The US government has an annual budget. Normally before a new year starts, there needs to be a new budget. The House of Representatives nominally has the full r

The US government has an annual budget. Normally before a new year starts, there needs to be a new budget. The House of Representatives nominally has the full responsibility of creating the budget, but it's also subject to approval by the senate and president. IIRC, in 2013 Republicans had control of the house and didn't pass a new annual budget. In the last few weeks of the year they did pass a continuing resolution saying something along the lines of "continue the government funding for 2 months at last year's levels until we pass a more complete new budget, and also repeal the Affordable Care Act". The Senate voted in favor of most of the continuing resolution but not the ACA repeal, which caused deadlock when the HoR and Senate couldn't reconcile the 2 versions of the bill that passed.