Congress

The House on Tuesday afternoon voted to pass a government funding package that tees up the end of the partial shutdown, which is its fourth day.

Senators currently face a Friday deadline to pass a $1.3 trillion package of six spending bills, including defense, and to avoid a partial government shutdown.

NGAUS hosted 46 attendees from 29 states at its annual two-day Legislative Workshop earlier this month with one major theme: working with the 54.

Two members of the House Armed Services Committee last week introduced legislation aimed at reducing the complex, confusing and unequal system of more than 30 National Guard and Reserve duty statuses to four broad categories.

China’s military modernization poses a direct and growing threat to U.S. security, according to a new Pentagon assessment released last week.

The event provides a platform for those involved in Guard advocacy nationwide to discuss priorities as Congress begins deliberations on fiscal 2027 defense legislation, said retired Col. Jon “Ice” Eisberg, the association’s vice president for government affairs.

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.