经济周刊：政府关门、关税裁决和就业

7 November 2025 Richard de Chazal, CFArdechazal@williamblair.com+44 20 7868 4489 Economics WeeklyShutdowns, Tariff Rulings, and Jobs Louis Mukamalmukama@williamblair.com+1 312 364 8867 William Blair Today marks the 38th day of the U.S. government shut-down. This gives the 119th Congress the dubious distinc-tion of presiding over the longest government shutdown The GOP will have to consider carefully what these resultsmean as we head into next year’s midterm elections. We First, pass a “clean” continuing resolution.The goalhere is to simply extend all recent spending at the same Because this shutdown is not associated with a debt ceil-ing extension, it has afforded Congress more time for she-nanigans. Most members were waiting until after Tues-day’s state and local elections to approach the negotiatingtable, in the hope that the results would be viewed as aplebiscite on the shutdown and give their party a little Second, pass a temporary short-term negotiatedpackage.This might mean accepting the Democrats’ de-mands for extending ACA subsidies and other measuresto open the government, but only as a stop-gap with an Third, rely on the economic pain the shutdown iscausing to benefit them.Republicans could continuetheir attempts to pass a continuing resolution (they have Also this week, the Supreme Court of the United States(SCOTUS) listened to oral arguments on the president’suse of the International Emergency Economic PowersAct (IEEPA) to raise tariffs for a broad swath of countries. For Democrats, these changes could relate to the in-creasing pain associated with airports and SNAP ben-efits. Airports have been experiencing growing chaosand long delays, as more TSA officers (who are mostlyworking without pay) call in sick and/or refuse toshow up for work. Similarly, air traffic controllers coulddo the same, with recent media interviews suggest-ing that many are already being forced to take second In thisEconomics Weekly,we discuss the currentstate of the shutdown and how it could end; what theTrump administration may do next if IEEPA’s use isdeemed unjustified; and the latest employment data, The Republican hope is that this will reflect poorly on theDemocrats for being obstinate about the ACA subsidies.Yet, this week’s election results would suggest otherwise.This could focus the minds of many Republicans whomay start to worry more about their seats in next year’s This week’s election results look to have been a solid vic-tory for the Democrats, with their candidates winning inall of the most closely followed races, including: New YorkCity (mayoral), New Jersey (gubernatorial), and Virginia(gubernatorial), as well as mayoral races in Cincinnati,Atlanta, Detroit, and importantly Pittsburgh, where Penn-sylvania also retained Democrats in the supreme court.Given that just about all of these were already blue states, Fourth, end the filibuster.This is what’s famouslyreferred to as “the nuclear option.” For most legislationto pass through the Senate, it needs a 60-vote majority;the GOP currently only has 53 seats. Any party with amajority of 51 could vote to bypass the 60-vote majorityand effectively end or suspend the filibuster to get their The Democrats will now believe that this puts them ina stronger position to push for another extension ofsubsidies for the ACA. These were last extended in 2022by the Biden administration (but are set to expire on William Blair 2017. This week the president has been posting to socialmedia about this as his preferred option. IEEPA has been used in the past, but only in very measuredand targeted ways against specific nations. It has neverbeen used in such a broad-based manner, evenlooking The problem is that this would set a precedent and wouldopen up Pandora’s box. It would make policy much easierto pass going forward—with one party passing legisla-tion in one Congress, and the other party reversing thatin the next. More importantly, it would reduce the incen-tive to seek bipartisan solutions. Most Republicans are Based on the line of questioning from the judges, it seemsthey may decide to uphold the previous three decisionsof the lower courts against the use of IEEPA for thesetariffs. Crucially, they are fearful that it is being used forwidespread revenue-raising purposes—historically, theclosely guarded constitutional right of Congress, not of Fifth, use a budget reconciliation.The fifth option issimilar but not quite as impactful as ending the filibus-ter—using budget reconciliation. This process allowsthe majority party in the Senate to pass certain budget-related spending bills with a filibuster-proof majority ofjust 51 votes and 20 hours of debate. The proviso is thatit only allows spending legislation related to mandatoryspending, not discretionary and not “other budgetary The odds of SCOTUS ratifying the use of the tariffs havecollapsed following the hearing and are now just 29%, ac- Ultimately, this is also a clunky and time-consuming fix,with