87 days: The do-nothing Congress’s shutdown strategy

This historic level of inaction is not an accident, a bug, or a well-deserved vacation.

Photo by Darren Halstead on Unsplash

By Jeff Nesbit

Three-quarters of the way through 2025 (more than 300 days), the People’s House has met for a mere 87 days.

Let that number sink in. While Americans work, pay their mortgages, and ferry their kids to school, the 119th Congress—or at least the House of Representatives—is on track to be the most truant in modern history. The only recent exception to this level of absenteeism was 2021, a year when a global pandemic forced the nation into lockdown.

This year, there is no pandemic. There is, however, a government shutdown, soon entering its fourth week. And this historic level of inaction is not an accident, a bug, or a well-deserved vacation.

It is a deliberate, cynical political strategy engineered by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his leadership team, all in service of President Donald Trump.

The plan is simple: govern by press release, not by legislation. While 670,000 federal workers are furloughed and critical services hang in the balance, Johnson’s primary tactic is to keep his own members out of Washington.

By clearing the capital of “rabble-rousing lawmakers,” as Axios aptly put it, Johnson seizes total control of the GOP message, holding daily 10 a.m. press conferences to blame Democrats for the very crisis he refuses to convene the House to solve.

This is a government of the talking point, for the social media clip, and by the party memo. And while the speaker perfects his podium performance, two urgent, real-world deadlines are careening toward the American people -- one a matter of financial survival, the other a case study in profound hypocrisy.

The most glaring and immediate crisis is the one Johnson is using as cynical leverage: the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

On Nov. 1, just days from now, open enrollment begins for most health insurance plans. But as a record 24 million Americans prepare to sign up for their 2026 ACA plans, the enhanced subsidies that have made that coverage affordable for the past several years are set to expire. Democrats, seeing this fiscal cliff, have refused to pass a funding bill without an extension.

Johnson’s response? He shut it all down. He refuses to negotiate, stating he will not discuss health care.

This is not a simple policy disagreement. It is an act of economic sabotage against millions of families, including many in his own party’s districts.

The numbers are staggering. According to analyses by the Urban Institute, if Johnson’s shutdown strategy succeeds and these subsidies lapse, 4.8 million people will become uninsured in 2026.

For the millions who remain, the costs will be catastrophic. KFF estimates that subsidized enrollees will see their out-of-pocket premium payments increase by an average of 114%.

That’s not a typo. It’s a 114% price hike on health care, handed down by a speaker who won’t even show up to work.

A 60-year-old couple earning $85,000 a year could see their annual premiums spike by more than $22,000 for the year. A 45-year-old individual earning $20,000 a year could go from paying $0 to $420 a month. This is the tangible, kitchen-table cost of Speaker Johnson’s strategy.

While he and his lieutenants concoct memes from an empty Capitol, they are making a conscious choice to let millions of Americans face financial ruin rather than hold a simple vote.

The cruelty of this strategy is matched only by its hypocrisy, which brings us to the second, more bizarre front of the GOP’s messaging war: the “Epstein files.”

For months, Johnson and his allies have used the sordid case of Jeffrey Epstein and its tragic consequences as a political cudgel, demanding the Justice Department release all its files while also suggesting it is deployed to suggest a vast conspiracy.

Yet, here is the punchline: A bipartisan effort to force a final vote on the release of these very files is being blocked by the government shutdown that Johnson is perpetuating.

A discharge petition, co-sponsored by lawmakers from both parties, sits just one signature short of the 218 needed to force a floor vote. That final signature is expected to come from Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona. But Johnson has refused to call the House back into session to swear her in, blaming the shutdown he himself is extending.

Think about that. The GOP leadership is holding the government hostage over healthcare subsidies they oppose, and, in the process, they are physically preventing the House from voting on an issue they claim to champion.

The cynicism here is staggering. Johnson has even dismissed the bipartisan discharge petition as a “shiny object” for Democrats, even as other Republicans use it as a primary talking point.

This proves, definitively, that the entire exercise is about political theater, not policy. It is about controlling the narrative, not solving problems.

Naturally, the Speaker’s Office and his allies insist this is not a vacation. They call it a “district work period.” They claim, as House Conference Chair Lisa McClain did, that members are back home “volunteering at food banks and helping struggling families”—families, ironically, who might soon be unable to afford their doctor’s visits because of this very tactic.

No one disputes that constituent work is part of the job. But it is not a substitute for the non-negotiable, constitutional duty of funding the government and legislating in a crisis. You cannot vote to extend healthcare subsidies from a local park clean-up. You cannot deliberate on a funding bill from a fundraising call.

Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican from California, said it best when he broke ranks and showed up to a dark Capitol. “People run for Congress in order to be able to ... come to the Capitol and legislate,” he told Axios. “They’re not able to do their jobs.”

The most damning indictment, however, comes from Mike Johnson himself. In March, arguing against allowing new parents to vote by proxy, the speaker declared with great sanctimony: “This is a deliberative body. You cannot deliberate with your colleagues if you’re out somewhere else.”

That’s right. Johnson should take his own advice. He should end this charade, call the House back into session, and do the job the American people are paying him to do.

The lights in the Capitol are off, and on Nov. 1, millions of Americans are going to find out just how high a price they will have to pay for this do-nothing Congress.

Jeff Nesbit was the public affairs chief for five Cabinet departments or agencies under four presidents.

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