Shutdown… Huh?

 

Shutdown… Huh?

“[It] shall not be lawful for any department of the government to expend in any one fiscal year any sum in excess of appropriations made by Congress for that fiscal year, or to involve the government in any contract for the future payment of money in excess of such appropriations.” 

Excerpt from the Antideficiency Act of 1870

Donald Trump, who is openly mulling about defying the Constitution to seek a third term, seems to be enjoying his self-granted power to eliminate “Democrat” leaning issues and agencies during the budgetary stalemate/shutdown. Despite plenty of statutory support for restoring and compensating furloughed (and then “fired”) federal workers, Trump and his lacky-cabinet is still threatening, firing and pursuing Trump policy of “I am your retribution” against both named opponents and the Democratic Party in general. Trump is proud of his declared support for red states and his supporters, excluding the rest. However, to get that 60-vote Senate threshold to end the shutdown requires Democrats to participate in support of the GOP extension bill.

Trump happy to use the shutdown to maximize his anti-Democrat goals. For example, as he tried to unwind the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) entirely, he apparently is quite willing to reopen the door for red states seeking disaster relief, specifically “Alaska, Nebraska, and North Dakota, but he denied it to others seemingly along party lines… In multiple posts to Truth Social over the course of the week announcing the aid, Trump boasted that he had ‘won BIG’ in Alaska and was honored to extend federal financial assistance to the ‘incredible Patriots’ of Missouri… Meanwhile, three states that recently voted blue received nothing: Vermont, Illinois, and Maryland.” Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, writing for October 24th The New Republic.

As SNAP (food assistance) benefits were shutting down, as income-based subsidies for healthcare premiums under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) were expiring and as cuts to Medicaid were beginning to roll out – all to accommodate the massive tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the mega-rich contained in the self-described “Big Beautiful Bill” – Democrats realized that the “Continuing Resolution” (CR) to extend the budget for a few months just might be the only leverage they had in a government where the three branches of government – executive, legislative and judicial – were controlled by Donald Trump or his loyal appointees and followers.

The Senate Majority Leader, John Thune (R/SD), pledged to allow the full Congress to consider the Democrat’s desire to cover these healthcare issues only after their Senators approved the continuing resolution. Yet too many GOP members of Congress went out of their way to vent their longstanding desire to do away with the ACA entirely and further to trim all of other benefits Democrats supported in favor of the lower half of the economic ladder. Democrats were not willing to lose that momentary bargaining chip to hand Republicans a total victory.

When the CR was drafted, Democrats were completely excluded from the process. Donald Trump left the country in late October to deal with his quest to get a Nobel Peace Prize and wheel and deal over this tariff power; he seemed to have no interest in accommodating any request from Democrats. Even as the GOP’s stand on healthcare was blamed by the majority of voters polled, Trump seem confident that his gerrymandering request, voter monitors in California and his well-situated administration, now filled with election deniers, could resist any voter anger at upcoming elections. The House was in recess, so there were no Representatives in Washington who could even vote for a compromise if one were on the House floor. The Senate quite openly stated that without Trump’s say-so, they would simply keep voting to approve the existing CR, believing that the Democrats in the Senate would, sooner or later, cave.

But what seems to be an inane congressional practice, after having passed legislation that was signed into law making very specific dollar allocations, a Carter-era interpretation of the archaic Antideficiency Act of 1870 seem to give lawmakers a second vote on allocations that had already been approved. This practice, virtually unknown in the rest of the world where legislation once passed remains in effect with all the financial provisions intact, is profoundly confusing, as Stephen Groves, writing for the October 27th Associated Press, describes how this happened:

“The modern phenomena of the U.S. government closing down services began in 1980 with a series of legal opinions from Atty. Gen. Benjamin Civiletti, who was serving under Democratic President Carter. Civiletti reached into the Antideficiency Act of 1870 to argue that the law was ‘plain and unambiguous’ in restricting the government from spending money once authority from Congress expires.

“In this shutdown, however, Trump has used the funding lapse to punish Democrats, as he tried to lay off thousands of federal workers and seized on the vacuum left by Congress to reconfigure the federal budget for his priorities… ‘I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,’ the Republican president posted on his social media platform at the outset of the shutdown… Democrats have only dug into their positions… It’s all making this fight that much harder to resolve and potentially redefining how Washington will approach funding lapses to come…

“In the post-Watergate years, Civiletti’s tenure at the Department of Justice was defined by an effort to restore public trust in Washington, sometimes with strict interpretations of federal law… When a conflict between Congress and the Federal Trade Commission led to a delay in funding legislation for the agency, Civiletti issued his opinion, following it up with another that allowed the government to perform essential services. He did not know that it would set the groundwork for some of the most defining political battles to come… ‘I couldn’t have ever imagined these shutdowns would last this long of a time and would be used as a political gambit,’ Civiletti, who died in 2022, told the Washington Post six years ago…

“For the next 15 years, there were no lengthy government shutdowns. In 1994, Republicans retook Congress under House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and pledged to overhaul Washington. Their most dramatic standoffs with Democratic President Clinton were over government shutdowns… Historians mostly agree the shutdowns did not work, and Clinton was able to win reelection in part by showing he stood up to Gingrich.”

Trump and friends, playing favorites, picked the federal workers who would be paid, eventually, and who would not (in violation of the law). Trump, consumed with his questionable tearing down the East Wing to accommodate a Versailles-like ballroom, accepted a private donation to fund some military compensation as well as other seeming violations of the Hatch Act (aimed at preventing the use of government facilities and funds for partisan purposes) were everywhere: airport and online government messaging blaming the Democrats for the shutdown.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while virtually all Americans agree that this system of governance does not work, the “my way or the highway and the Constitution be damned” schism that so divides this nation bars any realistic solution in the foreseeable future.