Trump Considers Government Shutdown Again 2132019

The U.s.a. Capitol seen on January 13, 2019, the 23rd mean solar day of the partial regime shutdown.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

9 key questions about the longest government shutdown in history, answered

What are federal employees rights? Does this happen in other countries? And other frequently asked questions.

By Updated January xix, 2019, iv:32pm EST

Information technology costs money to run the regime, and it's Congress's job to manage the purse strings.

With the government now in the midst of its third shutdown under President Donald Trump's leadership — the longest in US history — in that location's no sugarcoating it: One of the legislative co-operative's most basic functions has cleaved down.

Congress has let funding for federal agencies lapse again because the president is demanding funding for a southern border wall, a pet project that doesn't have plenty back up in Congress to pass.

The The states Capitol is seen from Air Strength One on January xiv, 2019, as the regime enters its fourth week of the fractional shutdown.

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Hundreds of thousands of federal employees are going unpaid. Basic government functions, like maintaining national parks or inspecting the national food supply for disease, have been halted or dramatically reduced. Funding for key safety nets, like food assistance, will run out in a couple of months.

The Constitution gives Congress the "power of the purse" — the power to revenue enhancement and spend money for the federal government, in big part to ensure that the executive branch didn't spend money willy-nilly. Only Trump is running the show, threatening to veto spending bills that don't reflect his hardline immigration agenda. So far, Republicans are standing behind him and Democrats are in lockstep against him.

In an age of divided regime, when Democrats and Republicans are more polarized than they've e'er been, government spending is perchance the most bipartisan practice Congress is tasked with. And then far, they're stuck.

Vox asked audience members on Twitter and Facebook for their questions on the shutdown. Beneath are answers to some of those questions.

one) What is a government shutdown?

Under the Constitution, Congress is supposed to periodically pass bills that corroborate spending for the federal authorities. In do, those spending bills can final a few weeks or months or a whole year; they can fund the full regime or just parts of it.

Whenever the current spending bill expires, lawmakers must pass a new one to keep the regime running. Normally they do, merely occasionally they don't: xx times in the past xl or so years, the government has shut down, though most of those happened in the 1970s and '80s.

Anyway, without an approved spending plan, the federal government starts to close down.

The government agencies that lack approved funding suspend their operations. The agencies close upwardly, they stop providing services, and their workers are either furloughed or forced to work without pay — which leads to a lot of them calling off work.

Now, the entire government never shuts downwards — major programs like the military, Medicare, and Social Security are considered mandatory spending and they keep chugging forth even if in that location is an impasse in Congress. But the residuum of the government depends on these periodic spending bills to go along operating.

Government workers protest the shutdown in Chicago on January x, 2019.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

ii) How did the shutdown happen this time?

On Dec 21, 2018, Congress let funding for roughly 25 per centum of the federal government expire. By the midnight borderline, the House and Senate notwithstanding had not passed a spending bill appropriating money to nine federal agencies, and the government partially shut down — every bit it remains today.

Government shutdowns are usually the result of a stalemate in Congress. Simply this fractional shutdown has near nothing to practice with policy disagreements in the halls of the Capitol building — and everything to do with President Trump.

The impasse comes down to Trump's demand for $5 billion to start building a wall at the southern border, something Democrats refuse to support. Trump has asked for wall funding since he took office, but every time Congress came around to negotiating spending bills, Republicans conceded the wall in substitution for funding other priorities.

In the weeks leading up to the Dec 21 deadline, it looked like Republicans and Democrats would do the same. The Senate passed a spending bill that fully funded the government merely didn't affect the border wall (instead, it included $1.three billion for border security more generally), which had enough support to laissez passer in the then-Republican-controlled Business firm. Just Trump said he would veto that bill, so the House, then led by Speaker Paul Ryan, passed a spending nib with $five.vii billion in wall funding with only Republican votes, which the Senate would never be able to pass, upending negotiations and leaving the government to shut downwards.

