voted 14 times not to reopen the government as the Republicans failed to bow to their demands for an extension to health care tax credits.
A group of the party’s moderate faction – John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Jackie Rosen of Nevada and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire – took the first step to end the shutdown after concluding Republicans would not negotiate.
They broke ranks to agree to proceed with federal funding without a guaranteed extension of the tax credits, angering their caucus which wanted to continue fighting.
The bill then entered the House, where Republicans used their slight majority to resume funding.
“We told you 43 days ago, from bitter experience, that government shutdowns don’t work,” the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Tom Cole, said.
The federal funding bill was signed by Trump today, officially reopening the US government.
“So I just want to tell the American people, you should not forget this,” Trump said.
“When we come up to midterms and other things, don’t forget what they’ve done to our country.”
Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats would not give up on the health care tax credits extension even if the vote did not go their way.
“This fight is not over. We’re just getting started,” he said.
President Donald Trump displays the signed the funding bill to reopen the government, in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP)
When was the last US government shutdown?
The last shutdown was sparked by Trump’s multibillion-dollar request to build a wall on the US-Mexico border during his first term.
It lasted 34 days from December 2018 to January 2019, with about 800,000 of the 2.1 million federal workers furloughed.
“That’s obviously a massive impact for those people, their ability to pay their bills, to live their lives,” Clapton said.
Former president Bill Clinton held the previous record of the longest shutdown in US history, 21 days in 1996.
Trump broke his own record, with this shutdown lasting a historic 43 days.
There were two other shutdowns during Trump’s first term, one lasting three days and the other lasting just several hours.
There have been 21 US government shutdowns in the past 50 years.
“There’s kind of an inherent instability at times with regards to government funding in the US,” Clapton said.
“It’s not the first shutdown, and the fact that it kind of keeps happening sort of speaks to, yeah, the complexities and the pitfalls, if you will, of America’s peculiar and unique system of government.”
