Are we headed for another government shutdown in the New Year? Given the way things are going in Washington, D.C. at the moment, it is possible.
Congress has been trying to reach an agreement that would ease healthcare costs for Americans. Much of the debate centers on the extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies.
From The Independent:
The Republican Congress is hurtling towards another self-imposed deadline, even after the House and Senate were unable to reach an agreement to avert impending health care premium spikes for millions of Americans due to begin January 1.
At the end of next month there lies another government funding drop-off when an agreement brokered in November to end the longest government shutdown in history will expire. While Congress isn’t likely to face another battle of quite that magnitude, the path forward for Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune is still tricky.
That’s because Congress still needs to come up with another spending bill to keep agencies open and basic services ongoing, a relatively simple prospect which it has proven repeatedly unable to manage. On both sides of the aisle lawmakers have withheld their votes for such resolutions this past year, either in the hopes of extracting political concessions or due to reservations about changes to funding levels for various agencies and programs.
The result: Paychecks for tens of thousands of federal workers and necessary parts of the welfare safety net become political footballs with even-increasing frequency.
January’s shutdown battle is not likely to meet the rancor of the fall, when a battle over expiring federal subsidies for health care plans on the Affordable Care Act’s public exchanges was waged by Democrats over October and November.
Still, even if the impending spending battle might not be as fierce was what Americans saw in November, it still raises concerns about another shutdown.
Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-3) posted a video on X inviting Republicans to negotiate and criticizing them over infighting.
“I am the leading Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. That is the committee that dispenses federal dollars,” the lawmaker said. “But the Republicans control the Congress, and we must work with them to get things done. Right now, Republicans are not able to work with one another. They are shouting at each other in meetings, and they are calling each other out in the press. There is no plan to meet the January 30th deadline.”
And if we do not come up with one, if they do not come up with one, we could see another government shutdown. We need our Republican colleagues to get to work. We cannot do it without them. If we could, we would have done it months ago. But Republicans have been surrending government's power of the purse all along. When Elon Musk took a chainsaw to federal agencies, Congress created by law, they let it happen. When the White House illegally blocked $5 billion in congressionally approved funds, they shrugged it off. Now, time is running out.
The Government runs out of money on January 30th.
— Rosa DeLauro (@rosadelauro) December 19, 2025
I'm the leading Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.
To my Republican colleagues: you have my number. I am ready whenever you are. pic.twitter.com/ss9rdqqKex
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) suggested that Democrats might not take as aggressive a posture in the debate as they did in November. He told Punchbowl News that this “is a different time than before because the ACA [subsidies] expired,” and that Democrats are “trying to work with Republicans to get it done.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told his conference in a closed-door meeting last week that he is determined to pass the remaining appropriations bills by the Jan. 30 deadline.