Everyone is abuzz, both within the beltway, and now, with the battle lines being drawn, in the heartland about the distinct, and even looming possibility that Next Saturday Uncle Sam will be metaphorically out on the street until the his little tin cup is full again. But how did we get shutdowns in the first place, and how frequent are they?
It turns out that like most things political, the Washington Post has taken an in depth LOOK at the history and frequency of the shutdown. The “government shutdown”, or “spending gap” in Washington jargon is a child of the 1970’s, specifically 1976 when the current budgeting process congress uses went into effect. Since it was shat on our heads, the government has shut down a total of 17 times. Let’s just say that one will never be able to accuse a politician of not taking the earliest possible chance to fuck things up, since the first shutdown occurred on September 30th, 1976. The last one occurred on December 5th, 1995. So, once can deduce that like a kid with a new toy, say a drum set, it was great to play with when they got it, but once politicians realized that a government shutdown ultimately led to one side or the other getting blamed and taking it in the shorts at the polls, like Mom taking your drum sticks for 3 days, it got put in the basement, and you just threatened your parents that you were going to bring them up and play them, when you trying to get your way.
The thing that struck me in reading through the physical makeup of the congress, the President, and the reason and solution to the shutdowns is how few of them were about something that the vast majority of the country would give a shit about, that actually impacted them or their lives. The vast majority of them were ideological pissing contests, over favorite toys, or positions hard to back down from in front of constituents. In other words, Congress was playing kiddie games with us personally, and were happy to do so for 20 years until we convinced them that it wasn’t worth their jobs.
The one time that I could find that it was over a subject that had major impact on the citizens was the shutdown that started on September 30, 1977. The funny thing is that this one probably should never have happened either, since the Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate, and Jimmy Carter was President. But it was the subject. The House only wanted to allow funding for Medicaid to be used for abortions in cases where the life of the mother was at risk. But the Senate wanted to loosen it, adding an allowance for federally funded abortions in cases of rape and incest. This actually turned into 3 different shutdowns, as the solution for the first two was sign short term CR’s that allowed for more negotiation, and the time limits ran out. It was finally solved by including the Senate desired additions.
The funniest one I could find was one that occurred from September 30th to October 2nd of 1982. The funny thing about it was that there was basically no reason for it to occur! The fiscal year had ended on September 30th, but the Congress was too busy dicking around to submit a new budget for Reagan to sign. To break the logjam, Reagan invited every member of the Congress to the White House for a working BBQ, but the Democrats had other plans, they were all attending a $1,000 a plate fundraiser instead. The next day they sat down and got it done. Your tax dollars at work.
Other than those two extremes, the reasons for the shutdowns were almost never anything worth all of the Sturm und Drang. The first 5 shutdowns occurred when the Democrats held both houses. The President who was most beset with shutdowns was Ronald Reagan, with a GOP House, and a Democratic Senate. But the majority of his shutdowns lasted 3 days or less. The longest one was 21 days under Bill Clinton, over (Stupid alert!) which baseline to use for the next years budget, with the GOP controlling both houses (The GOP caved by the way). Other reasons have ranged from funding nuclear powered aircraft carriers, to executive pay raises (always higher), to funding the contra’s in Nicaragua. See what I mean. How could we common slobs eat dinner at night with any of these critical issues hanging over our heads?
Personally, I think that the government will shut down next Saturday, for how long I don’t know, probably not very. I know, Ryan has promised that there will be no shutdown, but who cares what he says. Trump is furious and pissed off at the shit he’s taking for being the most ineffective 100 day President in history, and he wants payback. If he can’t get Obamacare, he wants money for his goddamn wall! And if he doesn’t get it, he’ll veto whatever the Congress sends him. The only questions are whether or not the CR that passes is clean enough for the Democrats to join a majority of Republicans to override the veto, and whether the Democrats will be willing to help, or let the GOP own this shutdown and twist in the wind for a while as a strategic move. Either way it means that we the people take it in the shorts again.