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Estimated reading time of this week’s update: 15 minutes
(1) RE-OPENING GOVERNMENT AFTER THE LONGEST (43-DAY) SHUTDOWN: Agriculture Dept., SNAP benefits, FDA, Veterans Affairs, Military Construction, and Congress are now FULLY FUNDED THROUGH THE END OF FY 2026 (Sept. 30, 2026).
The Departments of Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health & Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing & Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury and most independent agencies, including CIA, EPA, FCC, FTC, NASA, and SEC remain only TEMPORARILY FUNDED THROUGH JANUARY 30, 2026, as appropriators try to negotiate the 9 remaining spending bills.
Background: Last week, the Senate ended the longest ever shutdown, passing 60-40 the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026 (P.L. 119-37). The House passed the funding measure 222-209 and President Trump signed the bill into law last Wednesday evening. The new spending law enacts of 3-of-12 Fiscal Year 2026 appropriation bills providing funding through Sept. 30, 2026:
1. Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA (includes SNAP funding); details.
2. Legislative Branch: details.
3. Military Construction, Veterans Affairs: details.
All departments and agencies funded through the 9 unfinished appropriation bills have now reopened due to enactment of a temporary continuing resolution through January 30, 2026 (link here to Division A of the spending law.) If any of the 9 bills below are not completed by that date and stopgap funding is not extended, the government will have a partial shutdown on Jan. 31, 2026:
4. Commerce, Justice, Science: details.
5. Defense: details: details.
6. Energy and Water Development: details.
7. Financial Services and General Government: details.
8. Homeland Security: details.
9. Interior, Environment: details.
10. Labor, Health and Human Services, Education: details.
11. State, Foreign Operations: details.
12. Transportation, Housing & Urban Development: details.
Outlook: Will the government partially shutdown on January 31, 2026? The House and Senate Appropriations Committees are aiming to complete the 9 remaining bills—most likely in packages of 2 or 3. That being said, the outcome may ironically depend again on the debate over Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance subsidies. If the two political parties cannot arrive at an accommodation to extend the expiring enhanced subsidies, inflamed partisan tensions could stall Senate action on appropriations (which must be bipartisan due to the Senate’s 60 vote threshold).
On a separate appropriations track, the Homeland Security Appropriations bill is facing an uphill battle due to serious political tensions over President Trump’s deportations. Consequently, DHS appropriations are likely to be funded through FY 2026 by stopgap funding (a CR).
To stay up-to-date on appropriation bills in the House and Senate, see daily updates on our website, Appropriations.com.
(2) RECOVERY OF FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL SERVICES POST-SHUTDOWN:
OVERALL: Many federal employees have received back pay, and most backpay should be distributed by tomorrow. However, contractors, program vendors, and state and local governments are experiencing continuing delays due to backlogs in processing payments and contract review.
FLIGHT CANCELLATIONS: During to the government shutdown, U.S. airlines canceled between 5,500 and 8,000 airline flights due to air traffic controller shortages. On Sunday, 11/16, the FAA lifted its order reducing flights, allowing commercial airlines to resume their regular schedules.
SNAP BENEFITS ARE BACK BUT MILLIONS WILL SOON LOSE BENEFITS PERMANENTLY: The Agriculture Appropriation bill, which funds the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, was signed into law last week. However, the November interruption, and the Trump Administration’s efforts to block and then claw back benefit monies from states, has left “recipients shaken.” Moreover, as reported by Trillions last summer, Trump’s OBBBA budget bill in July cut future SNAP benefits by $186 billion, or 20 percent.
MILITARY PAY: 1.3 million active-duty military personnel and over 750,000 National Guard and reserve did not miss paychecks during the shutdown because the Administration used reallocated funds and private donations to cover the October 15 and October 31 payrolls.
LOW-INCOME HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE: The federal shutdown delayed payments from the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), directly impacting millions of low-income households as winter begins. Last Friday, 99 Members of Congress sent a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kennedy and OMB Director Vought urging them to release the funds as quickly as possible. HHS released a statement promising to “work swiftly” but no timeline was given. However, President Trump has proposed eliminating the LIHEAP program which helps nearly 6 million families annually pay for heating and cooling.
HEAD START: As of yesterday, 11/17, Head Start sites in 13 states and Puerto Rico had to close their doors—leaving “over 6,400 children and families without access to the care, early learning, nutrition, and stability Head Start provides.” Efforts are being made to get the centers back up and running, although the funding lapse and staffing challenges “could worsen delays.” Aggravating the situation are layoffs in the Office of Head Start executed earlier this year.
SPECIAL EDUCATION: The spending law re-opening the federal government requires the Trump administration to reinstate federal workers who were fired in October, including employees overseeing the nation’s special education laws. The question is how long the Office for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services will continue to exist. The Department of Education refuses to answer—possibly because the functions of that office could be transferred to HHS.
EDUCATION IMPACT AID: The Department of Education is prioritizing districts that submit early payment requests and face time-sensitive financial needs.
FEDERAL COURTS: Federal courts have returned to full, paid operations as of November 13, 2025, following the enactment of the continuing resolution funding the Judiciary through January 30, 2026.
