Politics

What Does a Shutdown Have to Do With the Budget or Elon Musk? Here’s a Guide.

Published

10 months ago

March 11, 2025

What Does a Shutdown Have to Do With the Budget or Elon Musk? Here’s a Guide.

Republicans in government are hard at work refashioning federal spending through three major efforts, proceeding along parallel tracks. They may seem to be all the same story — and they do relate to each other — but they each have their own goals, deadlines and constraints. Here, a guide to all three.

Effort 1: Avoiding a shutdown

Potential changes: The bill would fund a portion of the budget — hundreds of billions of dollars — for the rest of the fiscal year.
Deadline: Saturday at 12:01 a.m.
Status: A House vote is scheduled for Tuesday.

If Congress doesn’t pass a bill to fund ongoing government programs by the end of Friday, there could be a shutdown.

Congress is supposed to pass yearlong spending bills before a fiscal year begins, through a process known as regular appropriations. That process often breaks down, so Congress frequently passes shorter-term spending bills every few months instead to keep the government funded. The latest such “continuing resolution” expires this week, and a new one, which would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, is on the table.

The appropriations process deals with only a portion of all federal spending — often called discretionary. It doesn’t affect “mandatory” programs like Social Security, which pay out benefits on a kind of autopilot, based on a formula. The resolution is also subject to a filibuster in the Senate, which means that at least seven Democrats will need to vote for it even if every Senate Republican supports it.

The current bill mostly allows the government to spend the same amount on most government agencies it has been spending all year, with a few key exceptions, including cuts to programs earmarked by lawmakers for their home districts, and an increase in military spending. Compared with last year’s funding, it reduces the amount allowed by around $7 billion — roughly 0.1 percent of the estimated $7 trillion in annual government spending.

Effort 2: Passing Trump’s agenda in one big bill

Potential changes: Trillions of dollars in changes to both tax revenue and spending, over 10 years.
Deadline: Oct. 1, or the process must start over.
Status: The budget resolution passed the House. The timing of next steps is unclear.

The House adopted a budget outline for what the government should spend and raise over the next decade. That budget is the very first part of a process that could help Republicans cut taxes and reshape large government programs. Republicans have chosen this route, known as reconciliation, so they can pass their policies without needing any Democratic votes in the Senate.

The reconciliation process still has many steps left to go. Republicans in the Senate would need to adopt a matching budget resolution, and many have expressed reservations about the House approach (the Senate has passed its own, smaller budget plan). Then both chambers will have to write and pass legislation that carries out the cuts and increases in spending outlined in the budget.

By design, budget reconciliation mostly addresses the parts of federal spending that are not part of the appropriations process. This includes mandatory programs like Medicare, Medicaid, food assistance, student loans and farm aid that get automatically funded unless Congress makes changes to their structure.

The budget adopted by the House would also allow tax cuts of around $4.5 trillion over a decade, partly offset by around $2 trillion in spending reductions. It also includes a few spending increases, for the military and border security. The combination could increase deficits by an estimated $3.4 trillion, including interest on federal debt.

Because the budget process affects a decade at a time, the numbers above are 10-year changes. That’s part of why they are so much larger than the numbers used to describe the continuing resolution, which covers only about half a year’s worth of spending.

Effort 3: Using Elon Musk’s team to cut the budget

Potential changes: The stated goal is to cut around 15 percent of next year’s budget.
Deadline: That fiscal year ends in October 2027.
Status: The cuts from Mr. Musk’s team are continuing, with new layoffs and contract cancellations announced this week.

Mr. Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur, is leading his own effort to trim government spending, and it’s unclear exactly how it will come to intersect with the work of Congress. He has pledged to use a team called the Department of Government Efficiency to reduce federal spending by $1 trillion in the next fiscal year, an ambitious target that would be hard to achieve without legislation.

So far, Mr. Musk’s team has been directing agencies to fire workers and cancel government contracts, grants and leases. The majority of those changes affect the discretionary part of the budget — the smaller portion of government spending that Congress is also trying to address this week.

Mr. Musk and Congress seem to be clashing. The current continuing resolution mostly leaves agencies funded at their current level, and does not take account of the changes by Mr. Musk’s group. But there has been some discussion about codifying some of Mr. Musk’s cuts using a process called rescission.

The effort by his team has also mostly ignored the military, which makes up more than half of discretionary spending.

Some of the group’s changes could affect federal revenues, too. His team is enacting large staff reductions at the Internal Revenue Service, which collects taxes and investigates tax fraud. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a smaller I.R.S. staff generally means fewer taxes are collected.

P.S. Don’t forget about the debt limit

Potential changes: Without legislation, the U.S. could fail to pay its obligations and default.
Deadline: Sometime this summer.
Status: The Treasury Department is already using “extraordinary measures” to prevent a default for as long as possible.

As federal debt rises, Congress has to periodically pass legislation that allows the Treasury Department to keep issuing bonds. It’s unclear when the country will run out of options to prevent a default, but many budget experts believe it will be as soon as this summer.

