Government shutdown explained: Will Trump, Congress avoid March 14 shutdown deadline?

Government shutdowns have become familiar turning points in U.S. politics, forcing legislators and presidents to negotiate federal spending under looming deadlines, with businesses, investors and regular citizens watching anxiously to see what will happen.

We are all on the clock again and March 14, 2025, is the deadline. In other words, lawmakers have until March 14 to pass either a full-year appropriations package or a continuing resolution to avert a partial shutdown. If President Donald J. Trump and his allies in Congress, notably Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson, fail to broker a deal, agencies would be forced to shutter nonessential operations and furlough thousands of workers, renewing a familiar cycle of political brinkmanship.

If a shutdown occurs, many federal agencies will halt or curtail operations, and a prolonged stalemate could disrupt a wide range of government services, including tax refunds, small-business loans and certain health services. Historically, both political parties have faced increasing pressure from constituents who say a shutdown would damage the economy and the government’s ability to function effectively.

Yet this time there is a new complication that goes by the name DOGE. Billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” has been busy in the early weeks of the Trump Administration leading an effort to fire thousands of federal government employees and shutter agencies entirely.

The DOGE effort, fully endorsed by Trump, raises the question: Does the GOP actually want to avert a shutdown? Time will tell.

As we watch the haggling and dealmaking in D.C., here’s an explainer that details why government shutdowns occur, when they have happened, and how they have shaped the political landscape in Washington and across the nation.

Why shutdowns happen

A federal government shutdown occurs when Congress fails to pass, or the president fails to sign, appropriations bills or continuing resolutions that fund government operations. The Constitution grants Congress the “power of the purse,” meaning federal agencies need appropriated funds to keep functioning. When Congress and the White House clash over spending priorities, these impasses can lead to the shutdown of nonessential government services.

Does President Trump want to shut down the government? Time will tell.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Key reasons shutdowns happen include:

• Budget disagreements: Disputes over proposed spending levels or fiscal priorities.
• Policy conflicts: Tensions around specific policies embedded in spending bills (e.g., funding for health care, immigration, social programs).
• Political brinkmanship: Lawmakers sometimes see deadlines as leverage, using the threat of a shutdown to push for concessions.

The health care impact

When the federal government shuts down, agencies responsible for safeguarding the nation’s health care system face an uphill battle to maintain operations. The Department of Health and Human Services (now run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his "Make America Healthy Again" movement) which oversees a range of programs and offices, must furlough many employees deemed nonessential. As a result, grant reviews, program planning and research initiatives can slow or stall until funding is restored. Critical personnel at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) continue to process claims and manage essential services, but long-term projects and new policy initiatives can be postponed.

At the FDA, which relies partly on user fees, many core functions stay intact, such as regulating drug and device safety and overseeing high-risk recalls. Still, certain routine inspections, regulatory review processes and nonessential lab work may be curtailed. The CDC, likewise, keeps workers on the job for urgent public health needs, such as disease outbreak investigations, while limiting or delaying research grants and certain prevention programs. These slowdowns can have ripple effects on state and local health agencies that depend on federal guidance and data.

Physician reimbursement

Physicians are especially concerned about how shutdowns affect Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. Because these programs are considered mandatory spending, they typically continue making payments. In practice, however, administrative support can be hampered if some staff who handle paperwork and customer service inquiries are deemed nonessential. This may result in delayed processing of claims or slowed responses to billing and compliance questions. In short, while the checks usually keep flowing, the bureaucracy that ensures those payments are accurate and timely may be stretched thin.

Over time, repeated shutdowns erode confidence in the stability of government health care operations. Health care providers who rely heavily on Medicare and Medicaid payments grow wary of potential snags in billing, and researchers lament the disruption in funding for crucial studies. Even short-term furloughs can create months-long backlogs, underscoring how political deadlocks in Washington directly impact the country’s health infrastructure and patient care.

Telehealth impact?

Telehealth has become a vital part of U.S. health care delivery, but the nation is about a month away from severely hampering its use, advocates say.

Lawmakers need to take action to extend the telehealth rule flexibilities first granted for Medicare during the COVID-19 pandemic and that continue now. Those allowances will expire March 31, and a protracted government shutdown could hamper those efforts.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) in February announced he intends to introduce the new Telehealth Coverage Act to make permanent Medicare’s coverage for telemedicine.

In a statement, Khanna accused the administration of President Donald J. Trump of “stripping millions of American seniors of their coverage of telehealth on March 31.” On April 1, virtual visits held via video conference or telephone will no longer be covered, he said.

