Why Government Shutdowns Happen

Congress Can't Do Its Most Basic Job

On the ride back home from taking my step-daughter to the bus stop, Emily and I were listening to CNN. The discussion was the possibility of a government shutdown. She asked, “Why do we go through this every year?” There’s not a straight forward answer, but I explained that the appropriations process in recent years has become about political messaging and reductions in discretionary spending. These developments make it hard to get these bills through Congress.

After thinking about it for a little while, as well as getting a call from a colleague who complained about the possibility of a government shutdown, a more thoughtful explanation is appropriate.

The budget and appropriations process that Congress currently utilizes was created in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, also known as the Budget Act, which can be found in Chapter 17, Chapter 17A, and Chapter 17B of Title 2 of U.S. Code. In theory, Congress passes a budget and then passes the regular appropriations bills to fund the government. The reason why we have government shutdowns is because Congress fails to pass one or more of the regular appropriations bills.

Congress often averts these shutdowns through continuing resolutions (CR), which extend existing appropriations for a specified period of time. Most Members of Congress don’t like CRs, although they’ll go along with them to avoid a government shutdown.

Under Section 300 of the Budget Act (2 U.S.C. §631), there’s a timetable that Congress is supposed to follow for the budget and appropriations process. We hear a lot about “regular order,” but neither party really follows it, and those who tend to complain about the lack of regular order go silent when it’s politically convenient. The timetable states that Congress may begin the consideration of regular appropriations bills on May 15. The last regular appropriations bill should be out of the House by June 30. The new fiscal year is set to begin on October 1.

You’ll be shocked to learn that Congress has a record of failure when it comes to doing its most basic legislative function, and the problem has gotten progressively worse over time. Congress has passed all regular appropriations bills before the October 1 deadline only four times since the Budget Act was implemented: FY 1977, FY 1989, FY 1995, and FY 1997.

In the chart below, you’ll see that Congress has routinely failed to pass the regular appropriations bills on time. However, since 2011, Congress has gone literal years without passing a single appropriations bill. Currently, Congress hasn’t passed any of the regular appropriations bills since FY 2019. So, we’re at four consecutive fiscal years without a single appropriations bill being passed, and it’s about to be five fiscal years because Congress has once again failed to do its job. Let me put it another way. Since FY 2011, Congress has enacted only six of the regular appropriations bills. Twelve bills per fiscal year over 13 years; that’s 156 total bills. That’s a success rate of 3.8 percent.

Why do we experience government shutdowns? Well, it’s because of the Constitution and Antidefiency Act. Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution states, “No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.” Essentially, the federal government can’t spend what hasn’t been approved by Congress. Originally passed in 1884, and since significantly amended, the Antideficiency Act (31 U.S.C. §1341) prohibits the federal government spending money that hasn’t been appropriated. The District of Columbia is also subject to the Antideficiency Act because it receives appropriations from Congress.

The interpretation of the Antideficiency Act that still applies today was written in April 1980 by then-Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti. He wrote, “On its face, the plain and unambiguous language of the Antideficiency Act prohibits an agency from incurring pay obligations once its authority to expend appropriations lapses.”

So, when Congress doesn’t pass appropriations bills, there’s a lapse in appropriations. Affected agencies are required to shut down. Employees don’t get paid, even if they’re deemed “essential workers” and continue to work during the length of the shutdown. Employees who are furloughed, as well as those who continue to work, have historically received back pay for the length of a shutdown. Because government shutdowns are all about discretionary spending, mandatory programs like Medicare and Social Security continue to provide benefits to existing enrollees, although new enrollments stop for the duration of the shutdown.

Why has passing appropriations bills become so hard? Increasing hyperpartisanship in Congress is the biggest part of the problem. It’s why government shutdowns—or at least the threat of government shutdowns—have become more frequent.

The appropriations process has become another place for “gotcha” votes that one side or the other can use as a bludgeon against vulnerable Members during an election. We see this all the time. Amendments are made in order to address some hot button issue. In recent years, culture war issues have increasingly shown up in the amendment process. Although some of those “gotcha” amendments may pass the House, they’re virtually always stripped out when the House and the Senate settle on a consolidated appropriations bill or when Congress passes a CR.

The public tends to blame Republicans for government shutdowns, even in the rare instance when it wasn’t their fault. That makes the current debate over FY 2025 appropriations very dangerous for Republicans in an election year. What makes it even stranger is that Trump is pushing Republicans in that direction. The issue? An unrelated policy matter that is based on a myth.

How do we fix the problem? I wish I could say there was hope of overhauling the appropriations process, but I don’t see how that happens any time in the near future. There have been proposals for an automatic CR in the event of a lapse in appropriations—for example, Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) have introduced the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, S. 135— but there’s not wide support for such proposals. That’s mindboggling, but passing the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act would take away a political tool to hammer the other side.