LOSS OF ECONOMIC DATA: October 2025 will remain a “partial blind spot“ in the official economic record, as some data could not be collected during the shutdown and may never be fully recovered.
INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE: There is a backlog of paper correspondence that built up during the shutdown. IRS walk-in assistance centers are being reopened.
SMITHSONIAN: All museums, research centers and the National Zoo have now fully reopened.
STATE-SPECIFIC IMPACTS: States used reserve funds or shifted resources to maintain critical functions during the shutdown and are now seeking federal reimbursements. In addition, state agencies are working through weeks of delayed paperwork, staffing constraints, and delayed reimbursement from the federal government. These backlogs are affecting timely payments to vendors, contractors, and local agencies. Read more.
(3) AFFORDABLE CARE ACT (“OBAMACARE”) AGAIN TAKES CENTER STAGE
Background: The principal cause of the government shutdown was a decision by House and Senate Democrats to oppose a temporary funding measure in late September, as the new fiscal year approached. Their hope was to leverage a serious negotiation with President Trump and Republicans on extending enhanced Affordable Care Act premium subsidies which expire next month. (If enhanced subsidies expire, subsidies return to levels originally set in the ACA prior to the COVID pandemic.)
The Democrats’ strategy failed because White House and GOP Leadership refused to negotiate and by last week, a sufficient number of Senate Democrats recognized the strategy was not working and agreed to reopen the government without resolving the subsidies issue. Instead, they settled for a promise by Senate GOP Leader Thune to permit a vote on extension of enhanced subsidies by mid-December (without any corresponding agreement by Speaker Johnson or the White House).
This leaves the original, lower subsidies established by the ACA before COVID in place for 2026. The impending lower subsidies are already reflected in huge premium increases for people wishing to enroll in the ACA for 2026. The cost to enrollees in 2026 will more than double absent congressional action to extend the enhanced subsidies, and millions of current beneficiaries will lose eligibility entirely.
When the enhanced subsidies expire, between 4 million and 5 million people are expected to lose their marketplace coverage and become uninsured in 2026 (according to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, Urban Institute, and KFF). At greatest risk are middle-income adults over age 50, families in non-Medicaid expansion states, and those living in areas with high insurance premiums.
As the Senate moves closer to the ACA subsidy vote in December, President Trump and some Senate Republicans are voicing support for a proposal from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to send the enhanced ACA insurance premium subsidies directly to beneficiaries as cash payments.
However, the problem with this “cash” proposal is that the federal subsidies would no longer be used for the purchase of ACA health insurance plans, so when the cash payments are depleted, the beneficiaries would have no health coverage. Or, if the cash payments are used to purchase cheap, short-term plans with poor coverage, the result will be more visits to emergency rooms—which is the most expensive type of health care and unfairly shifts costs onto people with insurance.
Today, President Trump said bluntly that he will not sign legislation extending the enhanced ACA insurance subsidies. Trump said the only health-care plan he would “SUPPORT OR APPROVE” would be “SENDING THE MONEY DIRECTLY BACK TO THE PEOPLE” instead of to insurance companies, in a Truth Social post on Tuesday.
This populist attempt to demonize private health insurance is odd considering that Trump repeatedly defends Medicare, where half of all beneficiaries are enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans.
A senior White House official said today, they have considered using budget reconciliation to advance cash payments and unwind the ACA—the same process used to enact the OBBBA tax and spending cuts last July.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair said a reconciliation bill could also include tariff legislation to lock-in tariff rates, as well as a “tariff dividend” to distribute extra revenues from tariffs—revenues that do not actually exist as explained in last week’s Trillions.
Important Note: Another reconciliation bill can only be initiated if Congress first adopts a new budget resolution for FY 2026 to instruct committees to report the desired reconciliation provisions.
To make the impending ACA debate even more contentious, anti-abortion advocates are pressing Republicans to insist on additional restrictions on abortion coverage for all plans that receive government subsidies.
(4) TARIFFS AND THE ECONOMY:
Impact of Trump tariffs: Tariff impacts are falling most heavily on clothes, electrical equipment and computers, and cars, with overall price increases representing a loss of $1,700 for the average U.S. household; the European Union last week lowered its growth outlook for 2026 due to Trump’s tariff war; and Trump tariffs pushed Japan’s economy into a contraction.
China’s purchases of American soybeans appear to have stalled, due to the tariff induced delay in orders for American soybeans. – Bloomberg
A Bipartisan House report says China is manipulating global mineral prices to further its authoritarian ambitions and the U.S. should respond with price controls, tax incentives, and stockpiling. – Politico
US and Switzerland reached a trade deal last week. - CNBC
Fact Check: “Trump’s lying spree about inflation.” – CNN
(5) OTHER MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS ACROSS GOVERNMENT:
Trump Administration Advances Effort to Dismantle Education Dept: Education Secretary Linda McMahon said today the Department “is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states.”
