US government shutdown enters its fifth week and President Trump appears unconcerned about the shutdown that has affected the federal employees
By Tom Arms | London
As the US government shutdown enters its fifth week it is a bad time to be an American and a federal employee; need help with food bills; need to travel by plane; need to buy drugs; have to pay health insurance; require Medicare, require Medicaid, be resident in a care home or be in the military or require help with heating bills.
As just about every American is in some way affected by at least one of the above factors, it is fair to say, that it is a bad time to be an American.
The government shutdown is the cause of the current round of American headaches. And the cause of the government shutdown is the Democratic Party’s intense dislike of Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
They don’t like the bill’s tax cuts for the wealthy or for corporations. But their biggest gripe is what the One Big Beautiful Bill will do to the health of the nation. It will effectively emasculate Obamacare, put up health insurance premiums by as much as 100 percent, deny Medicaid and Medicare benefits to millions and raise drug charges.
The White House said pass the budget and then negotiations can be held about the health situation. The Democrats don’t trust Trump to hold meaningful talks after he gets what he wants.
Read: US government shutdown: What happens and who is affected?
Read: So, they have refused to pass the budget and the federal government entered its 22nd shutdown since 1976. This one looks like it will break the record of 35 days. That was set in the first Trump presidency over a dispute for funding for a wall on the southern border.
The president appears unconcerned about the shutdown. In the middle of it he took off for a tour of Asia. The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is helping to stretch it out by refusing to recall Congress. Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management Budget (OMB), is using the shutdown to fire tens of thousands of federal employees. Trump has also said that federal employees who work for nothing during the shutdown will not receive back pay when the shutdown is over.
In the meantime, this weekend, the government’s food assistance program (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP) will run out of money. An estimated 25 million Americans receive help from SNAP to pay their food bills.
Another six million Americans receive federal assistance with their heating bills under the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. As the cold weather sets in, those payments will stop.
Air traffic controllers are classified “essential workers” which means that they have to turn up for work whether there is any money to pay them or not. They have been working for zero pay for a month and many of them are calling in sick in order to support their families by working part-time at other jobs that pay them. Transport Secretary Sean Duffy has said that any air traffic controller who fails to turn up for work will be fired. In the meantime there is chaos in American airports with delays and cancellations.
The military has been a special case for the past month as Trump has paid the soldiers by diverting money from the defense research program. That is ending this weekend and more than a million of the 1.5 million American troops will not receive a pay cheque.
Meanwhile, Americans face a massive rise in the cost of their health insurance. The minimum price hike will be 20 percent. But many Americans are facing an increase of 100 percent or more.
Anyone on Medicaid (the federal health program to help the poor with their health bills) will suffer as major cuts will start to take effect in the New Year. Among other things, Medicaid is America’s major payer of nursing homes and long-term care. On top of that, the price of pharmaceuticals will also rise dramatically in the New Year. The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is being effectively dismantled by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
The rise in health costs is the result of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. The Democrats concern about the effect of the bill on the nation’s health has caused the government shutdown. So far, Trump and the Republicans are being blamed for the shutdown by a majority of Americans.
Read: Observations of an Expat: Project 2025
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Tom Arms is the foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He is also a contributor to “The New World” (formerly “The New European”), lectures on world affairs and is the author of two editions of “The Encyclopedia of the Cold War” and “America Made in Britain.”
