It was a matter of less than three hours on Saturday, September 30th, 2023, for the US Government to shut down for the 11th time during the last four decades of US history. This time, the bill signed by President Biden, passed at the last minute by the House and previously approved by the Senate, gained the Government an additional forty-seven days to work and resolve issues of disagreement (stopgap bill). These issues are primarily regarding additional spending outside the approved budget that still requires Congress appropriation.
It all started with the new fiscal year budget authorization of $1.59 trillion approved by President Biden and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, back in May 2023. Then, a number of disagreements amongst the House and Senate members arose about rationally allocating and appropriating funds. The matters of disagreement evolved around the following: blockage on spending of $300 million in additional aid for Kyiv against Russia, decision on defunding Justice Department - prosecuting former President Donald Trump, and the overall leaner budget that the House of Representatives wanted by cutting funding for the Internal Revenue Service by more than $1 billion.
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and his main opponent in the GOP, Representative Matt Gaetz
Finally, the Republican party wanted to increase spending to $2 billion for restarting the construction of the US-Mexico border wall. McCarthy clearly disagreed with Democrats on increased funding by the White House for Ukraine, but later turned to Democrats to support the stopgap bill. McCarthy led the Democratic House to believe that he will bring a Ukraine fund bill as a separate item to vote upon the House return. One item that was agreed upon with continuing resolution was the allocation of $16 billion of Disaster Relief Fund to support prompt responses, recoveries, restorations, and critical help for communities facing natural disasters. The stopgap was signed.
The Government continues its normal activities at least until November 17th. However, Kevin McCarthy‘s role didn’t last long. He was voted out of office on October 3rd, 2023.His fallout with the more conservative (MAGA) Republicans led by Matt Gaetz led to his downfall. Kevin McCarthy then later verified that he will not be running for Speaker of the House again.
"I fought for what I believed in,"
The federal funding gaps and disagreements on appropriation of spending go way back in US history. First, in 1976, President Gerald Ford rejected funding for the Departments of Labor and Health, Education, and Welfare. Later, in 1980 and 1981, Benjamin Civiletti, President Carter’s attorney general, issued a legal opinion that allowed for stoppage of government non-essential functions, if there was a lack of agreement on a gap in federal funding. Since then, there have been ten government shutdowns. Almost all of them started around September – October time frame, as this marks the start time of the new fiscal year for the government. Seven of the shutdowns lasted between two and six days. Three shutdowns lasted longer than a week. The first twenty-two day shutdown was a standoff between Gingrich and Clinton. It lasted from mid December of 1995 until January 6th, 1996, resulting in many delays in government services and a backlog of 200,000 passport applications to process. The second twenty-seven day long shutdown was a battle over defunding the Affordable Care Act. It ended up with President Obama signing changes to the bill, but excluding major defunding demands by Republicans. The third and the longest in US history shutdown, lasting thirty-five days, was over President Trump’s proposed plan to build a wall along the US and Mexico border.
All shutdowns end with some sort of compromise but are extremely disruptive and costly for everyone. About 800,000 of federal employees are furlough, some government services are withheld or delayed, and morale of US citizens are impacted – if the government keeps on shutting down, doesn’t it become just another tool for the opposing party to get what they want given the resolution will still be reached?
The clock is ticking, reaching consensus of funding the federal government expires on November 17th, 2023. Was the resolution reached on September 30th a successful one, or is the US facing another disruptive and costly Government stoppage?