Retired, 65 and up

Medicaid pays for most nursing-home and long-term home care in America. A flat $1,000,000 home-equity limit replaces the higher state limits, and it is not indexed to inflation. Farms are exempt.

In high-cost states, an ordinary house owned for decades can exceed $1 million. Families in that position will have to sell or borrow against the home before Medicaid will pay for care, and because the cap never rises, more families cross it every year.

Revising home equity limit for determining eligibility for long-term care services

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan The One Big Beautiful Bill Act explained: key changes for the healthcare industry (King & Spalding (law firm))
• Nonpartisan Health provisions in the 2025 federal budget reconciliation law (KFF)
• Nonpartisan How the One Big Beautiful Bill affects nursing homes (AARP)
• Conservative What made it into law: health provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill (Paragon Health Institute)

A 2024 federal rule would have required nursing homes to have a registered nurse on site around the clock and a minimum number of nursing hours per resident per day. The law forbids enforcing it for nearly a decade.

Understaffing is the most consistent predictor of neglect, falls, bedsores and infections in nursing homes. Residents and the aides who care for them lose the first national staffing floor. Nursing homes also depend heavily on Medicaid, which is being cut.

Moratorium on implementation of rule relating to staffing standards for long-term care facilities

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan The One Big Beautiful Bill Act explained: key changes for the healthcare industry (King & Spalding (law firm))
• Nonpartisan Health provisions in the 2025 federal budget reconciliation law (KFF)
• Nonpartisan How the One Big Beautiful Bill affects nursing homes (AARP)
• Conservative What made it into law: health provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill (Paragon Health Institute)

The 30% credit for rooftop solar, batteries and geothermal, and the up-to-$3,200 annual credit for heat pumps, insulation, windows, doors and electrical panels, both ended after 2025, more than seven years early. The credit for builders of energy-efficient new homes ended June 30, 2026.

A typical rooftop solar system lost roughly $8,000 to $9,000 in federal support; a heat pump lost up to $2,000. Those upgrades were the main way a household could permanently cut its own energy bill.

Termination of residential clean energy credit (and Sec. 70505, energy efficient home improvement credit; Sec. 70508, new energy efficient home credit)

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Official FAQs on termination of clean energy credits under Public Law 119-21 (Internal Revenue Service)
• Conservative How the One Big Beautiful Bill changes green energy tax credits (Tax Foundation)

Retroactive coverage, which paid medical bills from up to three months before you applied, shrinks to one month for expansion adults and two months for everyone else, including seniors entering nursing homes.

People usually apply for Medicaid after a crisis such as a stroke or a hospital stay. Those bills, and the first weeks of nursing-home care, now land on the family instead of Medicaid if the application comes even a few weeks late.

Reducing state Medicaid costs

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan Health provisions in the 2025 federal budget reconciliation law (KFF)
• Nonpartisan The One Big Beautiful Bill Act explained: key changes for the healthcare industry (King & Spalding (law firm))

Tips up to $25,000 and overtime premium pay up to $12,500 ($25,000 for couples) can be deducted from income tax. There is also a $6,000 deduction per person 65 or older, and up to $10,000 of interest on a loan for a new U.S.-assembled car. All four end after tax year 2028. The permanent cuts in the same law, such as the estate-tax exemption and business provisions, do not.

These are deductions, not refunds: they only help if you owe income tax. Yale's Budget Lab found roughly 37% of tipped workers earn too little to owe federal income tax and get nothing, and the deduction does not reduce the payroll tax that is most low-wage workers' biggest tax. The Tax Policy Center estimates the typical benefit for those who do qualify is a few hundred dollars. In 2029 the deductions vanish while the benefit cuts that paid for them remain.

No tax on tips (and Secs. 70202, 70203, 70102 senior deduction)

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan No tax on tips: budgetary, distributional, and tax avoidance considerations (Yale Budget Lab)
• Nonpartisan The tax cuts for overtime and tips are popular, but few will benefit (Tax Policy Center)
• Conservative FAQ: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act tax changes (Tax Foundation)
• Conservative Frustrated with tipping? No tax on tips could make it worse (Tax Foundation)
• Nonpartisan OBBBA tax planning: SALT cap, senior deduction, and more (Kitces.com (financial-planning))

Tax credits for new wind and solar generation end for projects not under construction by July 2026 or in service by the end of 2027, and new restrictions on foreign components make many remaining projects ineligible. Wind and solar were the majority of new generation being built, at a time when demand from data centers is rising fast.

Independent modelers (Energy Innovation, the Rhodium Group, Princeton's REPEAT project) project household energy costs rising by roughly $150 a year by 2030 and more after. They put residential electricity prices about 6% higher by 2035, with the largest increases in states like Kentucky, Oklahoma and South Carolina. These are projections, not measurements, and utility rate cases in 2026 are where they start to show up.

Termination and restrictions on clean electricity production credit (and Sec. 70513, investment credit)

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Official Average price of electricity to ultimate customers by end-use sector (U.S. Energy Information Administration)
• Nonpartisan Economic impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act energy provisions (Energy Innovation)
• Nonpartisan What passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill means for U.S. energy and the economy (Rhodium Group)
• Conservative How the One Big Beautiful Bill changes green energy tax credits (Tax Foundation)

The agency lost between 7,000 and 8,000 employees in 2025, its largest one-year drop on record, and field-office staffing was down 13% by June 2025. From July 2025 it moved about a thousand field-office workers a day onto the national phone line and set a goal of halving in-person visits.

