STATEMENT: On the End of the Government Shutdown
FROM: Marc Stier, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Policy Center
DATE: November 10, 2025
For the American people, and for us at the Pennsylvania Policy Center, the government shutdown has not been a partisan struggle. It has been a fight to preserve the health insurance, and ultimately the well-being and lives, of millions of Pennsylvanians and Americans. And it has been about preserving our democracy by ensuring that the President cannot divert funding at will and override federal laws passed by the representatives of the American people in Congress.
The shutdown has ended without attaining the first goal but with a small victory for the second goal as the independence and funding of an important arm of Congress, the General Accounting Office, has been protected.
We are disappointed that eight Democratic senators gave up the fight without any victory for preserving health insurance for roughly twenty million Americans over the next few years, including 540,000 to 846,000 Pennsylvanians. We are even more disappointed that no Republicans appear to have qualms about the devastation they are creating for so many of us. We are on a path to devastation for people who lose health insurance—for their families, for the hospitals we all need, and for the 60,000 health care providers in our state who will lose their jobs.
We understand the costs of the shutdown. But over the last few weeks we have been out in the streets and at public meetings with hundreds of our fellow Pennsylvanians who showed that they were willing to bear the costs to keep fighting for the health care—and then the SNAP benefits—their fellow Americans need.
While the fight is over for now, we are at least confident that the government shutdown has made the battle lines clear. The people of Pennsylvania and of every state know who is on their side and who is not.
We are very pleased that our Democratic members of the House, starting with Brendan Boyle, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, have been so supportive of this effort. But we say with deep regret that the Republican members of the House, as well as both of our senators, have been on the wrong side in this fight. We understand and share Senator Fetterman’s concern for the impact of the shutdown on the people of this state and country. But if he had been joining us in the streets and at public meetings, he would have understood that Pennsylvanians were ready to accept a great deal of discomfort and pain to stand up for our principles.
Who knows? He might have stood up with us.