Welcome to The Fill From the Hill, a recurring political column where one University Times writer dissects the key political topics and controversies in the news, from domestic politics to international affairs. This week tackles the fresh government shutdown and how Republicans now must make a deal to bring it back to life. Despite my position, this column is not representative or a reflection of the opinions of the UT Staff nor the UT itself. 

–     –

The United States government shut down after Congress failed to pass a spending plan for the 2026 fiscal year, putting 750,000 federal workers out of work.

While shut down, some of the government (what’s called essential services) will continue to run in order to maintain function. This includes social security, law enforcement, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), air traffic control (ATC), among many others that are deemed critical to public safety. However, workers at these essential functions will be expected to work without pay, and workers from non-essential agencies will be furloughed.

The last government shutdown was on Dec. 22, 2018, and lasted for 35 days, ending on Jan. 25, 2019. This showdown manifested over a concern of President Trump’s plan to increase spending on the southern border, including to fund the president’s plan for a border wall. 

The federal fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, and it is Congress’s job to make sure a proper budget bill that provides funding to all of the various federal agencies is passed. However, the polarization in both chambers of Congress has led to a constant tug between the two parties.

If Congress can’t reach a deal, they have the option to pass a continuing resolution (CR). This, in effect, maintains funding at the previous spending levels and keeps the government open for a set amount of time. This is most commonly set at 90 days (three months), at which point they must either pass a full funding bill or yet another CR. 

There was fear of a shutdown in March this year when Democrats initially objected to the House of Representatives’ CR to keep the government open, but caved after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Senate Democrats to vote in favor of it. In a speech on the Senate floor, he said his fear was that if the government had actually shut down, Elon Musk and his DOGE team’s efforts could have gone unimpeded and put more federal workers at risk than necessary.  

Following the passing of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” and Republicans’ use of a process known as budget reconciliation, Democrats in Congress have been refusing to negotiate. According to the Democrats House Budget Committee, this process makes passing bills in the U.S. Senate easier by lowering the threshold to pass to a simple majority (50 votes) as opposed to 60 as per usual. But beyond that, their anger came from the bill’s massive cuts to Medicare that the president had said wouldn’t happen when speaking about this economic plan. 

In the lead-up to this shutdown, both chambers of Congress went on recess for the month of August. and then again for one week in September. which left very little time for discussions on how to keep the government funded. On the day of the shutdown on Sept. 30, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Schumer met with the president for the first time this term and tried to negotiate a deal. While the parties left no closer than they were before, the duo felt that they had made some progress in getting the president to hear their pleas. 

The president responded shortly after by posting an AI-generated video to his TruthSocial account that featured Jeffries and Schumer spouting anti-trans and anti-immigrant remarks. Following the shutdown, the president shared his plans to punish Democrats by slashing the federal workforce and refusing to negotiate, further widening the gap between the parties. 

Now that the table is set, let’s get into our views on the Government shutdown.

Samuel Valencia: While Republicans and Donald Trump can throw the blame onto Democrats all they want, the truth is, with both houses of Congress and the presidency under their control, the ball is in their court. 

Democrats finally grew a backbone and held out against Trump, something that felt like it would never come. And not only that, the thing they are fighting over proves that they have the greater interests of Americans at heart. It took them a while, but it’s good to see that they can at least get something right in a sea of losses. 

For being the master of the “art of the deal,” Trump is not very good at chaining anything together. He’s gotten duped by Russian dictators or by Israeli propaganda; he simply can’t make a good deal to save his life. And his lack of negotiating power is actively hurting the American people. The people he claims to care about so much. 

And yet, he is more content being a big baby and getting rid of more workers to make the government more “efficient” than to just do the right thing and make a deal to keep the government open. 

But beyond the never-ending war between Democrats and Republicans, there’s a very significant human element to this shutdown that has gone under the radar. With federal workers’ worries ranging from working without pay, to being furloughed, to even worse, being threatened with layoffs or firings, the worry becomes what will they do with no job. Life doesn’t just stop because the government is closed. 

Landlords will still expect their rent, electricity, and water bills due on the same day every month, and the wheel keeps turning, whether or not these people have jobs. If Republicans and the president really cared for the American people, they would get their asses to the negotiating table ASAP to get the ball rolling. 

They can fearmonger about Democrats wanting to give illegal immigrants healthcare (which isn’t even possible by the way) all they want, but the truth is, they do not care about you. The writing has been on the wall since the campaign trail, but MAGA simply doesn’t care. Whatever bogeyman the Trump administration can conjure up is scarier than possibly being out of a job or not having access to critical healthcare at an affordable rate. 

It’s sad, and quite frankly embarrassing, how polarized our nation has become, that these simple things can’t even be handled with tact without a giant back and forth. “America First” was Trump’s claim, but he’ll put his own ego before all of you without even a second thought. 

At the crux of it all, there are human lives and livelihoods at stake here, and that alone should trump all petty political squabbles. But in Trump’s America, this is simply a way of life.