As the U.S. Senate on September 30 vetoed the two-party allocation bill, the federal government has closed again for seven years, hundreds of thousands of federal employees had to face compulsory leave or dismissal, and the services of many federal departments have also "stopped".

On the evening of 30 local time, White House Administration and Budget Office (OMB) director Walter Watts issued a memorandum instructing government agencies to begin implementing their plans for an ¡°orderly shutdown.¡±Untouched departments include law enforcement agencies such as the military, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Ministry of Homeland Security, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Postal Office.

Republicans in the Senate will vote on the provisional funding bill on October 1.

Republicans in the Senate have decided to hold a procedural vote on the Republican provisional funding bill and the Democratic proposal on October 1st, depending on the scheduled voting schedule, the Senate may hold a session until October 3 or 4 (apart from October 2), and the House of Representatives will not hold a meeting this week.

Thun, the Republican leader of the Senate, hopes that five more Democratic senators will support the Republican proposal on October 1st, but he denies amending the contents of the bill to win more Democratic votes.

The operating funds of the U.S. federal government should have come from annual budget allocations. Both parties in Congress should usually pass new annual appropriations bills before the start of the new fiscal year on October 1. However, due to fierce fighting between the two parties in recent years, it is often impossible to reach an agreement in time, so Congress tried to temporarily maintain the federal government through temporary appropriations bills. In the past year, the U.S. federal government has faced multiple "shutdown" crises. In December 2024 and March 2025, Congress passed short-term spending bills hours before federal government funds were exhausted.

What impact will the "shutdown" of the US federal government have?

In the United States, although a government shutdown is nothing new, the risk of shutdown this year is different from previous years, and the behind-the-scenes logic is more complex.

Once the U.S. federal government "shuts down", about 800,000 federal employees will be forced to take unpaid vacation, and contractor bills will not be paid in time.

For low-income families, the blow will come sooner.

Transportation, travel, medical care, public health, etc. will all be affected.

The wider economic costs should not be overlooked.

The U.S. government has been closed 20 times in half a century.

The last time was also during Trump's tenure

Since the 1970s, the U.S. federal government has been ¡°stopping¡± twenty times because of the two-party policy disagreements that led to the disruption of funds. The last and longest ¡°stop¡± occurred in late 2018 to early 2019, during Trump¡¯s first term, the Democratic Party opposed Trump¡¯s proposed U.S. Mexican Border Wall program, and the two parties fought on immigration issues, leading to the government shutdown for 35 days. At the time, about a quarter of federal government agencies ¡°stop¡± for five weeks, and reached more than 800,000 government employees, with economic losses estimated at more than $10 billion.

In terms of public opinion in the United States, several polls show that most Americans see the government's "shutdown" as an irresponsible political act, using power stagnation to manipulate public institutions.

(CCTV reporter, Cao Jian)