Most federal programs will continue operating, including the major entitlement and welfare programs. The national parks will remain open, if understaffed and with closed visitor centers. Unfortunately, the shutdown will not affect the military-industrial complex.

President Trump's supposed "master plan" to implement mass firings of federal employees will only fire 16,000 employees.

Democrats are refusing to vote for a short-term continuing resolution unless it extends the increase in Obamacare subsidies that was part of the Biden-era covid relief legislation. Republicans, who for years campaigned on repealing and replacing Obamacare, are not opposing extending the subsidies. Instead, they are focusing on concerns the Democrats want to allow illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded health benefits. Republicans are also emphasizing that they want to negotiate over extending the Obamacare subsidies, not simply shove them into a "must pass" continuing resolution. Republicans also want to ensure that laws barring illegal immigrants from receiving the subsidies are in place.

Republicans' de facto embrace of the increased Obamacare subsidies, which were supposed to be a temporary increase to help Americans who lost their jobs because of the covid lockdowns, is a little noticed but major milestone in the history of Obamacare. For many years Republicans campaigned on a promise to "repeal and replace" Obamacare. Opposition to Obamacare, along with opposition to the big bank bailouts and the cap and trade scheme, fueled the "Tea Party" movement, which led in the 2010 election to a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives. In 2013, as the federal government was implementing Obamacare, Tea Party Republicans orchestrated a government shutdown. The argument was this was the last chance to repeal Obamacare because once it was fully implemented the number of people who would become reliant on the program would make Obamacare politically impossible to repeal.