Shortly after the Senate moved to end the shutdown, Donald Trump declared victory: “He thought he could break the Republicans, and the Republicans broke him,” he said of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The bill now heads to the House, with the White House saying it will sign it if it passes. The country, however, doesn’t feel victorious.
The University of Michigan reports consumer sentiment has slid back near its pandemic-era lows, with declines cutting across age, income and party—except among households with sizable stock portfolios. That’s not the only warning sign. Flights are snarled after an FAA staffing squeeze forced 10 percent capacity cuts at 40 of the busiest airports, disruptions that airlines say have rippled to at least 3.2 million passengers. Back at ground level, heat is becoming a luxury for some Americans: with federal energy aid frozen, arrearages on household utility bills have swelled to $23 billion.
Most polls still say Republicans get the larger share of blame for America’s longest shutdown, though responsibility is spread widely. But Trump’s win is still brinkmanship: Congress punted the fight over enhanced ACA premium tax credits that expire December 31, 2025—even as nearly all of the marketplace’s post-2020 enrollment surge has come from states he carried, a subsidy cliff poised to bite first in Trump country.
Common Knowledge
Republicans framed the Senate’s 60–40 vote to end the shutdown as proof that Democrats overreached. Senator Lindsey Graham celebrated that the GOP held its ground, promising a healthy debate on health care—and to stay tuned for Trump’s ideas—now that the government was on track to reopen. Libertarians were less shy about the aim of the standoff. The Cato Institute argued the enhanced ACA subsidies were “costly, fraud-prone, and [primarily] pad insurance companies’ profits”—the sort of “temporary” program that becomes permanent by crisis. In the same spirit, Reason insisted the fight to extend the subsidies is “really a fight over how best to hide the costs created by the Affordable Care Act.”
Democrats, meanwhile, said the GOP’s shutdown “victory” merely delays a self-inflicted premium spike. Arizona’s Senator Ruben Gallego put it bluntly: “My whole goal…was to make sure that 24 million Americans do not see their insurance premiums double.” Representative Ro Khanna, furious that a handful of Senate Democrats crossed over, told CNN: “If you’re not going to lead in stopping premium hikes… then it’s time for you to step aside.” Even some progressives who opposed the deal conceded the shutdown couldn’t last forever; the question, they argued, was whether Republicans would now make good on promises of a vote to extend the tax credits before they expire.
The public, for its part, has mostly blamed Republicans—but with caveats. A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll late last month found 45 percent chiefly blame Trump and the GOP, 33 percent blame Democrats; independents pointed to Republicans by roughly 2-to-1. Earlier in the shutdown, an AP-NORC survey showed majorities assigning “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility to both parties—58 percent to Republicans and Trump, 54 percent to Democrats. In short: Republicans have taken a little more heat.
Uncommon Knowledge
Whatever the policy pitfalls, the policy math is stark. The enhanced ACA premium tax credits—first passed in 2021 and extended through December 31, 2025—cut out-of-pocket premiums dramatically for marketplace buyers and lifted enrollment to about 24.3 million this year. But nearly nine in 10 of the enrollment growth since 2020 has occurred in states Trump won, and the five fastest-growing marketplaces are in West Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Wyoming—all red states. Those are also the places most exposed to a subsidy cliff. Indeed, states Trump won in 2024 saw marketplace enrollment rise 157 percent, according to KFF, versus 36 percent in states that backed Kamala Harris; 88 percent of all post-2020 growth came from Trump states.
How steep is the cliff? KFF estimates that out-of-pocket premiums would have been over 75 percent higher in 2024 without the enhanced credits. The policy’s sunset is not academic: the Congressional Budget Office says making the enhanced credits permanent would raise the deficit by $335 billion over 10 years—but letting them expire would mean, on average, 3.8 million more uninsured each year from 2026 to 2034 as people price out. Those are big numbers, and they hang over the December vote Republicans promised in the Senate but the House has not guaranteed.
Voters are tracking the politics in real time—and souring. The Michigan survey’s 50.3 reading this month came with a telling footnote: the decline was “widespread,” with year-ahead inflation expectations nudging up to 4.7 percent; but households with the largest stock portfolios got cheerier, a wealth-effect split that rarely flatters incumbents of any party. If Republicans believe they “broke” Schumer, they also bought themselves a calendar—one that ends on January 1, 2026.
There are other warning signs for Trump, whose economic agenda was a major part of his election victory. Household debts hit a record $18.59 trillion in the third quarter, up $197 billion in just three months. The flow of student loans entering 90-day-plus delinquency spiked to 14.26 percent in the quarter as protection programs rolled off—pressure that spills over to other bills.
Utility debt is up 31 percent since late 2023 to $23 billion, just as federal heating aid (roughly $4 billion) is frozen by the shutdown. Air travel has become a rolling headache: the FAA’s shutdown-driven 10 percent capacity reduction at 40 major airports—an unusual step outside of severe-weather events—has already snarled millions of itineraries, a drag on business and holiday plans alike.
American politics often rewards brinkmanship. American households don’t. If Congress reopens Washington on Trump’s timeline, the politics will score it a win. American households, particularly those in red states, may yet tell him how they feel about victories like that.
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