The agency's inspector general found that callers who asked for a callback in fiscal 2025 waited an average of one hour and 51 minutes, those who held waited 59 minutes, and a quarter of calls, some 21 million, were abandoned. About 78% of appointment requests were met within 30 days. Fox News and the agency point to shorter average answer times by September 2025; the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says the gains came from pulling staff off disability claims and field offices. Roughly 75 million people get a check each month.

Under Executive Order 14210; the FY2026 plan caps field-office visits at 15 million, down from 31.6 million

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan SSA phone wait times longer than publicly reported metrics, inspector general finds (Nextgov/FCW)
• Official Inspector general report confirms customer service improvements (Social Security Administration)
• Conservative Inspector general report shows turnaround in Social Security phone service (Fox News)
• Nonpartisan SSA proposes major cut to field office visits in 2026 (Straight Arrow News)

After a five-year pause, the department began taking tax refunds and up to 15% of Social Security payments from borrowers in default in May 2025, and planned to garnish up to 15% of disposable pay starting in January 2026. It paused involuntary collections on January 16, 2026 to finish changes to its systems and has not announced a restart date.

Between 5.5 million and 7.7 million borrowers were in default in 2025 and early 2026, depending on the count, and the department projected millions more could follow. Garnishment takes effect without a court order, with only $217.50 a week protected.

Treasury offsets resumed May 5, 2025; garnishment of up to 15% of pay was paused on January 16, 2026 pending system changes

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan Student loan borrowers in default could see wage garnishments begin in 2026 (CBS News)
• Nonpartisan Education Department will garnish wages of borrowers in default (Student Loan Planner)
• Nonpartisan New student loan wage garnishments starting in 2026 (ScholarshipOwl)

CBO scores the law at $3.4 trillion in added deficits over ten years, about $4.1 trillion with interest, and the law raised the debt limit by $5 trillion to make room. Conservative budget analysts at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Cato Institute and the Manhattan Institute made the same criticism.

More federal borrowing competes with everyone else's borrowing. Moody's stripped the United States of its last AAA rating in May 2025 citing this trajectory. Higher Treasury yields flow into mortgage rates, car loans and credit cards, and interest is now one of the largest items in the federal budget, crowding out everything else.

Whole law: CBO cost estimate (and the $5 trillion debt-limit increase in Sec. 72001)

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the primary source.

• Official Estimated budgetary effects of Public Law 119-21 (Congressional Budget Office)
• Official Effects on deficits and the debt of Public Law 119-21 (Congressional Budget Office)
• Nonpartisan Final OBBBA score confirms long road to fiscal recovery (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)
• Nonpartisan OBBBA dynamic score comes in at $4.7 trillion (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)
• Nonpartisan Interest costs associated with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Yale Budget Lab)
• Nonpartisan Mortgage costs could rise under debt-financed reconciliation bill (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)
• Nonpartisan Moody's downgrades United States credit rating on increase in government debt (CNBC)
• Conservative Bill more like disaster, not "beautiful" (Cato Institute)
• Conservative Tax bill highlights the collapse of GOP policymaking (Manhattan Institute (Brian Riedl))
• Conservative Belated Republican objections glide over the bill's blatant fiscal irresponsibility (Reason)
• Conservative The Senate's big beautiful blunder could increase the debt by $6 trillion (Cato Institute)
• Conservative Why I said no to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.))
• Conservative Musk agrees with Massie: bill is a "debt bomb ticking" (Fox News)
• Conservative Two conservatives debate: is the Big Beautiful Bill a disaster? (Open to Debate)

FEMA recorded more than 4,300 separations in fiscal 2025, up 55%, with half its senior leadership posts vacant. The Government Accountability Office reported in August 2026 that the agency rescinded its strategic plan and cut staff without assessing what it could still do. A separate April 2025 decision cancelled the $4.5 billion program that paid for flood walls, culverts and wildfire hardening; a federal judge ruled that illegal and FEMA reopened it in March 2026.

FEMA had about 240 surge staff available for the 2026 hurricane season against 600 in 2025. A Politico analysis found the White House approved 23% of disaster-aid requests from Democratic-led states and 89% from Republican-led ones, a figure the administration disputes; 27 requests were pending in June 2026. Representative Rob Bresnahan, a Pennsylvania Republican, called cancelling the mitigation grants "the wrong call."

GAO-26-108427: staff cut without a plan for mission capacity; the White House stopped approving hazard-mitigation add-ons to disaster declarations from March 2025

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Official FEMA workforce: staff reductions and lack of planning may impact mission readiness (GAO-26-108427) (Government Accountability Office)
• Nonpartisan FEMA is not ready for hurricane season due to Trump upheaval, House Democrats argue (Government Executive)
• Nonpartisan FEMA complies with court order to resume major disaster preparedness grant program (PBS NewsHour / AP)
• Conservative Bresnahan applauds FEMA reversal on BRIC program (Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.))
• Official FEMA concedes in BRIC funding case (North Carolina Department of Justice) link down since 2026-10-30

The health secretary dismissed every member of the committee and appointed a new one, several of whose members had no vaccine background. Between September 2025 and January 2026 the new panel downgraded COVID shots to "shared decision-making," dropped the combined MMRV shot for children under four, and ended the universal hepatitis B dose at birth. A federal judge stayed 13 of the 15 appointments and all their votes in March 2026, restoring the earlier recommendations.

