The federal government has now been shut down for 37 days after funding lapsed on October 1, 2025, making this the longest closure in American history and a disgraceful display of political theater in Washington. Hardworking taxpayers and federal employees are paying the price while politicians trade blows and excuses instead of doing their jobs.
Enough with the sanctimonious lectures from Democrats who have repeatedly voted down stopgap funding simply because it didn’t include permanent expansion of Obamacare subsidies. This is hostage-taking dressed up as concern for the people, and ordinary Americans know it: Democrats are weaponizing government services to chase ideological giveaways.
There are reports that pragmatic senators on both sides have quietly sketched a deal to pass a handful of appropriations bills to reopen most of the government, in exchange for a promise that Republicans will hold a future vote on extending the Affordable Care Act premium subsidies. That kind of sausage-making compromise is how Congress used to work before national leadership decided single-issue maximalism was a political strategy.
Senator Ashley Moody’s appearance on Fox & Friends First underlined the raw frustration of conservatives who want the government reopened without surrendering every principle. Republicans have even offered to give Democrats the vote they say they want, but any such promise must not be a blank check to expand entitlement spending forever.
Meanwhile, nearly a million federal workers have been furloughed and millions more are working without pay as the budget stalemate drags on, which is more than an abstract policy fight — it’s families missing paychecks and contractors going unpaid. Washington’s elites insist on holding everything hostage for political leverage while small towns and major cities suffer the fallout.
Now is the time for Republicans to stand firm: reopen the government for the American people, force a straight-up vote on subsidies, and stop allowing the Left to turn governance into a ransom negotiation. Patriots who love limited government and fiscal sanity should demand a clean reopening and an end to these theatrics so the focus can return to real problems like border security, rising crime, and out-of-control federal spending.
