That means all is well until December, at least. But this bill does not include a provision to raise the debt ceiling - meaning that row will continue to rumble on. Eighteen ways the US shutdown is hurting.
What does a government shutdown cost? What is a government shutdown? Image source, Kent Nishimura. So what does it mean and should we be worried? Why is there a risk of a shutdown? What is affected? Image source, Getty Images.
Museums like the Smithsonian could be closed under a government shutdown. And what happens if the debt ceiling isn't raised? Haven't we been here before? A government shutdown can have all kinds of unforeseen effects, including catering staff being furloughed. Can a shutdown be avoided? Related Topics. The few exceptions included work by federal employees to protect life and property, he wrote. That, in turn, prompted an increased frequency of small shutdowns as politicians struggled with deadlines, said Roy T.
Meyers, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who has written about the history of shutdowns.
It was the first time a shutdown of that size was ordered. The longest previous shutdown came in At issue was a long-term budget backed by Republicans, who won control of both the House and the Senate halfway through Mr. Their plan limited spending for Medicare and turned Medicaid and most other welfare programs over to the states.
House Republicans, in particular, were keen on using a shutdown to get Mr. Clinton to sign their bill. A five-day shutdown in November was followed by the record-breaker — 21 days — starting in mid-December. The shutdown lasted for 16 days and ended amid dire warnings from the Treasury Department that it was about to run out of money.
Having failed in their bid to defund Obamacare, Republicans leaders eventually worked with their Democratic counterparts on a plan to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.
Obama said at the time. However, staff who handled new enrollments and other services, such as changing addresses or handling requests for new Social Security cards, were initially furloughed in In , certain activities were discontinued, including verifying benefits and providing new and replacement cards, but processing of benefit applications or address changes continued.
During the shutdown, the Department of Agriculture had to rely on a special authority included in the previous CR to allow them to continue to issue SNAP benefits. The hours-long lapse in appropriations in February , though sometimes characterized as a shutdown, did not result in federal employee furloughs. However, before , the government did not shut down but rather continued normal operations through six funding gaps.
Since , 10 funding gaps of three days or fewer have occurred, mostly over a weekend when government operations were only minimally affected. The first two happened in the winter of when President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress were unable to agree on spending levels and the government shut down twice, for a total of 26 days.
The fourth shutdown, starting in December and continuing into January , centered on a dispute over border wall funding and was the longest-lasting shutdown at 35 days. While estimates vary widely, evidence suggests that shutdowns tend to cost, not save, money for a number of reasons. For one, putting contingency plans in place has a real cost. In addition, many user fees and other charges are not collected during a shutdown, and federal contractors sometimes include premiums in their bids to account for uncertainty in being paid.
While many federal employees are forced to be idle during a shutdown, they have historically received and are now guaranteed back pay, negating much of those potential savings. Shutdowns also carry a cost to the economy. On top of that effect, CBO notes that longer shutdowns negatively affect private-sector investment and hiring decisions as businesses cannot obtain federal permits and certifications, or access federal loans.
Theoretically, the House and Senate Appropriations committees are supposed to pass 12 different appropriations bills that are broken up by subject area and based on funding levels allocated in a budget resolution. To avoid a shutdown, Congress would need to pass all 12 appropriations bills through both chambers and get them signed by the President before October 1. This could be done by enacting each bill individually or by packaging them together through an omnibus or minibus.
On September 21, the House passed a continuing resolution that would extend current funding levels through December 3 and suspend the debt limit until near the end of Senate action is uncertain, however, due to the lack of needed Republican support for raising the debt limit under regular Senate rules as well as specific funding disagreements, including appropriations for the Iron Dome missile defense system in Israel.
For more about the status of specific appropriations bills, see Appropriations Watch: FY A continuing resolution temporarily funds the government in the absence of full appropriations bills, often by continuing funding levels from the prior year.
Traditionally, CRs have been used to give lawmakers a short period of time to complete their work on remaining appropriations bills while keeping the government open. CRs sometimes apply to only a few categories of spending, but they can also be used to fund all discretionary functions and can be used for an entire year. Even when overall funding levels have differed, lawmakers have often simply scaled up all accounts by a percent change in spending rather than making individual decisions on spending accounts.
Congress frequently passes CRs when lawmakers are unable to agree on appropriations before a deadline, and occasionally multiple CRs are necessary to fund the government for an entire fiscal year. Congress also sometimes relies on CRs during presidential transition years.
In FY , for example, a series of intense congressional negotiations leading up to the election led to a series of 10 one-day CRs. In total, Congress funded the first three months of that fiscal year with 21 continuing resolutions. In fiscal years , , , , , and , CRs were used to fund the government for roughly a quarter of each year.
FY funding negotiations necessitated three CRs before the passage of an omnibus appropriations bill in May , and FY negotiations required five CRs before the passage of an omnibus in March In FY , a CR was used for seven of the 12 appropriations bills for more than one-third of the year before the enactment of an omnibus in February , while the remaining five appropriations bills were funded before the fiscal year began.
The most recent year when a full-year appropriations bill passed before the fiscal year began and no CRs were necessary was FY Finally, the use of continuing resolutions disrupts activities within agencies, makes it difficult to plan or start future projects, and costs staff time to revise work plans every time the budget changes. Although Congress has not yet enacted any appropriations bills as of mid-September, the House has passed nine out of 12 appropriations bills.
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