EFFECTS OF US GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

Jan 23, 2018 Editorial

Last Friday, the federal government in the United States was shut down. Large swaths of federal employees could not report for work, only essential workers. Many who were required to work had to do so without pay.
There was another vote yesterday at (13:00 hours Guyana Standard Time) to re-open the government. U.S. senators voted to reopen the federal government until February 8, thus ending a three-day standoff between Democrats and President Donald Trump’s Republicans over immigration and border security
But in the wake of the closure, all federal buildings are closed thus depriving millions of Americans and non-Americans of federal services, including visa service. Although the US House of Representatives approved an appropriations Bill to keep the government from shutting down, the Senate failed to pass it.
Sixty votes are needed in the 100-seat Senate to prevent a shutdown which means that the Republicans would need at least nine Democrats’ votes. But President Trump’s recent announcement to scrap the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) has angered a few Republican senators and several Democrats who voted in favour of the shutdown. DACA is a federal government programme created in 2012 by Barack Obama to allow children brought to the US illegally the right to live, study and work in America, temporarily.
In the US, a government shutdown is a recent manifestation, but its frequency should not surprise anyone. Under the separation of powers created by the US Constitution, the US Congress has the sole power of the purse which is the Appropriations funds. Appropriations Bills would start in the House of Representatives and then proceed to the Senate for approval. Passage of a final version of the Bill must be either signed or vetoed by the President.
If the former occurs, the Bill becomes a law. In the case of the latter, the Bill would go back to Congress, where the veto can be overridden by a two-thirds vote.
Government shutdowns occur when the President and one or both of the chambers of Congress are unable to resolve disagreements over budget allocations before the existing budget cycle ends.
It happens when Congress and the President fail to pass appropriations legislation to fund the federal government operations and agencies. The result is the furlough of non-essential federal personnel and curtailment of federal agency activities and services.
Since 1976, when the current budget and appropriations process was enacted, there have been eight shutdown of the federal government. Prior to 1990, Government shutdowns were rare, but since 1990 the shutting down of the government has been frequent. Shutdowns have also occurred at the state/territorial and local levels of government in the US.
During the eight years of President Reagan administration, there were three shutdowns of the federal government lasting one day or less. In 1990, a funding gap during the George H.W Bush administration caused a weekend shutdown. However, the worst federal government shutdown took place during the Bill Clinton Administration.
In 1995 and 1996, there were two full scale government shutdowns that lasted for five and 21 days respectively, based on the disagreement on whether to cut Government services. Another long shut down also occurred during the Barack Obama administration between October 1 and October16. The primary dispute was the Republicans’ desire to delay or defund the Patient Protection and Affordable Care ACT known as Obamacare.
The Saturday January 20, 2018 shut down of the US government under the Donald Trump administration is the eighth.
Government shutdowns have the effect of disrupting government services and increasing the cost of the government due to lost labour. Various estimates showed that the 2013 October shutdown of the government took $24 billion out of the economy, and shaved at least 0.6 percent off annualised fourth-quarter 2013 GDP growth.

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