Since then, the new Autonomous House bulk has passed the 2018 Senate neb to reopen the government that doesn't include funding for the wall, but the new Senate, which is still controlled by Republicans and is heeding Trump's demands, won't take up that pecker once more.

Congress is stuck. Democrats say they won't negotiate a wall or border security until Trump reopens the government. Trump isn't bankroll down, even threatening to declare a national emergency and re-appropriate military funding for the edge by fiat (he put that idea on concord). And Republicans are sitting idle.

Welcome to the longest authorities shutdown in US history.

President Trump spoke to the nation in his start primetime address from the Oval Role on January viii, 2019; followed by Speaker of the Firm Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who delivered the Democratic response.

Carlos Barria-Puddle/Getty Images; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

3) What regime programs are afflicted by this shutdown, and when?

A wide swath of the government is already feeling the hurting of the shutdown in myriad ways: Aid to farmers affected by the Trump administration'due south tariffs is facing delays, reviews for IPOs and mergers are being put on hold, and immigration cases could get postponed for years. Key services that have been afflicted include staffing at national parks — which have remained open but are getting trashed, and Ecology Protection Agency inspections of places like oil refineries and ability plants, which take been put on pause.

Nine out of 15 federal departments and a number of agencies are affected by this shutdown, including the EPA, the IRS, and the departments of State, Housing and Urban Development, Treasury, Agronomics, Commerce, Interior, Justice, and Homeland Security. Congress has fully funded the military (aside from the US Coast Guard) and the departments of Veterans Affairs, Labor, Education, and Health and Human being Services.

Javier Zarracina/Vox

Each affected section, and the agencies within them, have their own contingency plans on how to handle the shutdown. They deem which employees are "essential" — and have to work without pay — and "non-essential," which ways they tin be furloughed (or sent home without pay).

At DHS, for example, the majority of workers, including Border Patrol, remain on the task, while almost workers at the IRS and the EPA have been sent habitation without pay.

If the shutdown keeps going, these furnishings are only expected to get more than dire.

The USDA has said that food stamps volition be funded through February, but information technology'southward unclear if the agency will take the funds to go along the plan going beyond that point. There have also been concerns that the IRS could struggle with this year's tax flavor, the outset to implement Republican tax reforms, even though the Trump administration has said that refunds will still exist candy in a timely style.

Not everything stops operating during a government shutdown. The military, air traffic control, federal prisons, and Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are prepare to keep on running.

four) So who's to blame for this shutdown?

Most government shutdowns result in endless blame games. But in this case, Trump has really gone on the record claiming responsibility. In a coming together with the Democratic leaders alee of the spending deadline, he said he would be happy to shut downward the government in a bid to force lawmakers to fund his southern border wall.

"I am proud to shut downward the government for border security," Trump told Autonomous leaders a little more than a week earlier the latest shutdown started.

In December, at the concluding minute, the president pulled his back up for a spending programme that had already passed the Senate, precipitating the shutdown. The American public accordingly blames him for the impasse far more than than they blame Democrats in Congress.

Equally a general rule, if you are the one demanding a policy change in exchange for funding the authorities, rather than agreeing to keep the government open up while you try to go what you want on the policy, y'all are responsible for shutting downwardly the government. Today, that'due south Trump. He wants the edge wall in commutation for opening the authorities.

Republican leaders could pass a spending pecker anyway, even in the face of Trump's veto threat. Democrats believe in that location are the votes to laissez passer a neb reopening the government and fifty-fifty to override Trump's veto if necessary. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to move a spending neb that doesn't have Trump's endorsement.

The meliorate question might be whether information technology matters who's responsible. Republicans in Congress shut downwardly the regime in 2013 in a futile attempt to end Obamacare, and voters punished them in 2014 past ... handing them a shiny new Senate majority. Democrats close downward the government for a few days in early on 2018 over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) plan, and the price they had to pay was... winning a House bulk in the midterms.

