At 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday morning, the United States government shut down.
Around 750,000 federal workers have been sent home. Other “essential” workers are still at their desks, though they will go without a paycheck until lawmakers ink a compromise. At the time of writing, lawmakers are no closer to a deal to reopen the government. So cancel that trip to the zoo, folks.
This is the first government shutdown in six years, and so here’s Washington watcher Gabe Fleisher—who writes the Substack Wake Up to Politics—with everything you need to know about how shutdowns work, why we’re in one now, and what happens next.
It seems like Congress is always flirting with triggering a shutdown before averting it at the final moment. Why didn’t that happen this time?
