US government shutdown becomes longest in history at 36 days

The US government shutdown became the longest in American history on Wednesday, surpassing 36 days with no resolution in sight as Republican and Democratic senators remained deadlocked over funding for shuttered federal departments, according to a Guardian report.

The shutdown beat the previous 35-day record set in December 2018 and January 2019 during Donald Trump’s first term, when government funding legislation stalled over his demands for border wall money.

The standoff began on 1 October after Democratic senators refused to vote for a government funding bill unless it included an extension of Biden-era tax credits that lower costs for health plans purchased through Affordable Care Act exchanges.

Tens of millions of Americans are expected to lose affordable insurance once the credits expire at the end of 2025.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed the funding bill in September with only one Democrat voting in favour, and speaker Mike Johnson has kept the chamber out of session since then.

That shifted legislative action to the Senate, where majority leader John Thune has held 14 votes on the legislation – all of which failed due to insufficient Democratic support.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts the shutdown will cost the economy as much as $14bn in GDP, depending on how much longer it continues.

Around 700,000 federal workers were furloughed when the government closed, whilst roughly the same number were told to continue working without receiving paycheques until new funding is authorised.

Donald Trump has largely stayed out of negotiations, holding a single meeting with top Democrats and Republicans in Congress on the eve of the shutdown that failed to broker a compromise.

He has recently called for Republican senators to end the filibuster, which requires most legislation to receive 60 votes to advance. Thune said his lawmakers do not support making that change.

In mid-October, Trump announced he would order US military personnel to be paid their regular salaries using unspent Pentagon research and development funds – a decision experts told the Guardian was likely illegal.

Food banks nationwide have reported increased demand from federal workers who are not getting paid.

That need is expected to spread to the wider public after the Department of Agriculture announced it had run out of funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme, also known as food stamps, then said it would only pay out half of the normal benefit.

Republicans have accused Democrats of irresponsibly shutting down the government by refusing to back the funding bill, which would have kept the government open through 21 November as a stopgap whilst Congress voted on long-term funding measures.

But Democrats have insisted that the responsibility for compromise lies with Republicans, who control both houses of Congress but need at least eight Democratic votes to get the spending legislation through the Senate. Only three Democrats have voted for the current funding bill in the upper chamber, whilst Rand Paul, a Republican senator, has voted against it.

Democrats say the GOP must address the increase in premiums for plans under the Affordable Care Act, which are expected to jump by an average of 26 per cent if the tax credits expire, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Open enrolment for those plans began at the start of November.