A sign saying "worst government ever" is seen by the Capitol during a rally with fired federal workers about the looming government shut down, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Jacquelyn Martin / AP
The federal government shutdown surpassed a grim milestone on Wednesday, becoming the longest in U.S. history.
After 36 days, Congress has yet to pass a short-term spending bill to fund the government. Thousands of federal workers have missed their regular paychecks, all while some are still going to work. And the shutdown is now placing many low-income people at risk of hunger.
Funding for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, ran out over the weekend. Two judges ordered the Trump administration last week to use emergency reserve money to buoy the program that helps more than 757,000 Oregonians and more than 905,000 Washington residents buy groceries.
But President Donald Trump says his administration will only provide partial payments to states.
“The president is choosing how to spend money. He’s spending millions of dollars every day to keep 400 National Guard troops in Oregon sitting in bases,” Gov. Tina Kotek said in an interview on OPB’s Think Out Loud on Tuesday, referring to troops the president is seeking to deploy to protect the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland.
“This is like topsy turvy,” Kotek said. “It’s unacceptable. This is not what we need from the federal government. It is a crisis when people cannot feed themselves.”
Shutdowns used to be unusual instances of Congressional gridlock, but have now become commonplace as American politics become increasingly polarized. As of Wednesday, the 2025 shutdown surpassed another Trump-era shutdown for the longest in U.S. history. The previous record started in December 2018 and stretched into January 2019.
Government officials have warned that the shutdown and the lapse in the SNAP program could send shockwaves through local economies.
“Families in Oregon and across the country should not have to worry about whether they will be able to put food on the table or receive critical federal services,” Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, a Beaverton Democrat, said in a statement to OPB Tuesday.
An agreement over the spending bill remains out of public view. Democrats and Republicans blame one another for the stalemate, which stems partly from disagreements about health care policies. The bill needs 60 votes to pass in the U.S. Senate, but Democrats are holding out partly over demands to extend Obamacare tax credits that are set to expire by year’s end.
“These families that are getting hurt are watching us,” U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, said in a Tuesday news release. “Their grocery bills rise, their premiums double, and the Republican lawmakers are doing nothing.”
But Republicans have blamed the Democratic Party for making unrealistic demands at the expense of the American people.
“The future of the American economy is on my shoulders, on this administration’s shoulders,” said U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a former member of Oregon’s congressional delegation from Happy Valley. “And the Democrats have stopped all the momentum that we have put in in the last nine months.”
She accused the Democratic Party of kneecapping the nation’s economy and looked into the camera during a press conference in Washington, D.C. House Speaker Mike Johnson stood directly behind her.
”I’m talking to all of you American workers out there: We’re here for you,“ said Chavez-DeRemer. ”We’re going to continue to fight through this shutdown and I am begging these Democrats to show up, do their job, and open up this government.”
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, Oregon’s lone Republican member of Congress, was not immediately available for comment, a spokesperson said Tuesday.
Oregon’s Democratic U.S. Senators had the opposite take.
“This Donald Trump shutdown never should have happened in the first place, much less reached this dubious and devastating milestone with Republicans running both the White House and Congress,” U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon’s senior member of Congress, said in a statement to OPB Tuesday. “My door has been open since day one to sit down with anybody willing to end this Trump shutdown by working together on tackling soaring health care premiums.”
U.S. Jeff Merkley said the shutdown is the longest in the nation’s history “because Donald Trump is savaging health care for millions of Americans and weaponizing food for vulnerable families, all to fund more massive tax giveaways for billionaires.”
“In just ten months, Trump has made Americans poorer, sicker, and hungrier,” Merkley said. “Congressional Republicans would rather support this disastrous ‘Families Lose, Billionaires Win’ agenda than come to the table and negotiate with Democrats. I say ‘HELL NO’ because working families nationwide deserve better than a President who prefers a government that serves the powerful than one that serves the people.”
U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum, a Democrat from Happy Valley, also blamed Republicans for the shutdown, saying it’s resulting in billions of dollars in economic losses, as well as increasing health care costs for many Americans and lapsing food benefits.
“The American people aren’t looking for their government to break records — this shutdown must end,” Bynum said in a statement to OPB Tuesday. “We were sent here to make Americans’ lives better and that’s what I’m ready to do.”
