What is a government shutdown?
A government shutdown occurs in the United States when Congress and the president fail to enact funding legislation before existing appropriations expire, resulting in a lapse of legal spending authority that forces many federal agencies to suspend non-essential operations and furlough employees until new funding is approved.
Last reviewed . Not yet independently reviewed.
Core tenets
- Funding lapse
- A shutdown is triggered specifically by the absence of enacted appropriations legislation, not by any other kind of political or economic crisis.
- Antideficiency Act constraint
- Federal law generally prohibits agencies from spending money not appropriated by Congress, which is the legal mechanism that actually forces operations to stop during a funding lapse.
- Essential versus non-essential operations
- Agencies continue operations deemed essential to safety or constitutionally required functions, while furloughing employees whose work is classified as non-essential during the lapse.
How it works in practice
Shutdowns can affect the entire federal government or only specific agencies, depending on which appropriations bills have or have not been enacted.
- Full shutdown
- No annual appropriations bills have been enacted for the fiscal year, and no continuing resolution is in place, affecting essentially the entire government.
- Partial shutdown
- Some appropriations bills have been enacted for certain agencies, while others remain unfunded, affecting only the departments covered by the unfunded bills.
What it is often confused with
A government shutdown is a specific consequence of a funding lapse, distinct from a debt ceiling crisis, which concerns the government's authority to borrow to pay obligations it has already incurred, a related but separate mechanism.
Criticisms and debates
Criticism of government shutdowns centers on their use as a negotiating tactic and their economic and administrative costs.
Negotiating-leverage critique
Argues that using a shutdown, or the threat of one, as leverage in unrelated policy negotiations imposes real costs on furloughed workers and disrupted public services to gain bargaining advantage on separate issues.
Response: Some who have used this leverage argue that a shutdown threat is one of the few tools available to force action on a priority that would otherwise be ignored in ordinary negotiations.
Economic-cost critique
Points to studies estimating measurable economic costs from lost economic output and delayed services during extended shutdowns.
Response: Defenders of using shutdown deadlines as leverage argue that the underlying policy dispute, not the shutdown mechanism itself, is the source of any resulting cost.
Historical examples
- 2018 to 2019 shutdown
- The longest shutdown in United States history at the time, lasting 35 days, centered on a dispute over border wall funding.
Sources
- 1.Antideficiency Act, United States Code Title 31.
- 2.Congressional Research Service. Shutdown of the Federal Government: Causes, Processes, and Effects.
- 3.Encyclopaedia Britannica. Government shutdown.