There simply isn't much bear witness that voters concord grudges near shutdowns; they might encounter it as a general sign of dysfunction in Washington, but information technology's not their elevation event when they go to the polls.

And then once more, this is now our longest authorities shutdown in history. We're in uncharted territory.

President Trump debates with then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as Vice President Mike Pence listens during a meeting in the Oval Office on December 11, 2018.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

5) How long can a regime shutdown last?

The regime reopens when Congress passes a spending nib to fund the authorities and Trump signs it into law. It tin go on indefinitely. (Trump has even quipped that this could last months or even "years.")

It's unlikely that it would go on that long, in large part because shutdowns take real effects on people'due south lives and the political pressure volition eventually overcome lawmakers. It is worth noting, however, that come September 30, 2019 — the finish of this financial year — the spending bills for the parts of the regime that are currently funded will expire.

For at present, the government is still partially shut down because of ii disagreements.

One is a longstanding policy fight over border security, and the other is a negotiation over when to reopen the authorities. The impasse ultimately comes downwardly to a difference in priorities. Trump wants a edge wall before he will reopen the authorities; Democrats desire Trump to reopen the government earlier they talk border security.

There are iii ways this tin end:

1. Trump caves, agreeing to reopen the government without funding the border wall.
2. Democrats cavern, agreeing to some — or all — of the border wall funding Trump wants and vote for a spending beak.
3. Republicans cave and ring together with Democrats, pass a spending pecker with a veto-proof majority to fund the authorities without Trump'south blessing.

It's important to remember that regime spending fights, similar near bipartisan negotiations, are about political parties exercising their leverage. It's a game of chicken, where both parties are on a standoff form that ends in a painful regime shutdown. In the end, someone has to requite in.

President Trump served fast nutrient he purchased for a ceremony honoring the 2018 Higher Football Playoff National Champion Clemson Tigers in the State Dining Room of the White House on January 14, 2019. According to Trump, White House chefs are furloughed due to the fractional regime shutdown.

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

6) What most all the federal employees and contractors who aren't getting paid? What are their rights?

Equally of this past Friday, roughly 800,000 federal employees have missed their showtime paycheck. Near 380,000 employees have been furloughed and another 420,000 are currently working without pay. Congress has already passed a beak that guarantees all federal employees back pay once the shutdown is over, simply that does little to help them while it drags into its fourth calendar week.

Javier Zarracina/Vox

What's more, thousands of federal contractors are potentially afflicted by the shutdown as well. As many every bit 500,000 contractors are affiliated with the agencies that are caught up in the shutdown, according to NYU professor Paul Light. Many of these contractors won't receive whatsoever dorsum pay at all, while others might non see any impact on their paychecks, depending on how their employers accept negotiated their contracts.

Interestingly, federal employees can't use strikes to protestation the electric current situation. Because of the Taft-Hartley Act, which was passed in 1947, it is actually illegal for federal employees to strike, and many unions have urged their members to refrain from doing so. As Quartz points out, the impetus for the police was to deter federal employees from disrupting central regime services by striking to achieve better wages. Information technology probably didn't consider that workers would strike because they weren't beingness paid for their services at all, the Atlantic notes.

Workers who don't go into the office because they are participating in a strike could be considered "absent without leave," the American Federation of Government Employees' policy director Jacque Simon told the Atlantic. As a result, they could confront penalties at work including, potentially, losing their jobs.

They practise have some recourse, however.

The American Federation of Government Employees has filed a class-action lawsuit against the Trump assistants, noting that it's illegal to keep workers on the job without bounty. It won a similar challenge later the shutdown in 2013, ultimately guaranteeing workers who participated in the accommodate twice the dorsum pay they were owed.

7) How many times has the government shut down in the past?

The authorities has shut downward 21 times since 1976, the same year the modern budgeting process for the federal government went into effect. Since then, only one president — George W. Bush — has made information technology all the fashion through his term with no shutdowns.