Parents and doctors faced a year of conflicting federal guidance. Measles cases reached 2,289 in 2025 and 2,777 by August 2026, the most since 1992, with 93% in unvaccinated people. Senator Bill Cassidy, the Republican chair of the health committee and a physician, said the new panel "may even have a preconceived bias" and should not meet. Major insurers pledged to keep covering the earlier schedule at no cost through the end of 2026.

The committee's votes decide which vaccines insurers must cover at no cost and which the Vaccines for Children program supplies

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Conservative Kennedy's new vaccine panel lacks experience and shouldn't meet, Sen. Cassidy says (NBC News (Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La.))
• Nonpartisan The state of U.S. vaccine policy: special edition, March 17, 2026 (CIDRAP, University of Minnesota)
• Nonpartisan RFK Jr.'s purge of CDC vaccine advisers prompts outrage (Science)
• Nonpartisan U.S. measles cases in 2026 surpass last year's total (Healthline)

States are barred from new or higher provider taxes, and the states that expanded Medicaid must cut existing ones from 6% to 3.5% of net patient revenue by 2032. Payments states direct to hospitals are capped at Medicare rates. These are the main ways states raise their share of Medicaid money.

When states lose federal matching money they cut what the law lets them cut: payment rates to doctors and hospitals, and "optional" benefits such as dental care, home- and community-based services, and coverage for some adults. The Congressional Budget Office puts total federal Medicaid cuts at about $911 billion over ten years; the financing provisions are the largest piece.

Provider taxes (and Sec. 71116, State directed payments)

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan Allocating CBO's estimates of federal Medicaid spending reductions across the states (KFF)
• Nonpartisan Health provisions in the 2025 federal budget reconciliation law (KFF)
• Conservative Don't cut Medicaid (op-ed, New York Times) (Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.))
• Conservative What made it into law: health provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill (Paragon Health Institute)

HHS terminated every federal employee running the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and closed five of ten regional offices, including those that support Head Start grantees. The administration proposed eliminating the heating program; Congress funded it at $4.045 billion for fiscal 2026 instead, and held Head Start flat.

Between six and seven million households, four in ten of them with a senior, get help with heating and cooling bills. Roughly $380 million in 2025 funds were delayed until late April, and states now run the program with no federal staff to answer questions. Head Start programs serving about 800,000 children reported payment delays and longer waitlists.

Part of a plan to cut about 10,000 HHS jobs and consolidate ten regional offices into five

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Advocacy LIHEAP still here, but threats loom (National Energy Assistance Directors Association)
• Advocacy LIHEAP in crisis: HHS cuts put low-income families at risk of shutoffs (National Consumer Law Center)
• Nonpartisan What will 2026 hold for early care and education? (New America)

The January 2025 rule would have barred credit bureaus from listing medical bills and lenders from using them. The bureau under new leadership joined the lenders' motion, and the court vacated the rule as exceeding the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

The bureau had estimated about 15 million people would have had medical bills removed from their reports, raising scores by about 20 points on average and enabling roughly 22,000 more mortgage approvals a year. Medical collections over $500 remain reportable.

The bureau switched sides and joined the industry plaintiffs; the court also held that federal law preempts similar state laws

Decided by a federal court. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan Court overturns federal rule that keeps medical debt off credit reports (Berkeley Center for Consumer Law)
• Nonpartisan GOP aims to repeal CFPB medical debt credit report ban (Bloomberg Law)
• Official Prohibition on creditors and consumer reporting agencies concerning medical information (Regulation V) (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)

The Congressional Budget Office added up the tax cuts and the benefit cuts for every income group. Households in the lowest tenth lose about $1,200 a year, 3.1% of their income, mainly from Medicaid and SNAP. Households in the highest tenth gain about $13,600 a year. Yale's Budget Lab and the Penn Wharton Budget Model reached the same shape.

If your household earns under about $25,000, the law on average takes more from you in benefits than it gives you in tax cuts. The tax cuts you do get, such as the larger standard deduction, are worth less to you than to a higher earner because you owe less tax to begin with.

Whole law: CBO distributional analysis of Public Law 119-21

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the primary source.

• Official Distributional effects of Public Law 119-21 (Congressional Budget Office)
• Nonpartisan Distribution of tax cuts in the new tax law (Yale Budget Lab)
• Nonpartisan OBBBA: budget, economic, and distributional effects (Penn Wharton Budget Model)
• Conservative FAQ: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act tax changes (Tax Foundation)

The law's Medicaid cuts fall on rural areas in proportion to how much their residents rely on Medicaid, which is more than urban areas. KFF estimates about $137 billion of the $911 billion in federal Medicaid cuts over ten years lands in rural areas. The Rural Health Transformation Program offers $50 billion over five years, distributed to all 50 states in December 2025.

Republican senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Thom Tillis of North Carolina warned before the vote that the Medicaid cuts would close rural hospitals; Senator Susan Collins voted no in part for that reason. The University of North Carolina's Sheps Center identified more than 300 rural hospitals already at risk of closure or service cuts. When a rural hospital closes, the nearest emergency room can be an hour away for everyone in the county, insured or not, and it is often the largest employer.

