Dakota Beacon

How did the United States Congress put Americans, once again, into a government shutdown? I’ll describe the situation as I understand it.

Every year the US Congress works on a federal budget for the next fiscal year. The government’s fiscal year runs from October 1 of one calendar year through September 30 of the next year. But this was not always so.

At the beginning of the Republic the fiscal year coincided with the calendar year – January 1 through December 31. In 1842 during President John Tyler’s administration the fiscal year changed. The new fiscal year would run from July 1 of one year to June 30 of the following year. But Congress, poor thing, still could not get their budget act together. Again, the fiscal year was changed by three months to give Congress more time. That is how we got the October 1 – September 30 fiscal year.

Even with an extended fiscal year Congress still cannot get its act together. As happens all too often, September 30, 2025, rolled around and Congress still has not produced a budget.

In each of the fiscal year extensions the intent was to provide Congress with more time to process appropriation legislation. If Congress cannot pass appropriation legislation prior to the start of the new fiscal year, then only a continuing resolution passed by Congress and signed by the President can keep the government open and funded. This is only a stopgap measure not to exceed one year (or less) and authorizes budget authority to federal agencies to spend money at the last authorized level or for specific activities -- or both. This keeps the federal government funded and running until Congress can pass final appropriation legislation.

On Thursday, October 9, the Senate voted for the seventh time to block a House-passed bill to reopen the federal government. The House Republican-drafted measure to fund the government at current levels through November 21, a “clean” continuing resolution, failed on a procedural vote of 54-45. The measure needed 60 votes to pass. The Senate was scheduled for a recess during the Columbus Day week but that has been cancelled. An earlier Senate vote on Thursday for an alternative Senate Democrat plan proposing to permanently extend health insurance premiums (including healthcare for illegal aliens) and restore $1.5 trillion in Medicaid cuts enacted and signed into law under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) also failed. The same funding proposal did not advance in six earlier votes since September 19.

What follows are words from my favorite senator – Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy, Rhodes Scholar and eloquent raconteur. Kennedy accused Democrats of holding the government hostage to restore what he described as millions in wasteful foreign projects. Lawmakers had already stripped the provisions from the budget with the OBBBA, only to see the Democrat party’s left flank threaten to keep the shutdown in place unless the money is put back in.

“We just eliminated money [from the] Affordable Care Act [Obama Care]. Now those are the demands… Basically, President Trump just said we want you to take some stuff out of the budget that we think is wasteful, and we did,” Kennedy said. “… Here’s what they want us to put back in.”

            --Over $4 million for LGBTQ projects in the Balkans and Uganda

            --$3.6 million for cooking and dance workshops for male sex workers in Haiti

            --$500,000 to buy electric buses in Rwanda

            --$6 million to subsidize Palestinian media outlets

            --More than $833,000 for transgender training initiatives in Nepal

            --$300,000 to sponsor a pride parade in Lesotho

            --Nearly $900,000 for mentorship and social media programs in Serbia

            --$3 million for circumcision and sterilization programs in Zambia

            “We took it out, the congresswoman [Ocasio-Cortez] and the socialist wing of their party say we’ve got to put that back in for that open government,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy said the shutdown boils down to a fight over priorities, with Republicans asking Democrats for just six more weeks to negotiate a full budget after funding expired.

“That’s what this fight is all about. We’re in the process of negotiating a budget with our Democratic friends. We ran out of time. The cutoff was midnight Tuesday night [September 30]. That’s when the clock struck midnight, and the budget ran out,” Kennedy said. “What we had asked for and what we’re still asking for is to let’s continue [to] negotiate. …That’s all we’re asking.”

Behind the scenes, far-left groups such as MoveOn have mounted a coordinated campaign to pressure Democrats into rejecting the bipartisan bill and extending the shutdown for political leverage. Even so, a few Democrats, including Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman broke ranks and questioned the strategy of withholding government funding until Republicans agree to restore $1.5 trillion in healthcare provisions including illegal aliens.

            And the clock ticks on...

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).