Government Shutdown: Causes, And The Effects Of A Government Shutdown

The Effects of a Government Shutdown
Government shutdowns have been around for what seems like a long time but really, quite hasn’t been. They can come in many different lengths and severities. In this paper I will be researching the causes, effects, and the processes uses to resolve a government shutdown.
Causes of a government shutdown may vary slightly but every previous shutdown have been caused by a spending bill or funding issue (Matthews). However, for the most part main causes of shutdowns are quite balanced between a presidents refusing to sign a bill or vetoing a bill and congress failing to approve a budget to propose to the president to sign (Longley). Simply a government shutdown is a result because:
The U.S. Constitution requires

In most cases severity of the shutdown is reflecting by how long it lasts. The longest shutdown in history stands at 21 days versus the shortest in history lasting only 9 hours (Earl). One of the biggest effects of a federal shutdown is the lack of pay to those non-essential federal workers that are sent home without pay during the shutdown (Government). However, the longer the shutdown lasts “the more likely its impact will be felt” (Government). This meaning that the longer the federal shutdown lasts, the more federal workers will be sent home and put without a paycheck for until the problem is resolved. A big reason why the length of the shutdown has a big impact on the severity of the shutdown itself. Not only does this hurt the federal workers without a job and without pay, but this also affects the USA as a whole. This is because the federal workers that are being sent home are in agencies that are assisting many every day situation for common people. However, not all agencies are shutdown, the main essential ones that are often times relied on continue to operate as long as the funding lasts under shutdown operations. As an example of the severity of a shutdown right after occurrence would be that almost 45,000 IRS workers are sent home without pay in order to ration remaining funds of the government (Government). That is only a piece of the hundreds of thousands of federal workers in many different agencies

Congress continually attends meetings until a federal budget bill is created. However, if the bill is taking a longer time than expected, congress will then propose a “continuing resolution” (Q&A). Although continuing resolutions are not terminating the government shutdown or the chances of another, they do give congress a short period of time to continue working on an appropriation bill to propose to the president (Q&A). This is a big help to avoid many shutdowns from happening. In extreme cases, a continuing resolution can be used for up to a year if needed. Congress continues to work towards a new appropriation budget as long as the resolution is in place in order to set a new budget for the new fiscal