WASHINGTON — The U.S. government will shut down this weekend unless Congress comes up with a plan and acts soon.
Federal funding expires when the clock strikes 12:01 a.m. Saturday, and congressional Republicans are back to the drawing board after billionaire Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump blew up their original bill and then a backup plan failed to pass Thursday night.
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As Congress debates a path forward, government operations that people rely on and paychecks for millions of federal workers hang in the balance.
Here is what you need to know about what a government shutdown is and how it could affect you:
What is a government shutdown?
The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, meaning almost all government funding decisions take place on Capitol Hill. Each year Congress must pass spending bills before Oct. 1, the start of a new fiscal year, or the government runs out of money to keep functioning.
If Congress fails to act before that date, the House and the Senate can also pass legislation called a continuing resolution to keep the government fully operating for a short period of time. Back in September, Congress did exactly that and set Dec. 20 as the new deadline.
Now, Congress must act before the end of the day Friday or there will be a lapse in funding. Then, all nonessential government functions must stop.
How did Congress get to this point?
This is how the government spending process is designed to work: Appropriations committees in both chambers are supposed to pass a dozen spending bills that cover different federal agencies every year. Then the bills must pass both the full House and Senate before they go to the president’s desk to be signed into law.
That rarely happens in modern Congresses. As is now the norm, Congress ran out of time to finish the process in September, so it passed a short-term funding extension.
Though Congress has known about the Dec. 20 deadline since the fall, it did not release a deal to avoid a shutdown until this week.
On Tuesday night, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced the deal, which was struck between the top congressional Republicans and Democrats. It would have extended government funding until March 14 and provided economic assistance for farmers and relief for areas hit by hurricanes. It also included a small pay raise for members of Congress, at a maximum of 3.8%, for the first time in more than a decade.
Before the House even scheduled a vote on it, Musk began posting negatively about the bill to his more than 200 million followers on his platform, X. Trump and a series of far-right members of Congress came out against the plan, as well, calling it a giveaway to Democrats and criticizing some policy provisions, like the congressional raises.
Trump also added a last-minute demand: that Congress include legislation to address the debt ceiling. The country is not expected to hit its borrowing limit until sometime next year, but on Thursday, Trump told NBC News he wants Congress to get rid of the debt ceiling entirely.
House Republicans tried to pass a second bill to address Trump’s concerns, but it failed, with nearly every Democrat and 38 Republicans voting against it. Now, they will have to figure out a new path as the clock ticks closer to the deadline.
When would a shutdown begin? How long could one last?
In the absence of last-minute action from Congress, a shutdown would start at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, so its effects would not be immediately felt until Monday.
It is difficult to predict how long a shutdown could last, but if it happens, it could last for a while, given divisions on Capitol Hill and the upcoming holidays. Republicans have a narrow majority in the House, and Democrats control the Senate. That will change on Jan. 3, when Republicans take over both chambers of Congress, and then Trump will be inaugurated on Jan. 20.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., posted on X that she would support shutting down the government until Inauguration Day.
What parts of the government would a shutdown affect?
During a shutdown, the federal government would be unable to pay its millions of employees, including members of the military and reservists, just before the holidays.
Hundreds of thousands of government workers could be furloughed, meaning they would temporarily stop going to work. During a shutdown in 2013, about 850,000 workers were furloughed. But even those who have to keep performing essential duties would not be paid for the duration of a shutdown.
Federal workers would receive retroactive pay when the government reopened, which was not always guaranteed until Congress passed a law after a shutdown in 2019.
Some functions of the government would continue, including the military and public safety, like air traffic control and the Transportation Security Administration. Every federal agency creates a “contingency plan” for how to operate during a shutdown and which employees are “excepted” from being furloughed.
The Defense Department, for example, would require active military personnel to continue to report for duty, and inpatient care and emergency outpatient care in Pentagon medical treatment facilities would continue during a shutdown, a defense official told NBC News.
Military retiree benefits would continue to be paid out because they come from a separate trust fund, not from congressional appropriations, but they could be slowed by a lack of personnel to process them, the official said.
President Joe Biden and members of Congress would all continue to work and be paid, as required by law.
Would a shutdown affect benefits and payments like Social Security?
Social Security checks that go out to 73 million people in the United States every month would continue during a shutdown, as that is considered “mandatory” spending and not funded through the dozen appropriations bills Congress is supposed to pass each year.
Other examples of mandatory spending that would continue are payments from Medicare, Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and veterans’ benefits.
How long did the longest government shutdown last?
Congress has allowed funding to lapse several times in the past four decades, leading to 20 shutdowns that lasted at least one full day.
The longest shutdown was also the most recent: The government shut down for 34 full days from Dec. 21, 2018, to Jan. 25, 2019.
During that shutdown, national parks remained open, but trash started piling up with park employees furloughed. TSA employees, who were required to keep working without pay, started calling in sick, leading to delays at airports. The TSA administrator has warned that a shutdown this year would lead to longer waits heading into the holidays.
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