On October 1, 2025, the United States government went into complete shutdown at midnight. This shutdown was caused by an inconclusive decision made by the Democrats and Republicans in Congress after discussing the federal spending budget for 2026. As of recently, there has been no solution discovered, and likely this shutdown may continue into the following weeks. Currently, The White House page displays a timer indicating how long the shutdown has been going on and places blame on the Democratic side. This has appeared both on The White House website, H.U.D. websites, and even some airports are displaying this message.
At Lebanon High School, history teacher Craig Howe responded to the current situation, “So, the Democrats would say that one of the provisions that the Republicans want in the new budget is to ensure that immigrants aren’t getting free health care.The legal immigrants aren’t getting free health care. The Republicans are saying that the Democrats won’t ratify a new budget unless illegal immigrants are getting free health care.”
Despite this, the budget under the Affordable Care Act would not allow illegal immigrants to have access to free health care. However, hospitals still have the responsibility to administer live-saving treatment. This shutdown has caused a recent panic due to this being the first shutdown since 2018-2019 which was the result of a dispute over the wall on the U.S Mexico border during the Trump administration. That shutdown lasted about 35 days. The following discussion is suggested to be taken up again this Friday, and some of the economic cost would be accounted for after the government reopens and most employees should have back pay as the economy slowly returns to normal.
“What I know about the current government shutdown is that it has been going on for almost three weeks and it was because congress ran out of money because they couldn’t approve a funding bill. Also that there were a bunch of lay offs and some government workers aren’t getting paid,” replied Chiara Vitale, LHS student.
Currently, it is hard to say if there are many positive updates, as we know the Senate was unable to forward a House-passed GOP bill for the ninth time recently on Wednesday, the 15th day since the shutdown began according to CBS News. There are many updates coming out daily; checking news updates, government information, and reliable sources are best to keep up with current events.
