WASHINGTON (AP) — government shutdownalready second longest in historyWith no end in sight, it is rapidly becoming a tool of the president. donald trump Take new command over the government.
It wasn’t always like this. In fact, it all started with an attempt to enforce Washington’s compliance with federal law.
The modern phenomenon of the U.S. government shutting down services began in 1980 with a series of legal opinions from the Attorney General Benjamin Civilettiserved under a Democratic president. jimmy carter. Civiletti is Deficiency prevention method The 1870 law held that: “Clear and clear” When Congress’s powers expire, it would limit government spending.
However, in this government shutdown, the Republican president Defunding to punish Democratstried to lay off thousands of federal employees He then used the vacuum left by Congress to reshape the federal budget to align with his priorities.
“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump posted on his social media platforms at the beginning of the shutdown.
What the Democratic Party has investigated their position.
All of this makes this battle even more difficult to resolve and could redefine the entire way Washington approaches funding lapses.
Why would the US government go so far as to shut down?
In the years following Watergate, Mr. Civiletti’s tenure at the Justice Department was defined by efforts to restore public trust in Washington, sometimes involving strict interpretations of federal law.
When conflicts between Congress and the Federal Trade Commission caused delays in the Federal Trade Commission funding bill, Mr. Civiletti released his opinion and later added another opinion that would allow the government to perform essential services.
Little did he know that it would lay the foundation for the most decisive political battle yet to come.
Civiletti, who died in 2022, said: “I could never have imagined that a shutdown like this would last so long and be used as a political tool.” told the Washington Post 6 years ago.
How Shutdowns Evolved
There was no long-term government shutdown for the next 15 years. In 1994, Republicans took back Congress under Speaker of the House. newt gingrich He visited Georgia and promised to overhaul Washington. their most dramatic conflict He has held talks with Democratic President Bill Clinton over a government shutdown.
Historians generally agree that the government shutdown did not work, and Clinton was also able to win reelection by standing up to Gingrich.
“Gingrich-era Republicans have had some limited policy wins, but overall they’ve been really close to failures,” said Mike Davis, an adjunct professor of history at Lees-McRae College.
Another major shutdown occurred in 2013, when Tea Party Republicans sparred with Democratic President Barack Obama. But it wasn’t until President Trump’s first term that Democrats adopted the tactic of prolonging the government shutdown.
How is this shutdown different?
In previous funding lapses, presidential administrations applied the shutdown rules equally to affected government agencies.
“Shutdown was the end of the same thing under the Reagan and Clinton administrations,” said Charles Tiefer, former acting House general counsel and professor emeritus at the University of Baltimore School of Law. In the latest government shutdown, he said, the Trump administration exercised “a kind of unfettered presidential spending authority that goes against the entire system, the original Constitution, and anti-deficiency laws.”
The government has introduced an overtly political dimension to the funding fight, with the agency updating its website with a statement blaming Democrats for the shutdown. The Department of Defense uses research and development funds to pay active duty military personnel. President Trump is set to begin laying off more than 4,000 federal employees who work primarily in fields seen as Democratic priorities.
President Trump laid out his ideas during a lunch with Republican senators at the White House this week. Budget Director Russ Vought As “Darth Vader,” he bragged about how he was “cutting the Democratic Party’s priorities and they’ll never get them back.”
Democrats are emboldened by this strategy and have repeatedly voted against Republican-backed government reopening bills. They argue that because Republicans are in power in Washington, voters will ultimately hold Republicans responsible for the pain of the government shutdown.
Democrats are confident they have chosen a winning policy demand for health insurance plans offered under the Affordable Care Act marketplace, but there is an undercurrent that they are also fighting to block President Trump’s expansion of powers.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, acknowledged that the state probably has more to lose than other states because of the large number of federal employees and operations based in the state. But he argued that voters are tired of Trump’s “constant parade of punishments,” including firings, defunding economic development projects, pressure campaigns against universities and the firing of a Virginia state attorney.
“It kind of stiffens people’s spines,” Kane said.
Democrats’ resolve will be tested next week. Federal employees, including members of Congress’ own staff, have not been paid their full salaries for almost a month now. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps approximately 1 in 8 Americans purchase groceries. Facing a potential funding cliff Air travel delays could get worse Air traffic controller shortage.
Sen. Angus King, R-Imain, said he hoped his colleagues would quickly begin negotiations to break the impasse.
He said he was one of the few Democrats to vote in favor of lifting the shutdown because “it gives the president more power than he would otherwise have and hurts the country.”
