Closing summary
Today, Joe Biden became the first sitting US president in modern memory to visit a union picket line, traveling to Van Buren township, Michigan, to address United Auto Workers members who have walked off the job at the big three automakers. The president argued that the workers deserve higher wages, and appeared alongside the union’s leader, Shawn Fain – who has yet to endorse Biden’s re-election bid.
Back in Washington DC, Congress is as troubled as ever. The Senate passed a stopgap funding bill to temporarily avoid a government shutdown, but hard-right holdouts in the House have refused to consider such a measure. Instead, House Republicans are focusing on four long-term appropriations bills that won’t actually avert a shutdown.
Read our full coverage of today’s shutdown developments here.
Meanwhile, more and more Democratic senators say Bob Menendez should resign his seat after being indicted on corruption charges, including his fellow Jerseyman, Cory Booker.
Further reading:
Hunter Biden’s latest salvo in his campaign of lawsuits is against Rudy Giuliani and another lawyer, whom he accuses of violating his privacy by going through his digital devices.
The supreme court told Alabama’s Republican leaders that they have to draw another majority-Black congressional district. They tried very hard to get out of doing so.
Donald Trump added at least two veteran attorneys to his criminal defense team, as he prepares to fight 91 criminal charges under four indictments.
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Trump’s lawyers plan to appeal judge’s ruling today that he committed fraud while building empire. Here is where each investigation stats.
– Chris Stein and Maanvi Singh
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The goverment could shut down 1 October. Here's what it means
What happens when a US government shutdown takes place?
Thousands of federal government employees are put on furlough, meaning that they are told not to report for work and go unpaid for the period of the shutdown, although their salaries are paid retroactively when it ends.
Other government workers who perform what are judged essential services, such as air traffic controllers and law enforcement officials, continue to work but do not get paid until Congress acts to end the shutdown.
Depending on how long it lasts, national parks can either shut entirely or open without certain vital services such as public toilets or attendants. Passport processing can stop, as can research – at national health institutes.
The Biden administration has warned that federal inspections ensuring food safety and prevention of the release of dangerous materials into drinking water could stop for the duration of the shutdown.
About 10,000 children aged three and four may also lose access to Head Start, a federally funded program to promote school readiness among toddlers, especially among low-income families.
What causes a shutdown?
Simply put, the terms of a piece of legislation known as the Anti-Deficiency Act, first passed in 1884, prohibits federal agencies from spending or obligating funds without an act of appropriation – or some alternative form of approval – from Congress.
If Congress fails to enact the 12 annual appropriations bills needed to fund the US government’s activities and associated bureaucracy, all non-essential work must cease until it does. If Congress enacts some of the bills but not others, the agencies affected by the bills not enacted are forced to cease normal functioning; this is known as a partial government shutdown.
How unusual are US government shutdowns?
For the first 200 years of the US’s existence, they did not happen at all. In recent decades, they have become an increasingly regular part of the political landscape, as Washington politics has become more polarized and brinkmanship a commonplace political tool. There have been 20 federal funding gaps since 1976, when the US first shifted the start of its fiscal year to 1 October.
Three shutdowns in particular have entered US political lore:
A 21-day partial closure in 1995 over a dispute about spending cuts between President Bill Clinton and the Republican speaker, Newt Gingrich, that is widely seen as setting the tone for later partisan congressional struggles.
In 2013, when the government was partially closed for 16 days after another Republican-led Congress tried to use budget negotiations to defund Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare.
A 34-day shutdown, the longest on record, lasting from December 2018 until January 2019, when Donald Trump refused to sign any appropriations bill that did not include $5.7bn funding for a border wall along the US border with Mexico. The closure damaged Trump’s poll ratings.
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