Congress

Congressional leaders last week completed much of their work on settling differences between House and Senate versions of the annual must-pass defense-policy bill.

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history should soon be over, but the damage to the National Guard will likely continue for a while. That was the message retired Maj. Gen. Francis M. McGinn, the NGAUS president, delivered during a media roundtable Monday with three other military association leaders at the Air and Space Forces Association in Arlington, Virginia.

After 43 days of gridlock, Congress is poised to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The House returns to Washington today for a late-afternoon vote on a bipartisan funding package that would reopen federal agencies and restore normal operations.

NGAUS has been busy since the federal government shutdown began Oct. 1 informing Congress and the press on the harm the lapse in appropriations is doing to National Guard readiness and Guard Soldiers and Airmen and their families.

Mississippi Army National Guard 2nd Lt. Sawyer Walters came to Washington, D.C., last week “with a positive attitude” for the second NGAUS Capitol Summit of 2025.

The continuing government shutdown is uniquely hard on the Soldiers and Airmen of the National Guard. We have thousands of full-time Guardsmen nationwide who wear their uniform and rank every workday but, unlike their active-duty brothers and sisters, they have yet to be paid in October.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that active-duty service members would get paid today, despite the government shutdown that is now in its third week.

NGAUS and three other National Guard and Reserve advocacy groups have made another urgent appeal to congressional leaders to end the government shutdown or at least take action to pay troops on duty during the impasse.

NGAUS is leading the charge of National Guard and Reserve associations asking Congress to help pay service members on duty during the government shutdown, which is now in its second week.

Since Congress failed to pass normal appropriations or a stopgap budget before the start of the fiscal year on Tuesday, the federal government is officially shut down.

Three associations that combine to represent all of the nation’s nearly 800,000 National Guardsmen and Reservists are urging congressional leaders to pass fiscal 2026 appropriations for defense, military construction and veterans affairs.

The Adjutants General Association of the United States and NGAUS have called on congressional defense leaders to include the bipartisan Guarding Readiness Resources Act in the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act.