If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, the country will begin defaulting on its debt, an action likely to have negative and cascading consequences for the U.S. economy. Payments to Social Security beneficiaries, medical providers and government workers could stop.

House Republicans have folded this increase in borrowing authority into their big budget bill. But if the reconciliation process isn’t finished in time, Congress may have to pass an increase to the debt limit some other way.

Related Topics:Elon Featured Federal Budget (US)Law and Legislation Musk Republican Party United States Politics and Government

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Politics

AOC accuses Vance of believing ‘American people should be assassinated in the street’

Published

1 hour ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

AOC accuses Vance of believing ‘American people should be assassinated in the street’

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Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leveling a stunning accusation at Vice President JD Vance amid the national furor over this week’s fatal shooting in Minnesota involving an ICE agent.

“I understand that Vice President Vance believes that shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, and I do not,” the four-term federal lawmaker from New York and progressive champion argued as she answered questions on Friday on Capitol Hill from Fox News and other news organizations.

Ocasio-Cortez spoke in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good after she confronted ICE agents from inside her car in Minneapolis.

RENEE NICOLE GOOD PART OF ‘ICE WATCH’ GROUP, DHS SOURCES SAY

Members of law enforcement work the scene following a suspected shooting by an ICE agent during federal operations on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Video of the incident instantly went viral, and while Democrats have heavily criticized the shooting, the Trump administration is vocally defending the actions of the ICE agent.

HEAD HERE FOR LIVE FOX NEWS UPDATES ON THE ICE SHOOTING IN MINNESOTA

Vance, at a White House briefing on Thursday, charged that “this was an attack on federal law enforcement. This was an attack on law and order.”

“That woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation,” the vice president added. “The president stands with ICE, I stand with ICE, we stand with all of our law enforcement officers.”

And Vance claimed Good was “brainwashed” and suggested she was connected to a “broader, left-wing network.”

Federal sources told Fox News on Friday that Good, who was a mother of three, worked as a Minneapolis-based immigration activist serving as a member of “ICE Watch.”

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Ocasio-Cortez, in responding to Vance’s comments, said, “That is a fundamental difference between Vice President Vance and I. I do not believe that the American people should be assassinated in the street.”

But a spokesperson for the vice president, responding to Ocasio-Cortez’s accusation, told Fox News Digital, “On National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, AOC made it clear she thinks that radical leftists should be able to mow down ICE officials in broad daylight. She should be ashamed of herself. The Vice President stands with ICE and the brave men and women of law enforcement, and so do the American people.”

Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the campaign trail from coast to coast.”

Politics

Contributor: Don’t let the mobs rule

Published

2 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

In Springfield, Ill., in 1838, a young Abraham Lincoln delivered a powerful speech decrying the “ravages of mob law” throughout the land. Lincoln warned, in eerily prescient fashion, that the spread of a then-ascendant “mobocratic spirit” threatened to sever the “attachment of the People” to their fellow countrymen and their nation. Lincoln’s opposition to anarchy of any kind was absolute and clarion: “There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.”

Unfortunately, it seems that every few years, Americans must be reminded anew of Lincoln’s wisdom. This week’s lethal Immigration and Customs Enforcement standoff in the Twin Cities is but the latest instance of a years-long baleful trend.

On Wednesday, a 37-year-old stay-at-home mom, Renee Nicole Good, was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Her ex-husband said she and her partner encountered ICE agents after dropping off Good’s 6-year-old at school. The federal government has called Good’s encounter “an act of domestic terrorism” and said the agent shot in self-defense.

Suffice it to say Minnesota’s Democratic establishment does not see it this way.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey responded to the deployment of 2,000 immigration agents in the area and the deadly encounter by telling ICE to “get the f— out” of Minnesota, while Gov. Tim Walz called the shooting “totally predictable” and “totally avoidable.” Frey, who was also mayor during the mayhem after George Floyd’s murder by city police in 2020, has lent succor to the anti-ICE provocateurs, seemingly encouraging them to make Good a Floyd-like martyr. As for Walz, he’s right that this tragedy was eminently “avoidable” — but not only for the reasons he thinks. If the Biden-Harris administration hadn’t allowed unvetted immigrants to remain in the country without legal status and if Walz’s administration hadn’t moved too slowly in its investigations of hundreds of Minnesotans — of mixed immigration status — defrauding taxpayers to the tune of billions of dollars, ICE never would have embarked on this particular operation.

National Democrats took the rage even further. Following the fateful shooting, the Democratic Party’s official X feed promptly tweeted, without any morsel of nuance, that “ICE shot and killed a woman on camera.” This sort of irresponsible fear-mongering already may have prompted a crazed activist to shoot three detainees at an ICE facility in Dallas last September while targeting officers; similar dehumanizing rhetoric about the National Guard perhaps also played a role in November’s lethal shooting of a soldier in Washington, D.C.

Liberals and open-border activists play with fire when they so casually compare ICE, as Walz previously has, to a “modern-day Gestapo.” The fact is, ICE is not the Gestapo, Donald Trump is not Hitler, and Charlie Kirk was not a goose-stepping brownshirt. To pretend otherwise is to deprive words of meaning and to live in the theater of the absurd.

