This article was published exclusively on Tencent News
On October 1, 2025, the U.S. federal government shut down again after seven years. As of Oct. 15, the political impasse has lasted for two weeks, and the two parties are sharply opposed over Affordable Care Act subsidies versus the size of federal employees. This crisis once again confirms a profound political reality in the United States at present: even if a certain political party is "fully in power" in form, it is far from guaranteeing smooth legislation. When the principle of "checks and balances" in system design is alienated into "veto politics", the basic function of state governance has been reduced from the responsibility that must be fulfilled to the ultimate bargaining chip of party struggle.
When Trump won the election in 2024, he raised expectations that the Republican legislative process would go smoothly. So what factors still check and balance the Republican Party?
The U.S. government shutdown, Essentially, it is caused by the "money" not being approved.Since the ruling government and the Congress, which holds the "purse", cannot reach an agreement on fiscal expenditures before the start of the new fiscal year, the government has no funds to maintain operations and can only partially close down. The U.S. fiscal year runs from October 1st of each year to September 30th of the following year. During this period, the government must submit a budget for the new fiscal year to Congress. Before the fiscal year changes, Congress needs to approve budgets for all government departments. If the formal budget is not passed in time, a common remedy is to pass a temporary appropriations bill, or a "continuation resolution," to provide the government with short-term funding based on spending levels in the previous fiscal year to avoid a shutdown.
The direct reason for the shutdown in October 2025 was the failure of the Republicans and Democrats, who controlled Congress, to agree on such an interim allocation bill.The core differences between the two parties are that the Democrats insist on extending the subsidies of the Parity Medical Act, withdrawing the cuts in some of the medical subsidies, and incorporating provisions into the provisional allocations bill; while the Republicans advocate a "clean" provisional allocations bill, i.e. no new policy clauses are added, first let the government maintain operation and then negotiate on medical policies and other issues.
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Since the Republicans won three consecutive elections in 2024 and achieved full dominance over the three branches of the federal administration, legislation and justice, why has the budget still not been passed?
The Republican proposed temporary budget, the so-called “clean short-term budget”, means to keep the budget up to 21 November at the current level, without any additional policy clauses or additional expenses, so that the government starts operating, and the policy divides slowly. Because the voting rules of the House are simple majority, the plan is quickly passed in the House. But when the Senate arrives, things don’t go as smoothly. In the Senate, most major legislation requires 60 votes to end the debate and enter the final vote, rather than obtain a simple majority. If it can’t get 60 votes, a minority party can paralyze the debate, block the vote and delay the conference process with a marathon-style over-term debate, forcing a preferred party to step in except for a non-majority
A hundred senators are often seen as a hundred “hostage brakes” that have slowed the pace of many bills moving to the Senate stage.Any bill must be fully debated and carefully considered before it can be passed. This mechanism aims to avoid the temporary impulse of public opinion from formulating policies that excessively please voters but are harmful to the long-term interests of the country.
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However, the system of "lengthy speech hinders deliberation" also brings many problems. The record holder of individual filibuster, Senator strom thurmond, spoke continuously for 24 hours and 18 minutes in 1957 to oppose the Civil Rights Act. In order to achieve the purpose of delay, senators are not limited by the content of their speeches: they can read aloud the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, recite telephone books and recipes, and even speak at length on the historical and philosophical issues of various states. In 1964, Southern Democratic senators headed by Robert Bird opposed an epoch-making civil rights bill aimed at completely prohibiting segregation and discrimination, and continued to obstruct proceedings for 74 days, becoming one of the longest filibusters in American history.
From "coolant" to "brake pad": when checks and balances become shackles
The Senate's "lengthy obstruction" rule is by no means static. Its changes profoundly reflect the white-hot partisanship in American politics and the constant recalibration of the balance between "efficiency" and "prudence." The core contradiction of this rule is that it was originally designed to serve as a "coolant" to protect minorities and promote prudent compromise, but in contemporary politics, it has increasingly become a "brake pad" that leads to legislative paralysis and intensifies partisan struggle. The escalation of this contradiction eventually triggered a change in the rules known as the “nuclear option.”
In 3,To break the Obama administration’s nomination impasse, the Democratic Party took the lead in abolishing the rule of “long speeches hinder the agenda” for all nominations except for the Supreme Court. 2017 yearThe Republican Party, in response, has further expanded the scope of abolition to the nomination of the Supreme Court Supreme Judge, radically changing the political ecology of the appointment of the judiciary. So far, all personnel nominations can only be passed by a simple majority, marking a major withdrawal of the traditional Senate consultative spirit. Today, the 60-vote threshold to block the legislation remains only in the ordinary legislative field, but its abolition dispute remains fierce, becoming the Damocles sword on the U.S. legislative process, and once abolished, the Senate's rules of procedure will be no different from the House. The ruling party will be able to advance its core agenda based on the number advantage, without compromising with the opposition.
The U.S. government is once again facing a shutdown crisis, On the surface, this is a political failure, but in fact it is a check and balance mechanism at work.The purpose of this system is to make the Senate a “cooling body” to boost the “popular fanaticism” and majority tyranny that may be brought by the House of Representatives.When the two sides are unstable, the system creates a “predictable crisis” of stopping, forcing the two sides to return to the negotiating table.
At the same time, this government shutdown revealed one of the political systems of the United States. Core myth: "Full governance" is not the same as "doing whatever you want"Even if a political party simultaneously controls the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, its legislative agenda, especially the budget, still faces major obstacles.Therefore, the so-called "total rule", more simply gains the dominance of the legislative agenda than a passport.It opens up more complex negotiations within and between the parties, and negotiations themselves involve the risk of failure.This is precisely the outcome expected by the U.S. founders' design of the system of separation and balance. Prevent any single political force from changing the country’s direction too quickly and too easily.。Of course, when such checks and balances go to extremes, they may change from "coolant" to "brake pads", making governance difficult.
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The direct cost of the shutdown crisis is that hundreds of thousands of federal employees are forced to work unpaid or "furlough", and basic services from airport security to national parks are in chaos. However, its far-reaching consequence lies in the overdraft of * 's credit-it shows the world that an America is difficult to perform its basic functions and continues to consume its national reputation and soft power. The resilience of the system is not only reflected in how to respond to crises, but also in how to avoid crises.When “making an impasse” is politically more profitable than “seeking consensus”, the whole system faces a profound danger of distorting the incentives.
The key to breaking the trouble lies in the completion of a reconstruction of political values: the basic responsibility to safeguard governance must be overwhelmed by the short-term calculation of party struggle in the priority of the political game. Otherwise, the old wisdom of "determination" will lose its ultimate purpose of ensuring the well-being of citizens in the endless internal consumption.