Another USA government shutdown has started with the prospect (at the minimum) of lay-offs – 750,000 federal employees expected to be placed on enforced leave, with pay withheld until they return to work, essential workers like military and border agents may be forced to work without pay, parks will be closed, rubbish pile up and there is likely to be disruption at airports.
Though Trump has posted online that Republicans should use it to “clear out dead wood” and see which “Democrat Agencies” to cut with the possibility of permanent job losses. In a shutdown, the White House and Office of Management and Budget have full control over which arms of the executive branch will stay running
J.D. Vance is spouting nonsense about Democrats holding out about funding for illegal aliens when US law bars undocumented immigrants from receiving the health care benefits and the Democrats have not called for changes to that.
Democrats are motivated by grassroots anger over expiring healthcare subsidies. Though Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post writes this is less about Obamacare and more about the American Rescue Plan, brought in as a temporary covid emergency plan, which he argues was inflationary and should not continue. At the time evidently former Clinton treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers cautioned against it because it would “set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.” And Obama economic adviser Jason Furman said he didn’t know of “any economist that was recommending something [that] size.” [I am not familiar enough with the detail to know what weight to put on any of the arguments.]
The last shut-down under the first Trump administration lasted a record 34 days, starting 20 January 2018.
There is not much to add to previous thoughts on the USA and Inauguration charts. The USA 4 July 1776 chart has the Solar Arc Saturn exactly square Neptune at the moment for high uncertainty and paralysis with the Solar Arc Sun square the Mars for a collision-type event in six months and SA Sun in a lacklustre discouraging opposition to Neptune exact by mid 2026 but trailing on in effect to early 2027. That will see the end of this two year plus process of a disruptive existential crisis starting in early 2025 as the USA Sun square Saturn by Solar Arc collided with the USA Mars square Neptune.
Not that the shutdown will last that long since the Democrats are likely to cave but the high anxiety will roll on.
The USA Federal Reserve. 16 November 1914 9am is not in a good phase with tr Neptune (Saturn) square its Saturn Pluto in Cancer this year till January 2027; a lacklustre, disappointed Solar Arc Neptune conjunct Sun exact in six months; and a high-insecurity tr Uranus square Mars from June 2026 to April 2027. So economic pressures will mount.
The 2025 Trump Inauguration chart with its afflicted Moon in the 6th house of health has been pressured as the Progressed Moon squared Mars recently and then moves on to square the Inauguration Pluto by March 2026 – so again a long, heated wrangle with deadlock along the way which will extend in effect after.
Trump’s personal chart, birth time being accurate, does have his Solar Arc Midheaven conjunct his Pluto exactly now and lingering on for months ahead at a time he does not seem to be winning too many battles – Putin, Netanyahu, his boy Milei on the skids, Epstein lurking in the shadows etc etc. He has tr Pluto opposing his Saturn/Pluto midpoint now till early December which suggests tough conditions and an uphill struggle to make progress. Plus November 9th to early December and again in April 2026 tr Uranus square his Saturn/Neptune midpoint hinting at stretched nerves, irritability and even illness brought on by underlying panic. This last influence at the same time as tr Uranus squares his Ascendant for an image jolt. Plus, of course, his Solar Arc Neptune continuing to wend its way over his Moon and opposition his Sun to late 2026 and beyond into early 2027 which won’t improve his clarity of thought or his energy.
None of this helps to put a date on the end of the shutdown but it is part and parcel of an extended period of muddle and mayhem in the USA.
The post USA shut down – when the lights go out first appeared on Astroinform with Marjorie Orr – Star4cast.