Rural Health Transformation Program

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan How might federal Medicaid cuts affect rural areas? (KFF)
• Nonpartisan A closer look at the $50 billion rural health fund (KFF)
• Nonpartisan GOP budget bill could put 338 rural hospitals at risk of closure (Becker's Hospital Review (Sheps Center data))
• Nonpartisan Medicaid cuts threaten hundreds of hospitals, new report finds (NBC News)
• Conservative Don't cut Medicaid (op-ed, New York Times) (Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.))
• Conservative Tillis: Medicaid cuts "will betray the very promise" Trump made (NPR (Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.))
• Conservative Tillis denounces Trump's Big Beautiful Bill hours after retirement announcement (Fox News)
• Conservative Sen. Collins votes no, citing Medicaid cuts and rural hospitals (WGME (Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine))

The order paired a "deferred resignation" buyout, which about 140,000 employees took, with firings of probationary staff and layoffs across agencies. The Office of Personnel Management counts a net loss of 271,363 civilian employees between January 2025 and July 2026, the steepest drop in modern federal employment. The Government Accountability Office found that 18 of the 22 largest agencies lost more than a tenth of their staff.

Veterans make up about three in ten federal employees, so they took a large share of the losses. The effects show up as slower service at the agencies people deal with most: Social Security, the IRS, veterans' hospitals, weather offices and disaster response, each listed separately below. GAO's inspectors-general call the loss of experienced staff a top management risk for 2026.

Ordered agencies to plan large reductions in force and to hire at most one person for every four who leave

Signed by the President. Opens the primary source.

• Official Federal agency workforce changes: update for July 2025 to January 2026 (GAO-26-108583) (Government Accountability Office)
• Official Workforce changes dashboard (Office of Personnel Management)
• Official Recent federal workforce changes at OPM (GAO-26-108916) (Government Accountability Office)

The FDA lost about 3,500 positions, the CDC about 2,400 and NIH about 1,200. Units that disappeared included the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, its reproductive-health division that studied maternal deaths, the lead-poisoning surveillance branch, and about 900 of the 1,000 staff at the occupational-safety institute NIOSH, including the black-lung screening program for coal miners and the World Trade Center health program.

Black-lung X-ray screening in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio stopped for months. Certifications for the 9/11 health program stalled. Milwaukee lost CDC help with lead in its schools. After lawsuits and pressure from miners and firefighters, HHS revoked the NIOSH layoffs in January 2026, though many staff had already left. The secretary himself said about a fifth of the cuts were errors to be reversed.

From 82,000 to 62,000 employees; 28 divisions consolidated into 15

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan Mass layoffs begin at HHS; some employees turned away after showing up to work (ABC News)
• Advocacy HHS guts worker safety agency NIOSH (Economic Policy Institute)
• Nonpartisan Hundreds of laid-off NIOSH researchers return to work (FireRescue1)
• Nonpartisan RFK Jr. says HHS will reinstate 20% of reduced workforce after DOGE errors (Fierce Healthcare)

Tariffs are a tax on imports paid at the border by the importer and passed on in prices. The average tariff rate rose from about 2.5% to the highest level since the 1940s. The Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 in February 2026 that the emergency-powers law used for most of them did not authorize tariffs, and the administration reimposed them under other statutes.

The Tax Foundation puts the cost at about $1,000 per household in 2025 and $820 in 2026. Yale's Budget Lab and the Penn Wharton Budget Model land in the same range and find the burden falls hardest on lower-income households, who spend more of their income on goods. The Federal Reserve chair attributed between a half and three-quarters of core inflation in early 2026 to tariffs.

Learning Resources v. Trump (Feb 20, 2026) held the emergency-powers tariffs unlawful; replacements followed within days

Signed by the President. Opens the primary source.

• Conservative Trump tariffs: the economic impact of the trade war (Tax Foundation)
• Nonpartisan State of U.S. tariffs (Yale Budget Lab)
• Conservative Trump's tariffs will cost each American household $900 in 2026 (Reason (citing Penn Wharton))
• Official Learning Resources v. Trump (opinion, Feb 20, 2026) (Supreme Court of the United States)
• Official FOMC press conference transcript, March 18, 2026 (Federal Reserve)
• Conservative The incidence of tariffs: rates and reality (Cato Institute)
• Conservative WSJ editorial board: Americans "picking up most of the tab" for tariffs (The Hill (quoting the Wall Street Journal))

The rule would have required banks with more than $10 billion in assets to cap overdraft fees at $5, price them at cost, or treat them as loans with disclosures, starting October 2025. Congress repealed it before it took effect.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimated the cap would save consumers up to $5 billion a year, about $225 per household that pays the fees, which typically run about $35 each. Banks and the resolution's sponsors argued the cap would push banks to drop overdraft coverage for riskier customers.

A Congressional Review Act resolution sponsored by Sen. Tim Scott; a companion law ended CFPB supervision of large payment apps

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the primary source.

• Official Congress repeals CFPB's overdraft rule (Congressional Research Service)
• Official CFPB closes overdraft loophole to save Americans billions in fees (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Dec 2024))
• Nonpartisan Congressional Review Act: resolutions in the 119th Congress (Wikipedia)

The 2022 incentives that paid manufacturers to build batteries, solar panels, EVs and new generation in the United States drew most of their investment to Republican-held districts. The law ended or wound down those credits early and added foreign-sourcing rules that disqualify many remaining projects.

