We are now into the second week of the latest three week extension of the point at which the government will have to shut down for lack of funds, and articles in the news do not seem very optimistic about meeting the deadline. To me this is only the latest installment in a process of establishing the power of the House of Representatives in determining policy. The end point of this process is of course unknown, but it may be useful to put it in the context of a similar process that happened in England more than 300 years ago.
The 1600s in England was a period in which the political system evolved from a feudal monarchy to a constitutional monarchy where the government was run by parliament. The change did not come easily. The issue was one of who was in charge, the king or parliament.
The problems started in the 1640s, when Charles I wanted money to finance wars in Europe that parliament did not agree with. Parliament refused to appropriate the money. Charles' first response was to try to appropriate the money himself by levying taxes that had not been approved by parliament. Parliament had enough authority in the population and in the government bureaucracy that the king was unable to make these taxes effective, but it was a long process, going back and forth between the king and parliament.
The end result, because Charles would not back down, was a civil war, in which ultimately Charles was executed in 1649. For a short ten year period, England was no longer a monarchy. Parliament ran the government under Cromwell. Parliament was never able to establish its ability to run the government on its own, however, and when Cromwell died in 1659, it allowed the restoration of the monarch, Charles II.
This restoration, however, did not resolve the prior issue of who was in charge, the king or parliament. Conflict continued for another 28 years, with the king trying to dissolve or prorogue parliament (rule on his own without dissolving parliament), while others developed plots to overthrow the king. (It was during this period that Locke wrote his Treatise on Government, thus bequeathing to us and to the revolutionaries in America his version of the ideal state, based on the status quo in the midst of conflict of that time.)
It was not until 1688, the year of England's Glorious Revolution, that the conflicts between the king and parliament were finally resolved. (Pincus describes the Glorious Revolution as the first modern revolution, in contradistinction to most previous accounts, which describe it as only a reaffirmation of traditional English values.) King James II abdicated the throne, and parliament, meeting in an extraordinary session, essentially as a constitutional convention, accepted William of Orange as their new king, on the condition that he agree to rule only through, and with the consent, of parliament.
This conditional or constitutional monarchy changed everything, and ended the continual arguments over who was in charge of the government. From that point on, parliament, and in particular the House of Commons, was clearly in charge--although in several ways it took at least another 100 years before this was clearly understood.
The point of this little bit of history is that as I see it, the US is in a similar position with regard to the current threat of government shutdown. The basic issue is one of who is in charge of the government, the House, or the President (and the Senate). In effect the House of Representatives, the equivalent of the House of Commons in Britain, is at war with the President (the King?) over who is in charge of setting policy and appropriating money for programs.
To me this is a conflict that will not stop until one or the other admits defeat and withdraws from the field, as King William did in 1688. In fact the founders of our government deliberately set it up so that this conflict was a part of the process. 'They thought, relying on Locke and other sources that this was the way it should be.
I would humbly submit that this is not the way it should be, even though it has gone on in this country for the last 200 years or more. Several other factors, such as the settlement of the west, have allowed the continuation of this conflict, but we are reaching the end of our tolerance of it. We can no longer afford it.
The current threat of a government shutdown, on top of the one in 1994, is the beginning of the process of the resolution of this conflict. Again we do not know now how it will be resolved, but my sympathies, in spite of what the current majority wants to do, is with the House of Representatives.