America is on the brink of a government shutdown. And without a surprise last-minute deal, the question becomes how long it will last – and how much damage it will cause.
Democrats have so far refused to accept a short-term deal to keep the government open at current funding levels through mid-November, and Republicans have refused to negotiate on Democrats’ demands to restore health care-related funding. President Donald Trump and congressional leaders from both parties have agreed to meet at the White House on Monday, but unless they can come to terms, the government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.
And while previous shutdowns meant temporary furloughs, or work suspensions, for federal workers not deemed essential by the president, this fight could have longer-lasting consequences. The Trump administration is threatening to use it to fire significant numbers of employees, achieving their own policy goals while inflicting the maximal amount of pain for Democrats.
Why We Wrote This
President Donald Trump and congressional leaders have agreed to meet on Monday. If they don’t reach a deal, the administration says it will use the shutdown to fire significant numbers of federal employees.
The White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memo last week directing agencies to make plans for mass firings in the event of a shutdown, targeting employees whose programs aren’t mandated by law and aren’t “consistent with the president’s priorities.” Even after the shutdown ends, the memo says, agencies should keep only “the minimal number of employees necessary to carry out statutory functions,” raising the possibility of deep, permanent cuts to federal programs.
That has put Senate Democratic leaders in a bind. Their voters were furious when they allowed Republicans to keep the government open in March, and are now spoiling for a fight. But now, as then, it appears those leaders have little leverage, no clear endgame, and risk serious political and real-world consequences.
“Democrats need to walk into this government funding fight eyes wide open, because on its face this looks like a trap with no clear exit strategy,” says Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist and former senior Senate leadership staffer.
So far, Senate Democrats have refused to back down, saying that the Trump administration’s threatened firings are no different than earlier waves of mass government layoffs from this administration.
“They’re doing it anyway. There’s [currently] no shutdown. They’re laying off all these people,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They’re trying to intimidate the American people, and us.””
Part of the core tension for Democrats, they say, is that they can’t trust the Trump administration to honor any agreement. The president and his team have repeatedly gutted programs and fired workers authorized under previous bipartisan appropriations agreements. Just as this round of negotiations heated up, the administration cut nearly $4 billion more in foreign aid in a way that made sure Congress wouldn’t get a vote on it. The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that these cuts could proceed, further frustrating congressional Democrats who say the administration is usurping Congress’ constitutionally defined power of the purse with help from a conservative Supreme Court.
Republicans appear happy to let a shutdown happen if Democrats don’t agree to a short-term deal, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, to fund the government at current levels through Nov. 21. The measure passed the House but needs 60 votes to get through the Senate, requiring Democratic support.
“It’s up to them,” Mr. Trump said on Friday, about the Democrats. “If it has to be shut down, it’ll have to be shut down. But they’re the ones that are shutting it down.”
Monday’s meeting is a glimmer of hope after the president canceled planned discussions last week.
On “Meet the Press,” Senator Schumer described the scheduled meeting as a “first step, but only a first step,” while saying only a “serious negotiation” could prevent a shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota countered in a Sunday statement that, while he welcomed the meeting, “nothing has changed” about Republicans’ position. “The choice remains the same: Democrats can either vote for a clean, short-term, nonpartisan CR that prioritizes the American people, or they can choose a completely avoidable shutdown that prioritizes politics above all else,” he said.
Programs the Trump administration is likely to exempt from a shutdown include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, border security, military operations, veterans benefits, and air-traffic control. National parks could close, food-stamp programs could be affected, and departments including the Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration are likely to see widespread furloughs.
Federal workers deemed essential and forced to work through a shutdown for free have eventually received back pay after previous shutdowns – but it’s unclear whether the Trump administration will support that this time.
Historically, things have not gone well for the party seen as instigating the shutdown. At this point, polls suggest that slightly more Americans would blame Republicans if a shutdown occurs – but most people haven’t tuned in.
A YouGov poll released on Thursday found that 37% of U.S. adults would blame either President Trump or Republicans in Congress if the government shuts down – compared with 25% who would blame Democrats and 26% who would blame both parties equally. A mid-September Verasight poll found that if Democrats vote against a funding bill after Republicans refuse to restore health-care funding, more Americans would still blame Republicans (35%) than Democrats (24%), with 32% blaming both.
Shutdowns have become increasingly common in recent years, even though the party that has triggered them has almost never been able to extract policy concessions. But the impacts for the party that is blamed have increasingly proved fleeting.
When Republicans forced a series of shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 – the first time in the modern era that a shutdown was pushed for political reasons – they paid a price at the ballot box, as President Bill Clinton was reelected even after his poll numbers had cratered.
The 16-day government shutdown House Republicans forced in October 2013 over Obamacare earned them nothing and might have contributed to the party’s gubernatorial loss in Virginia the next month. But one year later, Republicans romped in the midterms.
Democrats forced a three-day shutdown during Mr. Trump’s first term in early 2018 on immigration issues, but quickly folded after then-Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia threatened to retire if they didn’t back down. It had no effect on the party’s strong performance in the 2018 midterm elections.
Shortly after that, Mr. Trump forced a 35-day government shutdown in late 2018 and early 2019, the longest in U.S. history, to try to force Democrats to fund a border wall. He got nothing for it, and his poll numbers briefly dipped, but the political fallout quickly faded.
This year, Democrats are leading in contested gubernatorial races with elections in November in Virginia and New Jersey. Particularly in Virginia, home to many federal workers, a shutdown carries risk. And even if it has little impact on next year’s midterms, that might be cold comfort for Democrats if the Trump administration uses the moment as an opportunity to further slash the federal workforce.
Republican strategist Doug Heye was working for a member of House GOP leadership in 2013 when Republican leaders reluctantly backed a push from rank-and-file members and forced a shutdown, only to relent two weeks later.
He sees Democrats doing the same thing now – seeking a fight to placate their base without a realistic objective. It’s like a soccer player scoring an own-goal “and talking about how hard he kicked the ball,” Mr. Heye says.
And a president who has sought since Day 1 to expand his own powers while slashing the federal government is likely to exert as much pressure as possible in this situation, he adds.
“The potential for a long [shutdown] is very real,” says Mr. Heye. “It’s a situation that gives the executive branch more power, so why would Trump not want that?”