E2, which tracks announced projects, counted $76 billion and about 99,000 jobs cancelled between January 2025 and May 2026, with cancellations outpacing new announcements three to one in 2025 and 57% of the cancelled dollars in Republican districts. Four Republican senators had warned in April 2025 that repeal would jeopardize capital allocation and job creation. Fewer new power plants as data-center demand rises is one reason electricity prices are projected higher.

Termination and restrictions on clean electricity production credit (and Secs. 70501–70515)

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan The 2025 reconciliation law: energy provisions explained (Bipartisan Policy Center)
• Advocacy Clean Economy Works: 2025 year in review (E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs))
• Advocacy Clean Economy Works: Q1 2026 (E2)
• Advocacy Clean Economy Works: April–May 2026 (E2)
• Nonpartisan Clean Investment Monitor: Q2 2026 update (Rhodium Group / MIT CEEPR)
• Conservative Curtis, Murkowski, Tillis, Moran express support for energy tax credits (Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah))

In Minneapolis an ICE agent shot and killed Renée Good on January 7, 2026 and a Border Patrol agent shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti on January 24; video analyses contradicted the department's accounts. ProPublica reported in September 2026 that Justice Department leadership overruled its own prosecutor to block a civil-rights charge in a third shooting. A Chicago judge ordered 455 people released after finding arrests unlawful.

The Pretti killing led Senate Democrats to reject Homeland Security funding, producing a 76-day lapse in which TSA officers missed paychecks and more than a thousand quit. The Homeland Security secretary was replaced in March 2026. For residents of the targeted cities, the surges meant armed federal operations in neighborhoods, schools and courthouses regardless of citizenship.

About 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents sent to Minnesota; a federal judge found ICE violated at least 96 court orders there

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan Operation Metro Surge (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Killing of Renée Good (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Killing of Alex Pretti (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Justice Department blocked a serious charge against an ICE agent in a Minneapolis shooting (ProPublica)
• Nonpartisan Trump signs Homeland Security funding bill, ending record shutdown (PBS NewsHour)

About 900,000 federal employees were furloughed and 700,000 more worked unpaid. The Agriculture Department declined to fund November SNAP benefits; two judges ordered payment, the administration offered partial benefits, and full benefits flowed only after the November 12 funding law. The FAA cut flights by up to 10% at 40 major airports for ten days because of controller shortages.

One in eight Americans faced a gap in food assistance at the start of November 2025. Federal workers got back pay under a 2019 law; most contractors did not. About 4,000 layoff notices issued during the shutdown were rescinded. The next funding deadline is December 11, 2026.

The longest shutdown in U.S. history; the current stopgap funds the government through December 11, 2026

Funding cut, frozen or shifted. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan Government shutdowns Q&A (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)
• Nonpartisan 2025 United States federal government shutdown (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan SNAP during the 2025 U.S. federal government shutdown (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Appropriations watch: FY2027 (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)

The war that began on February 28, 2026 closed the Strait of Hormuz for months. The Energy Information Administration recorded the largest oil-supply disruption in the market's history, and Brent crude went from about $72 to nearly $120 in March and was back above $100 in September.

The national average for regular gas rose a dollar in a month, peaked at $4.56 in May, and was $4.28 on September 10, 2026 against $3.19 a year earlier. Diesel, which moves food and freight, was nearly $6. July's consumer price index showed energy up 14.7% over the year, and Goldman Sachs estimated the war adds more than a point to headline inflation in 2026.

No congressional authorization; the Pentagon reported $37.5 billion in costs through July 2026 and requested $67 billion more

Ordered by the President. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan US, Iran engaged in "tanker war": where is the months-long conflict headed? (Al Jazeera)
• Official Short-Term Energy Outlook, September 2026 (U.S. Energy Information Administration)
• Nonpartisan National gas average jumps one dollar in one month (AAA)
• Nonpartisan National average gas prices (live) (AAA)
• Official Consumer Price Index, July 2026 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• Conservative Iran war could push inflation higher this year, Goldman Sachs says (Fox Business)
• Nonpartisan Cost of Iran war rises to $37.5 billion; Pentagon requests $67.1 billion more (Defense News)
• Conservative Marjorie Taylor Greene: "What happened to drill baby drill, cheap gas, and no more foreign wars?" (Benzinga / Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.))
• Nonpartisan Senate Republicans voice concerns over Iran war and gas prices (The Hill)

The federal government has paid 100% of SNAP benefits since 1964. From fiscal year 2028, states with payment error rates of 6% or more pay 5% to 15% of benefit costs, and every state's share of administrative costs rises from 50% to 75%.

Most states had error rates above 6% in 2024, so this is billions of dollars a year that state budgets do not have. States can respond by restricting eligibility or cutting outreach. In the extreme, a state can leave the program. Several governors have said openly that they may not be able to afford it.

