The Shutdown Rundown
A partial government shutdown remains after funding expired on Friday at midnight. The President’s incoming chief of staff said Sunday that “it is very possible that the shutdown will go beyond the 28th and into the new Congress”. The sticking point is President Trump’s demand for $5 billion for a border wall. During the high-stakes negotiations over appropriations, the options for Congress and the President include coming to agreement on regular appropriations acts by October 1, the beginning of a new fiscal year, using one or more iinterim continuing resolutions to extend temporary funding, or not agreeing on full-year or interim appropriations acts resulting in a funding gap and a corresponding shutdown.
Typically in the event of a shutdown, essential federal employees continue to work while their pay is withheld until after the shutdown while others are placed on a furlough and put on a leave of absence without pay. An estimated 800,000 federal employees may be impacted by the partial shutdown and more than 420,000 government workers are expected to work without pay. It is not as dire as it sounds however, the Senate has passed a bill to guarantee backpay for these workers.
The roots of modern-day shutdowns can be traced to a 1974 law that reorganized the budgeting process, shifting more power to Congress from the executive branch and spreading it over several congressional committees. Between the 1962 and 1981 fiscal years there were 32 funding gaps that totaled 291 days, according to the Government Accountability Office. But in 1981, the United States attorney general issued two opinions that emphasized the approach was illegal and the government could not spend money without congressional appropriations, narrowing the interpretation of the Antideficiency Act.
Since 1976, there have been twenty one shutdowns, including this one, lasting on average 6.89 days. The longest shutdown came in 1996 under the Clinton administration and the shortest came in at only 9 hours in February of 2018 under President Trump. All but four of the shutdowns came in the two decades from 1976 to 1996, and we saw a seventeen year gap between the 1996 shutdown and the following shutdown under President Obama in 2013. Sixty percent of shutdowns occurred under a republican president and a republican controlled senate, while seventy five percent of shutdowns occurred under a democrat controlled house.
With the chief of staff’s expectation of the shutdown lasting into the new congress which takes office on January 3rd, this shutdown will likely be one of the longest to date. In addition, the shutdown is somewhat atypical because it started when one party controlled both the presidency and congress. Shutdowns under this condition have only occurred under two presidents, President Carter oversaw five shutdowns from 1977 to 1979, and President Trump is in his third shutdown. The latest shutdown is just another example where President Trump is unwilling to back down from his demands, no matter the opposition.
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