“This is going to impact over 12 million Americans, and the crazy thing is that the inspector generals have found that there's only 0.2% of fraud in telehealth,” Khanna’s announcement said. “So why are we taking telehealth away from millions of seniors who are homebound or who have difficulty leaving their homes? It is most devastating for rural Americans.”

A history of government shutdowns

Modern federal shutdowns date back to the late 1970s, when legal opinions first clarified that agencies could not lawfully continue operations without appropriated funding. Over the decades, these funding gaps have periodically paralyzed the federal government and left thousands of workers furloughed. Below are some of the most significant shutdowns, presented in a narrative style with subheads for clarity.

Carter’s one-day shutdown (1980)

The legal groundwork for modern shutdowns was laid in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter faced a short-lived halt in government operations over abortion restrictions in the District of Columbia. Lasting only a single day, the crisis was covered extensively by national media. According to The Washington Post, lawmakers sparred over language barring the use of federal funds for certain medical procedures, a dispute that ultimately forced agencies to cease nonessential services.

Although brief, this shutdown established the principle that federal agencies could not remain open if appropriations bills were not enacted. It also foreshadowed how ideological disagreements could escalate into funding showdowns.

Reagan’s early showdowns (1981)

When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he quickly signaled his intent to rein in federal spending. A clash with Congress over proposed budget cuts led to a shutdown that lasted a little more than a day. Federal operations slowed to a crawl as lawmakers debated the president’s vision for a leaner government. The New York Times at the time noted that Reagan was “prepared to hold out” for spending reductions, illustrating how the White House and Congress wrestled over the size and scope of government.

Although the shutdown was short, it reinforced the growing sense that partisan politics could readily translate into funding crises. In the wake of this episode, agencies refined their contingency plans, anticipating future battles over budget priorities.

Bush and the ‘No new taxes’ promise (1990)

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush’s famous “no new taxes” pledge collided with ballooning budget deficits. Democratic leaders insisted that raising taxes was necessary to bring deficits under control, setting the stage for a three-day government shutdown. Then-Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, told reporters, “We want to reduce the deficit in a fair and balanced way,” according to contemporaneous coverage in The New York Times.

Bush eventually agreed to a budget deal that included tax increases, a move that many analysts believe weakened his political standing. The short shutdown underscored how campaign promises could be tested—and, at times, broken—by the realities of governance.

Clinton vs. Gingrich (1995-1996)

President Bill Clinton’s famous standoff with House Speaker Newt Gingrich produced two of the most protracted shutdowns in modern U.S. history, spanning a combined 26 days between November 1995 and January 1996. At issue were steep cuts to Medicare, education and public health programs that Republicans sought to implement. Parks, museums and other federal sites closed to the public, prompting widespread frustration and media coverage.

“We can’t balance the budget on the backs of our seniors and our children,” Clinton said, according to The Washington Post. Public sentiment increasingly turned against the GOP-led Congress, while Clinton’s handling of the crisis burnished his image. When the government finally reopened, the agreement reached underscored the difficulty of reconciling drastically different fiscal visions.

The Obamacare shutdown (2013)

In October 2013, a 16-day shutdown unfolded amid Republican efforts to defund or delay the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers were furloughed, and national parks and monuments closed, drawing headlines across the nation. During a White House address covered by the Associated Press, President Barack Obama criticized what he called a “ransom” approach: “You don’t get to extract a ransom for doing your job.”

Eventually, Congress passed a short-term funding measure and raised the debt ceiling, but the shutdown revealed stark divisions over health care policy. Polls indicated that Republicans in Congress bore most of the blame, prompting internal debates about the political cost of using shutdowns as a bargaining chip.

Trump and the border wall (2018-2019)

The longest government shutdown on record stretched 35 days from late 2018 into early 2019. President Donald Trump demanded $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, while Democrats refused to allocate the money. Approximately 800,000 federal workers went unpaid, creating significant disruptions at airports, national parks and beyond.

“I am proud to shut down the government for border security,” Trump told House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer in a televised Oval Office meeting, The New York Times reported. The standoff ended without wall funding in the short-term budget deal, though broader immigration issues remained unresolved. The shutdown underscored how deep-seated policy disagreements can paralyze government operations and spark public backlash.

What comes next?

Taken together, these shutdowns illustrate the repeated clash between presidential administrations and Congress over spending priorities. Each episode highlights how partisan divisions can escalate to the point of halting government operations, often with far-reaching economic and political consequences.

Will the current Congress avert a shutdown before March 14? And if a shutdown does occur, will it follow the path of the many shutdowns before it? We will soon find out.