Matching funds requirements (and Sec. 10106, Administrative cost sharing)

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan By the numbers: the megabill's health and food assistance cuts (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)
• Nonpartisan Food stamp changes will cost states billions, raising fears about SNAP's future (Stateline)
• Nonpartisan Red states target SNAP fraud, errors under threat of costly federal penalties (Stateline)
• Nonpartisan The SNAP state cost-shift policy leaves the program's existence to chance (Brookings Institution)

CBO projects about 10 million more uninsured people in 2034 from the law's health provisions, plus roughly 4 million more from the expiration of enhanced marketplace subsidies. Uninsured people still get sick; hospitals treat them in emergency rooms and write off the cost.

Hospitals respond by closing maternity wards and psychiatric units, freezing hiring, laying off staff, and raising prices for privately insured patients, which flows into everyone's premiums. The American Hospital Association estimated hospitals would lose hundreds of billions of dollars over ten years.

Combined effect of Title VII, Subtitle B (Medicaid, Medicare and marketplace provisions)

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the primary source.

• Official Estimated effects on the number of uninsured people in 2034 (Congressional Budget Office)
• Nonpartisan Allocating CBO's estimates of federal Medicaid spending reductions across the states (KFF)
• Nonpartisan Hospitals are making cuts after the "big beautiful bill" (CNN)
• Nonpartisan Medicaid cuts threaten hundreds of hospitals, new report finds (NBC News)
• Advocacy Analysis highlights impact of Medicaid cuts on rural patients and hospitals (American Hospital Association)

About 1,500 people convicted over January 6 were pardoned on the first day; by June 2026 at least 97 had been arrested or charged again, including for sex crimes and domestic violence. Executive orders stripped clearances and federal access from firms that had represented the President's opponents; every one that went to court was struck down. Indictments of former FBI director James Comey and New York attorney general Letitia James were dismissed because the prosecutor who signed them was unlawfully appointed, and grand juries twice refused to re-indict James.

About 140 officers injured on January 6 saw the convictions of their attackers erased. Anyone who needs a lawyer willing to sue the government benefits from the rulings, and about $940 million of legal capacity was redirected under the settlements. The Supreme Court separately blocked the removal of a Federal Reserve governor 5–4.

Four of the law-firm orders were permanently enjoined; nine firms instead pledged about $940 million in pro bono work to administration priorities

Signed by the President. Opens the primary source.

• Official Proclamation 10887: pardons for January 6 offenses (The White House)
• Nonpartisan January 6 pardons (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Perkins Coie (executive order and ruling) (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan WilmerHale (executive order and ruling) (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Indictment of James Comey (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Trump v. Cook (SCOTUSblog)

The National Parks Conservation Association counts more than 24% of the permanent workforce gone since January 2025. Visitors have found closed visitor centers, shuttered campgrounds in the Great Smoky Mountains, and slower search and rescue at the Grand Canyon.

Gateway towns depend on park visitation, and the losses fall on their summer economies as much as on visitors. Congress rejected the budget cut and told the service to keep parks staffed, but the people who left have not been replaced.

The 2026 budget proposed cutting park operations by about $900 million and handing sites to states; Congress held funding flat

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Advocacy Inside the FY26 National Park Service budget (National Parks Conservation Association)
• Advocacy Senate rejects national park funding and staffing cuts (National Parks Conservation Association)
• Advocacy The administration is axing funding and staff for national parks (Center for American Progress)

Staffing fell from about 4,550 to under 4,000 in early 2025. By May, 52 of 122 forecast offices had vacancy rates over 20%, 30 had no meteorologist in charge, at least eight had ended overnight operations, and weather-balloon launches were cut in several states.

Thinner staffing during severe weather means fewer people issuing and coordinating warnings. After the July 2025 Texas Hill Country floods killed more than a hundred people, critics noted that the local office's warning-coordination post was vacant; whether that changed the outcome is disputed. The service remains more than 300 people below its early-2025 level.

NOAA was authorized to hire 450 replacements in August 2025; 274 were on board by June 2026

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan NOAA is scrambling to fill forecasting jobs after cuts to the National Weather Service (NBC News)
• Official Letter on NOAA and National Weather Service cuts (Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.))

Texas redrew its map in 2025 to target five Democratic seats; the Supreme Court allowed it, and Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee followed, while California voters approved a countermap. Wikipedia's tally of the maps is about nine seats toward Republicans and four toward Democrats before a vote is cast. Executive Order 14248, which would have required documentary proof of citizenship to register with the federal form and discarded mail ballots arriving after Election Day, was blocked by two courts. The SAVE Act, which would write the citizenship requirement into law, passed the House twice and failed in the Senate.

Millions of voters were moved into new districts months before the November 3, 2026 midterms, and majority-Black districts in Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee were eliminated. The Justice Department also sued 23 Democratic-led states for unredacted voter files; the first suits were dismissed on privacy grounds.

A 6–3 ruling held that Voting Rights Act compliance does not require race-based districts; plaintiffs must now prove intentional discrimination

Decided by a federal court. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan Louisiana v. Callais (SCOTUSblog)
• Nonpartisan Louisiana v. Callais (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan 2026 United States House of Representatives elections (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens (SCOTUSblog)
• Official Executive Order 14248: Preserving and protecting the integrity of American elections (The White House)
• Nonpartisan Executive Order 14248 (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (Wikipedia)

About 4,000 California Guard and 700 Marines were sent to Los Angeles over the governor's objection; a judge ruled the deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act and troops left in December 2025. Two thousand Guard remain in Washington, where the Pentagon says the mission runs to January 2029. Deployments to Chicago and Portland were blocked by the Supreme Court. Memphis and New Orleans received Guard with their governors' consent.

