House returns to vote on ending the shutdown after nearly 2 months kept away
The longest government shutdown in history could conclude as soon as today, Day 43, with Speaker Mike Johnson calling House representatives back into session after sending them home for nearly eight weeks.
The House is scheduled to take up a bill to reopen the government that the Senate passed on Monday night. President Donald Trump called the measure a “very big victory,” and it’s expected to pass the Republican-led chamber. But the prospect of travel delays due to the shutdown could complicate the vote. Johnson may need nearly perfect attendance from fellow Republicans to get the measure over the finish line.
Almost no one will be satisfied. Democrats didn’t get the health insurance provisions they demanded added to the spending deal. And both polls and election results show that Republicans, who control the levers of power in Washington, didn’t escape blame.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has extended its order blocking full SNAP payments. The chaotic situation comes with no explanation on the court’s thinking and will expire just before midnight Thursday. People who depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to feed their families in some states have received their full monthly allocations, while others have received nothing.
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The shutdown blame game
Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say Trump and Republicans in Congress have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the shutdown, while 54% say the same about Democrats in Congress, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. And at least three-quarters of Americans believe each deserves at least a “moderate” share of blame, underscoring that no one was successfully evading responsibility.
Both parties looked to the Nov. 4 elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere to see how the shutdown was influencing public opinion. Democrats took comfort in their overwhelming successes. Trump called it a “big factor, negative” for Republicans. But the GOP still refused to negotiate with Democrats: Instead, Trump urged Republicans to end the Senate filibuster, which would pretty much eliminate the need for the majority party to ever negotiate with the minority.
Wall Street is on track to open higher Wednesday as an end to the shutdown appears closer
The shutdown has tripped up an economy already under stress. More than a million federal workers haven’t been paid since Oct. 1. Thousands of flights have been canceled, a trend that’s expected to continue this week even if the U.S. government re-opens. Many food aid recipients have seen their benefits interrupted. And the Congressional Budget Office estimated that fourth-quarter growth would be reduced by about 1.5 percentage points.
The shutdown also cut off the flow of economic data on unemployment, inflation, and retail spending that the Federal Reserve depends on to monitor the economy’s health. This could mean the Fed won’t deliver a third interest rate cut, widely expected before the shutdown, at its December meeting.
