At midnight Tuesday, the federal government runs out of its regular appropriations.
How did we get here?
This mechanism is a relic from the origins of the country, written into our constitution as a memory from when kings would continue to direct spending and refuse to call parliament to session which might reign in their actions. The constitutional requirement for limited appropriations sets the power of such spending fights firmly in the hands of congress. The same kinds of issues cropped up in the US, with budget holders overspending against their appropriations and using those contracts against congress in coercive deficiencies, which led to the antideficiency act, which has led to the modern shutdown mechanic, through the interpretation that no money may be spent by the government unless appropriated.
250 years later than the writing of the constitution, and 150 years after the antideficiency act, we’re in a situation where society is much more complicated than it was when the constitution was written, and the federal government is much more enmeshed in the basic functioning of society. Instead of a few thousand royal officers doing the king’s bidding, or a few thousand federal officers working under a small cabinet, we have millions of federal bureaucrats monitoring disease spread, keeping food safe, standardizing public education, and many other services states rely on. People interact with the federal government so much more now that a lapse in appropriations will be noticed by people far more quickly than it would have been 150 years ago, far beyond the federal employees impacted.
What can we learn from past shutdowns?
Instead of being a power aimed at the president, the limits on appropriations are now aimed squarely at the American people. This has created a policy cudgel. Early shutdowns were all initiated as a part of legislative-executive policy disputes (back when congress had a separate identity from the white house). The two recent ‘big’ shutdowns in 2013 and 2019 were different.
In 2013 Republicans in the house of representatives fought with democrats over defunding the Affordable Care Act, eventually forcing a government shutdown. The political battle over the 2013 shutdown can be seen as a ‘win’ for democrats in that the ACA was preserved and the republicans were less unified and effective.
The 2018-2019 shutdown fight was a congress that passed a bipartisan funding bill, and then the white house demanded 11th hour changes with funding for a wall. Democrats balked and eventually the white house resorted to declaring a national emergency to repurpose funds to build the “wall” instead of securing a congressional appropriation.
What’s different this time?
Past shutdowns have followed a pattern where there has been a dispute over funding with a split between the white house and congress (1980s-1990s) or where there was split control of the legislature with different parties having majorities in the House and Senate (2013).
2018-2019 was interesting from the perspective of how stupid and petty the fights were. Republicans had a bipartisan bill, and reneged on the agreement at the urging of the white house and resorted to dirty tricks such as holding off of a conference committee meeting until the last possible second. However, republicans were in control of both the house and senate and theoretically should have been able to force a bill through, even if they needed to use the nuclear option to do so.
The situation today looks most like 2018. Republicans have nominal majorities in the house and senate and the white house. There is no major dispute between republicans in congress and the white house. Republicans are playing a bold hand from a position of weakness, and ‘no ACA subsidies’ plays even worse with the public than ‘build the wall’.
The difference in the current political situation is twofold. First is that the political divisions within the republican party are bad enough that they can’t even muster a basic majority in the senate to pass a clean continuing resolution, much less cloture. They are weaker than they were in 2018. Second, Republicans have created a political environment where there is no difference between a ‘yes’ vote and a ‘no’ vote for Democrats. Back in March, many government services were still intact, or being defended by injunctions. It wasn’t clear how corrupt the supreme court was, nor how intensely the white house was going to work to sideline congress and ignore black letter law. A vote to keep the government open was rational given the information at the time. Now however, the White House has gutted most of the things Democrats have advocated for over decades. The harm of a government shutdown is already being implemented by the White House, intentionally, and with the intent of those impacts being permanent. A vote to fund the government which ratifies those cuts, or which funds agencies without congress defending them is basically the same thing, and would be a betrayal of what Democrats stand for.
By refusing to negotiate with Democrats, Republicans won’t even give political cover to a few swing democrats to betray their party. And this tactic is even worse because Republicans have painted themselves into a corner with their naked pressure tactics. If they eventually negotiate with Democrats and offer them a carrot, they will have ‘caved to Democrats’ demands’, meaning that they have created a zero sum game where one party must lose.
Bottom line
No matter how the vote tallies work out, no matter if every single democratic house and senate member vote ‘no’ on a continuing funding resolution, democrats won’t shut down the government… because it is impossible.
Republicans make up the majority of both houses of congress. The republican party can pass any spending bill they want, regardless of democratic votes. If the government shuts down it doesn’t speak anything about Democrats, it speaks about the weakness of Republicans. If they can’t pass a bill without Democratic votes, then they need to work with Democrats instead of against them.
The talking points here are simple:
1) Republicans can’t govern. They have total control of the legislature and the White House. They can’t refuse to negotiate if they can’t pass a bill on their own. The fact that they are pressuring democrats at all is because of their own weakness.
2) Republicans are already shutting down the government. The white house is refusing to spend money appropriated by congress and is thumbing its nose at its constitutional obligation to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. The White house has made it clear it will continue regardless of what congress does.
3) Why should democrats vote yes? Republicans are systematically destroying public services that help everyday Americans from cancer research to public health to education. Republicans won’t even negotiate. What is there for Democrats to support?
This is a stupid game and democrats won’t play it anymore. There is no point in giving any bipartisan cover to the tragedy that is the republican spending plan. Let them own it. If they admit that they can’t govern, they can negotiate as equals, or not at all.
When the government shuts down on Tuesday night, it will be 100% on republicans, no matter how hard some media tries to claim the opposite.