Residents of the capital live with a standing military presence for the rest of the term, and two West Virginia Guard members were shot there in November 2025, one fatally. The ruling sharply limits involuntary deployments to states that object unless the Insurrection Act is invoked, which it has not been.

A 6–3 ruling held the President may federalize a state's Guard over its objection only when the regular military could lawfully be used and is unable to act

Decided by a federal court. Opens the primary source.

• Official Trump v. Illinois (per curiam, Dec 23, 2025) (Supreme Court of the United States)
• Nonpartisan Trump v. Illinois (SCOTUSblog)
• Nonpartisan Newsom v. Trump (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Executive Order 14333 (District of Columbia) (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Domestic military deployments by the second Trump administration (Wikipedia)

The aid agency was closed and $7.9 billion rescinded; a Lancet study projected 14 million excess deaths abroad by 2030. At home, Food for Peace had bought U.S. commodities for shipment abroad. Canadian trips to the United States fell 25% in 2025, Canadian provinces pulled U.S. alcohol from shelves, and U.S. wine exports to Canada fell from $447 million to $104 million. In July 2026 the United States declined to renew the North American trade pact for sixteen years, putting it on annual review.

Border-state tourism in New York, Washington, Vermont, Maine, Michigan and Florida, and wine and spirits producers in California, Kentucky and Oregon absorbed the losses. Auto and farm supply chains face yearly uncertainty about the trade agreement.

83% of aid programs cancelled; Food for Peace moved to the Agriculture Department

Signed by the President. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan United States Agency for International Development (2025 dismantling) (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan 2025 Canadian boycott of the United States (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (Wikipedia)

In February 2025 the acting director ordered all bureau staff to stop work and closed headquarters; a court blocked mass firings, but the bureau then announced it would not prioritize enforcement outside pending cases, dropped oversight of buy-now-pay-later lenders and withdrew a proposed rule on data brokers. The law then cut its maximum funding from 12% to 6.5% of the Federal Reserve's operating budget. The bureau has returned more than $20 billion to consumers since 2011 through enforcement against banks, lenders, debt collectors and credit bureaus.

Fewer examiners and fewer enforcement actions against overdraft-fee abuses, medical-debt reporting errors, and predatory lenders. The agency handles complaints for every consumer with a bank account, credit card, mortgage or student loan.

Funding cap for the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan Trump's "big beautiful bill" slashes CFPB funding: what it means for you (CNBC)
• Nonpartisan GAO details CFPB reorganization, funding cuts and litigation (Consumer Financial Services Law Monitor)
• Official The CFPB budget: background, trends, and policy options (Congressional Research Service)
• Conservative Scott applauds Senate passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill (Senate Banking Committee (Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C.))

The Government Accountability Office found that Congress rescinded $6.4 billion of unspent Inflation Reduction Act money in the One Big Beautiful Bill, and that in response to January 2025 executive orders the EPA, Transportation, Interior and Commerce departments cancelled roughly 800 awards worth $17.8 billion, with thousands more under review.

Locally this looked like the Transportation Department's September 2025 termination of approved trail, bike-lane and pedestrian-safety grants, and the cancellation of the $2.4 billion program that funded projects reconnecting neighborhoods split by highways. Cities had hired engineers and matched funds on the strength of awards that were then withdrawn.

GAO-26-108434

Funding cut, frozen or shifted. Opens the primary source.

• Official Status of IRA and IIJA funds: rescissions and cancelled awards (Government Accountability Office (GAO-26-108434))
• Advocacy The reconciliation bill takes back billions from locally led projects (Transportation for America)
• Nonpartisan Trump cancels grants for pedestrian safety, bike lanes (Governing)

The law clawed back the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's entire two-year appropriation and most of a year's foreign aid, sparing $400 million for the PEPFAR AIDS program. The corporation announced its closure in August 2025 and its board voted to dissolve in January 2026.

The corporation funded more than 1,500 local stations. Rural stations received 45% of the money and for some it was more than half their revenue, so the losses fall on local news, children's programming and the emergency-alert relays those stations carry. Republicans Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mark Amodei and Brian Fitzpatrick voted no.

Passed 216–213 in the House and 51–48 in the Senate; rescinded $1.07 billion for public broadcasting and $7.9 billion in foreign aid

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the primary source.

• Official Rescissions Act of 2025, Public Law 119-28 (govinfo.gov)
• Nonpartisan What's in the Rescissions Act of 2025? (USAFacts)
• Nonpartisan Corporation for Public Broadcasting (Wikipedia)

The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act funded semiconductor factories and a national research network. The factory grants largely survived, but the Commerce Department cancelled $7.8 billion of the $11 billion research appropriation, including the $7.4 billion National Semiconductor Technology Center award, and took a 9.9% equity stake in Intel as a condition of grants Congress had already appropriated.

Research jobs and university partnerships that were funded on paper did not happen, and companies planning decade-long investments saw the rules change twice in a year. The One Big Beautiful Bill raised the semiconductor investment credit from 25% to 35%, which the industry welcomed.