But as dangerous as this rhetoric is for officers and agents, it is the moral blackmail and “mobocratic spirit” of it all that is even more harmful to the rule of law.

The implicit threat of all “sanctuary” jurisdictions, whose resistance to aiding federal law enforcement smacks of John C. Calhoun-style antebellum “nullification,” is to tell the feds not to operate and enforce federal law in a certain area — or else. The result is crass lawlessness, Mafia-esque shakedown artistry and a fetid neo-confederate stench combined in one dystopian package.

The truth is that swaths of the activist left now engage in these sorts of threats as a matter of course. In 2020, the left’s months-long rioting following the death of Floyd led to upward of $2 billion in insurance claims. In 2021, they threatened the same rioting unless Derek Chauvin, the officer who infamously kneeled on Floyd’s neck, was found guilty of murder (which he was, twice). In 2022, following the unprecedented (and still unsolved) leak of the draft majority opinion in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court case, abortion-rights activists protested outside many of the right-leaning justices’ homes, perhaps hoping to induce them to change their minds and flip their votes. And now, ICE agents throughout the country face threats of violence — egged on by local Democratic leaders — simply for enforcing federal law.

In “The Godfather,” Luca Brasi referred to this sort of thuggery as making someone an offer that he can’t refuse. We might also think of it as Lincoln’s dreaded “ravages of mob law.”

Regardless, a free republic cannot long endure like this. The rule of law cannot be held hostage to the histrionic temper tantrums of a radical ideological flank. The law must be enforced solemnly, without fear or favor. There can be no overarching blackmail lurking in the background — no Sword of Damocles hovering over the heads of a free people, ready to crash down on us all if a certain select few do not get their way.

The proper recourse for changing immigration law — or any federal law — is to lobby Congress to do so, or to make a case in federal court. The ginned-up martyrdom complex that leads some to take matters into their own hands is a recipe for personal and national ruination. There is nothing good down that road — only death, despair and mobocracy.

Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. X: @josh_hammer

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Ideas expressed in the piece

Democrats and activist left are perpetuating a dangerous “mobocratic spirit” similar to the mob law that Lincoln warned against in 1838, which threatens the rule of law and national unity^[1]
The federal government’s characterization of the incident as self-defense by an ICE agent is appropriate, while local Democratic leaders are irresponsibly encouraging anti-ICE protesters to view Good as a martyr figure like George Floyd^[1]
Dehumanizing rhetoric comparing ICE to the Gestapo is reckless fear-mongering that has inspired actual violence, including a shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas and the fatal shooting of a National Guard soldier^[1]
The shooting was “avoidable” not because of ICE’s presence, but because the Biden-Harris administration allowed undocumented immigrants to remain in the country without legal status and state authorities moved too slowly investigating immigrant fraud^[1]
Sanctuary jurisdictions that resist federal law enforcement represent neo-confederate “nullification” and constitute crass lawlessness and Mafia-style extortion, effectively telling federal agents they cannot enforce the law or face consequences^[1]
The activist left employs threats of violence as systematic blackmail, evidenced by 2020 riots following Floyd’s death, threats surrounding the Chauvin trial, protests at justices’ homes during the abortion debate, and now threats against ICE agents^[1]
Changing immigration policy must occur through Congress or federal courts, not through mob rule and “ginned-up martyrdom complexes” that lead to personal and national ruination^[1]

Different views on the topic

Community members who knew Good rejected characterizations of her as a domestic terrorist, with her mother describing her as “one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” “extremely compassionate,” and someone “who has taken care of people all her life”^[1]
Vigil speakers and attendees portrayed Good as peacefully present to watch the situation and protect her neighbors, with an organizer stating “She was peaceful; she did the right thing” and “She died because she loved her neighbors”^[1]
A speaker identified only as Noah explicitly rejected the federal government’s domestic terrorism characterization, saying Good was present “to watch the terrorists,” not participate in terrorism^[1]
Neighbors described Good as a loving mother and warm family member who was an award-winning poet and positive community presence, suggesting her presence during the incident reflected civic concern rather than radicalism^[1]

Politics

Trump plans to meet with Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado next week

Published

13 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

Trump plans to meet with Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado next week

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President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he plans to meet with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado in Washington next week.

During an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Trump was asked if he intends to meet with Machado after the U.S. struck Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro.

“Well, I understand she’s coming in next week sometime, and I look forward to saying hello to her,” Trump said.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado waves a national flag during a protest called by the opposition on the eve of the presidential inauguration, in Caracas on January 9, 2025. (JUAN BARRETO/AFP via Getty Images)

This will be Trump’s first meeting with Machado, who the U.S. president stated “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country” to lead.

According to reports, Trump’s refusal to support Machado was linked to her accepting the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, which Trump believed he deserved.

But Trump later told NBC News that while he believed Machado should not have won the award, her acceptance of the prize had “nothing to do with my decision” about the prospect of her leading Venezuela.