ORL Policy Statement on Government Shutdowns

The Issue. Closing the U.S. Government even temporarily due to the inability of the Congress and Administration to adequately fund the federal government during any given time period is bad public policy and fiscally irresponsible. At their core, government shutdowns also represent a failure of our democracy to perform as intended and demonstrate a dysfunction that threatens our government’s legitimacy to beneficiaries, creditors, allies, and most importantly to taxpaying citizens. What are we paying for if not a competent, functioning government?

Government shutdowns lead not only to needless anxiety among beneficiaries of government services and the federal workforce – civilian and military – but also to greater uncertainty for all Americans and companies doing business here. Shutdowns also create uncertainty for our economy and avoidable chaos in financial markets, which in turn can threaten the U.S. sovereign debt rating. Necessary services only the government can provide such as air transportation or federal law enforcement to fight cybercrime and foreign terrorists will be negatively impacted by fewer, stressed, temporarily unpaid employees. Both emergency and national defense preparedness suffer unnecessarily when government offices are downsized or shuttered even temporarily.

There have been more than twenty government shutdowns in the past five decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations. The longest, in 2018-2019 during President Trump’s first term, lasted more than a month. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Congress’s nonpartisan budget watchdog, that 2019 shutdown cost our economy $3 billion. An estimated $18 billion in delayed federal discretionary spending disrupted services and compensation to federal employees during this last shutdown. CBO also reported that private-sector enterprises lost business and would never recoup that lost income.

ORL Policy Position. ORL opposes government shutdowns because they are bad public policy, avoidable if both the Congress and the Administration are doing their respective jobs, and fiscally irresponsible for a government that already is too highly leveraged with record national debt. Even if only for a few days or weeks, government shutdowns weaken our government unnecessarily and dangerously.  They represent a direct threat to our democracy when the government is fiscally and operationally handicapped, not fully functioning, or unable to provide needed services including for our emergency preparedness for natural disasters, homeland security, and national defense at an unprecedented time of heightened tensions and geopolitical risk around the world.

Actions required. In keeping with our basic founding principle on fiscal responsibility, ORL recommends that the Congress and Administration stop all performative legislative actions, which only waste time and scarce resources. Instead, they need to focus on truly critical public policy issues such as adequately funding the federal government and providing for our national defense without interruption. Their collective failure to work together to fund our government on a sustaining and sustainable basis is avoidable and must stop. Stopping senseless shutdowns will enable the federal government to provide greater certainty to our budget planning and appropriations process for the ultimate benefit of taxpayers and the real economy.

Specifically, Congress and the Administration need to work in a bipartisan manner to execute the normal budget and appropriations process as provided for in current law. Budgets submitted by the Executive branch to Congress must be fiscally responsible and delivered on time for legislative consideration. Congress must hold the necessary hearings and markup budget and appropriations legislation on time under regular order to meet a predetermined and agreed budget and appropriations schedule.

Government shutdowns delay needed action and must be avoided in the future at all costs to avoid unnecessary economic harm and needless interruption in vital government services to federal beneficiaries, employees, contractors and businesses, and others.

Previously, in our policy statement on fiscal responsibility Our Republican Legacy has taken the position that Congress and the Administration also need to develop a bipartisan fiscal responsibility framework to reduce our national debt and fiscal deficits as a percentage of our national GDP to a sustainable level over time.