GAO-26-109121

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Official CHIPS for America: status of incentive and R&D funds (Government Accountability Office (GAO-26-109121))
• Nonpartisan Commerce cuts $7.4 billion in CHIPS Act funding for Natcast (Manufacturing Dive)
• Conservative Commerce demands equity from tech companies as condition of federal funding (Fox Business)
• Advocacy SIA applauds passage of strengthened semiconductor investment credit (Semiconductor Industry Association)

The IRS's free, government-run tax-filing tool served taxpayers in 25 states in 2025. The law did not abolish it outright but funded a plan to replace it with a public-private option, and the IRS ended Direct File before the 2026 season.

People with simple returns go back to paid software or the more limited Free File partnership, at the same time as new deductions (tips, overtime, seniors, car loans) make simple returns less simple.

Follow-on: the law funded a task force to replace Direct File (Sec. 70607); the IRS then ended the program

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan IRS Direct File will not be available in 2026, agency tells states (Federal News Network)

The longest funding lapse for any agency. TSA officers missed their first full paycheck on March 13; more than 1,100 of about 50,000 quit by late April, and callout rates reached 55% at some airports, with ICE agents used at checkpoints. FEMA suspended non-disaster work. ICE kept operating on money from the One Big Beautiful Bill.

Real delays for travelers and missed pay for about 260,000 Homeland Security employees. The final law added $20 million for body cameras and $26.4 billion for the disaster relief fund.

Democrats demanded judicial warrants, body cameras and limits on operations at schools and churches; the final law funds TSA, the Coast Guard and FEMA and carves ICE out for reconciliation

Funding cut, frozen or shifted. Opens the primary source.

• Official Homeland Security appropriations, Public Law 119-86 (govinfo.gov)
• Nonpartisan Trump signs Homeland Security funding bill, ending record shutdown (PBS NewsHour)
• Nonpartisan 2026 United States federal government shutdowns (Wikipedia)

The rule withdraws the 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and rescinds every federal greenhouse-gas standard for cars, trucks and heavy vehicles from model year 2012 onward, along with the credit-trading and reporting systems. EPA claims $1.3 trillion in avoided compliance costs. Separately, the One Big Beautiful Bill set the fuel-economy penalty to zero.

Automakers no longer face federal limits tied to fuel use, so the lifetime fuel savings the standards were designed to deliver to drivers are no longer required. California and more than a dozen states plan to keep their own rules, splitting the market. The average new vehicle cost $50,089 in August 2026, up 1.9% in a year, so there is no sign the savings reached sticker prices.

Docket EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194; the agency did not estimate the health and environmental costs

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan EPA repealed the endangerment finding and vehicle greenhouse-gas standards (Harvard Environmental & Energy Law Program)
• Nonpartisan EPA finalizes repeal of greenhouse gas endangerment finding (Jones Day)
• Nonpartisan Congress eliminates CAFE penalties for passenger cars and light trucks (Sidley Austin)
• Conservative Car companies won't be fined for missing arbitrary fuel-efficiency goals (Reason)
• Nonpartisan Average new-vehicle transaction price moves back above $50,000 in August (Cox Automotive / Kelley Blue Book)

The 2024 update cut the allowed emission of toxic metals by 67%, tightened the mercury limit for lignite plants by 70%, and required continuous monitoring. The repeal drops all three. EPA's own 2024 analysis said the update would remove about 1,000 pounds of mercury a year and produce $300 million in health benefits.

Mercury damages developing brains, and the burden falls on people downwind of the roughly 200 remaining coal units, mostly in the Midwest, Appalachia and Texas. The Sierra Club calculates the dirtiest plants can now emit 50% more mercury. A separate proposal to repeal carbon limits on power plants would forgo standards EPA projected would prevent up to 1,200 premature deaths a year by 2035.

Reverts to the 2012 limits; EPA has also stopped counting avoided deaths and asthma attacks as benefits when writing air rules

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Official Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (Environmental Protection Agency)
• Nonpartisan Mercury and Air Toxics Standards tracker (Harvard Environmental & Energy Law Program)
• Official EPA finalizes standards to reduce pollution from fossil-fuel power plants (2024) (Environmental Protection Agency)
• Advocacy How EPA's rollbacks could fuel toxic pollution nationwide (American Lung Association)

Payroll growth averaged about 31,000 jobs a month over the twelve months before August 2026, with federal employment still falling. Average hourly earnings rose 3.1% over the year to July while consumer prices rose 3.4%, so real hourly earnings fell 0.2%.

The typical paycheck buys slightly less than a year ago. The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index was 51.7 in August 2026, 11% below a year earlier, with the survey director citing gasoline prices from the Iran conflict. The president fired the BLS commissioner in August 2025 after a weak jobs report, alleging without evidence that the numbers were rigged; no successor has been confirmed, and economists across the spectrum warned that the firing undermines trust in the data used to set Social Security cost-of-living adjustments.

Payrolls +162,000 in August after averaging 31,000 a month over the prior year; unemployment 4.1%

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Official The Employment Situation, August 2026 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• Official Real Earnings, July 2026 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• Nonpartisan Surveys of Consumers (University of Michigan)
• Conservative August jobs report: U.S. adds 162,000 positions, unemployment at 4.1% (Fox Business)
• Nonpartisan Trump fires BLS commissioner after weak jobs report (NBC News)
• Conservative Chief Counsel Mulligan makes statement on firing of BLS commissioner (SBA Office of Advocacy)