Fact Check: The Secretary’s statement is misleading. Education policy is set by states and local school boards; the primary federal role is to provide supplementary financial resources for key priorities such as educating low-income students, providing necessary accommodations to students with disabilities, and enabling low-income students to access higher education through financial aid programs. The federal government has a unique ability to raise funds, without which, low-income students and special needs students would lack the equal opportunities available to all other Americans.
Dismantling the Department without Congressional Approval: Since Congress has not authorized the elimination of the Department, the Administration has been advancing its goal by laying off large portions of the workforce and transferring the Department’s programs to other departments. Secretary McMahon announced today she is moving to the Labor Department, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, including 27 K-12 grant programs, and the Office of Postsecondary Education, which administers 14 programs to help students enroll in and complete college. In addition, the Education Department is moving the Indian education program to the Interior Department; child care access and foreign medical education to the Department of Health and Human Services; and foreign-language education to the State Department.
The Administration is similarly taking a backdoor approach to eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Last week, OMB Director Russell Vought, who is also serving as Acting CFPB Director, revealed that he has not requested new funds for FY 2026 from the Federal Reserve (the statutory funding source for the Bureau) and that CFPB would run out of funds by early spring of 2026, paving the way for full shutdown of the agency.
Housing Cuts: House Appropriations Committee Democrats released a statement Sunday asserting that new funding requirements for homeless service providers released by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) could lead to “as many as 170,000 veterans, youth that have aged out of the foster care system, and people with disabilities” losing housing this winter.
Homeland Security Faltering: New York Times reports that the Department of Homeland Security’s broad mission is faltering amid the concentration of resources on deportations—to the detriment of combating child abuse and trafficking, cyberdefense, and counter-terrorism.
No New Automatic Medicare Cuts: Last summer, when President Trump’s signature budget bill (OBBBA) was enacted, Trillions explained that OBBBA would trigger a half trillion dollars in automatic cuts to Medicare over the next 10 years (Medicare is the national health insurance program serving all Americans 65 and older and disabled workers).
In the past, Congress has acted to neuter these automatic cuts, and they have again. Last week’s spending law, in section 8001(d), “zeroed out” the PAYGO scorecard so that automatic cuts will not be triggered due to enactment of last summer’s tax cuts. Congress has now consistently voted to override the pay-as-you-go requirement—thoroughly abandoning the principle that new tax cuts and spending increases should be paid for to avoid worsening the public debt.
Climate: Washington Post reports that Appalachia is increasingly vulnerable to extreme rain and floods; Bloomberg reports on three new studies adding evidence that climate policy is inseparable from economic policy; and PBS NewsHour interviewed former Secretary of State John Kerry who says the U.S. absence from the COP30 climate summit undermines global cooperation.
Ethics: Reuters reported that Trump bought $82 million in bonds since late August, including Intel bonds after the government acquired a stake; Politico reports that only one Senator now plans to seek a government payout under the spending bill’s controversial provision; AP reports on the 37 “donors” contributing to Trump’s ballroom; The Trump organization, amidst Donald Trump’s mass deportation of foreign workers by the hundreds of thousands, requested a record number of foreign workers for his own company in 2025; and Treasury Sec. Bessent used a limited partnership to avoid Medicare taxes.
Democracy: After cajoling “red states” to use gerrymandering to grab more congressional seats, Trump’s Justice Department is suing to block California’s U.S. House map; the State Department has erased 15 pages of nuclear history, reports the Washington Post; the Justice Department struggles as thousands of attorneys exit and few are replaced, in part due to a lack of candidates; and Dozens of politicians from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party will travel to DC in December at the invitation of House Republicans.
(6) THIS WEEK’S SUGGESTED READS:
The shutdown was always going to end like this – WP Editorial Bd.
Federal Judge, Warning of ‘Existential Threat’ to Democracy – The Atlantic
Janet Yellen says the U.S. is undermining its economic success. - Bloomberg
Everything you need to know about tariffs and where they’re going. - WP
About the author: Charles S. Konigsberg, J.D., served as Assistant Director at the White House Office of Management and Budget for three successive Budget Directors; General Counsel at the U.S. Senate Finance Committee; Minority Chief Counsel at the U.S. Senate Rules Committee; Staff Attorney at the U.S. Senate Budget Committee; Director of Congressional Affairs at CFPB and AmeriCorps; and Staff Director of a national bipartisan budget task force.
He is author of the book, Trillions: A Primer on Federal Spending, Taxes, the U.S. Debt Ceiling, and Fiscal Law. Click here to purchase.
He is also Publisher of:
Appropriations.com which tracks the 12 appropriation bills and presidential impoundment developments each day;
andGovBudget.com which tracks major developments, by subject area, each day including: Law & Democracy | Cut Tracker | WH-OMB-DOGE | Economic News | Federal Taxes | Tariffs | Health and Human Services Programs | Debt, Deficits and Debt Limit | Discretionary Spending Programs | Mandatory Spending Programs | Immigration | Disabilities Programs | Defense | Climate/Energy | Budget Process
Speaking engagements and press interviews can be scheduled by calling: (301) 509-5688. Email comments, suggestions, and questions to: ckonigsberg@capitolpublicpolicy.com.