A Government Shutdown?

Probably, but not really

You might have heard that the federal government is on the brink of shutting down. Depending on who is talking, that is either a terrible thing brought on by the worst people in politics, or it is not much of anything.

The dispute is over whether or not to pass in the House and the Senate a bill known as a Continuing Resolution (CR). It is, quite simply, a resolution on the part of Congress to continue the budget and funding of government agencies at the current level for a specified amount of time. This happens when they have not passed a new budget but the previous one is running out. (Budgets are set for a specified amount of time. They have to be redone regularly.)

Under the Constitution of the United States, Congress has to approve any budget and without its approval the government cannot spend any money. Of course, it is not that simple. There is still a lot of money the government can spend and payments it can make, such as sending out Social Security checks. But when a budget expires and is not replaced by a new one or “continued” with a CR, a lot of agencies don’t have anything to spend. Some offices close and agencies temporarily shut.

Because almost all of these are executive agencies under the authority of the President (Article II of the Constitution), the president gets to decide what gets the money they do have and what doesn’t. President Obama famously closed parks, with the clear intention of making the shutdown as obvious to people as possible.

How Did We Get Here?

The current budget for the federal government was passed under President Biden. He then agreed to a Continuing Resolution after Donald Trump was elected last year. Then, because no one could agree to another budget, a second CR was passed and signed by President Trump. This would be the third continuation of the same budget.

If they continued it twice already, why not just go ahead a third time? The sticking point is the One Big Beautiful Bill (OB3) that was passed in the summer. This bill, now an act, made several cuts in a whole number of agencies as suggested by DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency). It could make those cuts without being a new budget, but this sets the current spending of the federal government at a level lower than it was when the budget was passed and then “continued” two more times.

Democrats are trying to get the budget returned to its previous level, that is, before the OB3 Act (“These are not the cuts you’re looking for.”) Republicans are insisting on passing a “Clean” CR, that is, a Continuing Resolution without any changes next week from last week. It is called “clean” because there are no changes.

What’s Going to Happen?

What makes this shutdown different from any in the recent past is that they have usually happened when a Democratic President (who generally wants to spend more money) is opposed by a Republican Congress (which usually wants to spend less money). In these cases, the president usually wins because he can decide what to stop paying for (like parks) and make the whole thing look as bad as possible.

This time, we have a Republican President and a Republican Congress, both eager to make cuts. They can’t push this through, however, because they do not have 60 votes in the Senate to stop discussion and proceed to a vote. (This is the filibuster and only applies in the Senate.)

The Trump administration, therefore gets to choose what to stop paying for, and it will try to make the shutdown as painless as possible for most of the country. The Office of Management and Budget has already requested a list of positions at every agency that “do not align with the President’s priorities.” Expect every Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office to get shut down, for instance.

There are, in fact, a lot of policy priorities the Trump Administration could achieve by extending the shutdown as long as possible. Many of these offices could be shut down and their employees laid off. In some cases, those closures would be permanent and reopening them would require an act of Congress. That would effectively shut them forever. This doesn’t happen very often.

The Democrats, of course, know this and do not have a strong hand. Nevertheless, they have not only asked for the CR to return to levels prior to the OB3, they have asked for an additional trillion dollars in spending. This seems like a bad negotiating position. Their problem is that their most ardent supporters, their base, will consider any negotiation with President Trump to be as bad as making a deal with the Devil. Some might prefer to do so. (Some might have already.)

This is going to be very interesting to watch.