Shutdowns started occurring frequently nether President Jimmy Carter; v shutdowns happened while he was president. Nether Carter, government agencies operated on a shoestring budget during shutdowns only didn't actually cease to part until after 1980, when then-Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued legal opinions finding that in order for the federal authorities to not violate the 1884 Antideficiency Act, agencies truly had to shut down.

The most authorities shutdowns under whatever ane president happened during the term of President Ronald Reagan. There were 8 shutdowns nether his tenure, but they were relatively short, lasting 1 to three days.

Jaiver Zarracina/Vox

Until Trump's most recent shutdown, the record-holder for longest shutdown was the 2d shutdown under President Neb Clinton, which lasted for 21 days when Clinton and congressional Republicans couldn't agree on a spending bill.

And Trump has had three shutdowns on his spotter so far: a shutdown in January 2018 over immigration and spending, an extremely short authorities shutdown in February 2018 later Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) got mad about regime budget caps, and the electric current 24-days-and-counting shutdown ... which, once again, is over immigration.

8) Practise other developed countries have government shutdowns?

Government shutdowns are uniquely American. When the government shuts downwards in the US, the people who frequently feel the pain are government workers going without paychecks or those who depend on affected federal programs like food stamps. In other developed countries like Commonwealth of australia, politicians are the ones who feel the brunt of a shutdown. For instance, the Australian parliament risks existence dissolved if government isn't funded, which, in theory, makes information technology less probable to happen.

"Nosotros cannot find another democracy that shuts itself downward," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters this week. Referencing parliament dissolving itself in Australia, Hoyer quipped that it "would non exist a bad alternative."

Other developed nations also have a lower threshold for passing budgets — a upkeep typically needs a elementary majority rather than the college percentage required in the US Senate. Simple majorities help prevent this kind of gridlock, but they could likewise carry the risks of making budgets more partisan documents, since you need fewer people to pass them.

In that location aren't a lot of situations comparable to the current government shutdown in Europe and other developed nations; Northern Republic of ireland came shut to the government shutting down late final year, before Dandy United kingdom intervened (Northern Ireland is part of the Britain). Just many other governments are designed to not hamstring regime operations if the legislature fails to appropriate money.

People rally confronting the partial federal authorities shutdown outside the Us Capitol on January x, 2019.

Marking Wilson/Getty Images

9) This is at present the third time the authorities has shut downward in one year. Why does this go along happening?

Information technology's not unusual for regime spending fights to go down to the wire. The budget and appropriations process is a difficult bipartisan do that requires Democrats and Republicans to brand serious concessions on the policy priorities. (And Congress is actually good at procrastinating, leaving very little time to smooth over last-minute problems.)

Congress's failure to keep this process going three times in ane year paints a very clear moving-picture show of the current political landscape.

The first shutdown under Trump happened in January 2018 because of the White House's clearing calendar; progressive activists urged Democratic lawmakers to use their leverage in the spending fight to become assurances that Congress would protect the undocumented immigrants thrown into legal limbo after the Trump assistants attempted to dusk DACA.

The second shutdown came a month later, in February 2018. Rand Paul was angry over a deal negotiated by congressional leaders that busted government budget caps in place since 2013. He held up the voting process in the final hours and left funding to lapse simply overnight, to send a political message about government spending.

The current shutdown — which Trump has been threatening for months — is over the border wall, a campaign hope Trump fabricated in 2016 as part of a fearmongering anti-clearing agenda.

Throughout history, government shutdowns have highlighted periods of intense sectionalisation in policy, whether over debt direction in the 1990s or funding the Affordable Intendance Act in 2013. But it's important to notation that the political calculus of a authorities shutdown has shifted over time. Shutdowns were once seen equally a complete disaster. At present they've become function of political strategy.

Hundreds of federal workers and contractors rally against the partial federal authorities shutdown outside the headquarters of the AFL-CIO in Washington, DC, on January 10, 2019.

Fleck Somodevilla/Getty Images

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Source: https://www.vox.com/2019/1/16/18182348/why-is-the-government-shut-down-questions-answered

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