Senate action is uncertain, however, due to the lack of needed Republican support for raising the debt limit under regular Senate rules as well as specific funding disagreements, including appropriations for the Iron Dome missile defense system in Israel.
For more about the status of specific appropriations bills, see Appropriations Watch: FY A continuing resolution temporarily funds the government in the absence of full appropriations bills, often by continuing funding levels from the prior year.
Traditionally, CRs have been used to give lawmakers a short period of time to complete their work on remaining appropriations bills while keeping the government open. CRs sometimes apply to only a few categories of spending, but they can also be used to fund all discretionary functions and can be used for an entire year. Even when overall funding levels have differed, lawmakers have often simply scaled up all accounts by a percent change in spending rather than making individual decisions on spending accounts.
Congress frequently passes CRs when lawmakers are unable to agree on appropriations before a deadline, and occasionally multiple CRs are necessary to fund the government for an entire fiscal year. Congress also sometimes relies on CRs during presidential transition years. In FY , for example, a series of intense congressional negotiations leading up to the election led to a series of 10 one-day CRs. In total, Congress funded the first three months of that fiscal year with 21 continuing resolutions.
In fiscal years , , , , , and , CRs were used to fund the government for roughly a quarter of each year. FY funding negotiations necessitated three CRs before the passage of an omnibus appropriations bill in May , and FY negotiations required five CRs before the passage of an omnibus in March In FY , a CR was used for seven of the 12 appropriations bills for more than one-third of the year before the enactment of an omnibus in February , while the remaining five appropriations bills were funded before the fiscal year began.
The most recent year when a full-year appropriations bill passed before the fiscal year began and no CRs were necessary was FY Finally, the use of continuing resolutions disrupts activities within agencies, makes it difficult to plan or start future projects, and costs staff time to revise work plans every time the budget changes.
Although Congress has not yet enacted any appropriations bills as of mid-September, the House has passed nine out of 12 appropriations bills. The full Senate has not yet taken any action on appropriations for FY , despite the Senate Appropriations Committee reporting out three of its bills.
The House and Senate would have to agree on and pass the same versions of the bills before they are presented to the President for his signature. Congress is expected to consider a continuing resolution that would extend funding, largely at current levels, to allow more time to complete appropriations.
In a shutdown, the federal government temporarily stops paying employees and contractors who perform government services, whereas in a default the list of parties not paid is much broader. In a default, the government exceeds the statutory debt limit and is unable to pay some of its creditors or other obligations.
While a government shutdown would be disruptive, a government default could be disastrous. A government shutdown closes down non-essential government operations due to a lack of funding, whereas a sequester or sequestration is shorthand for the reductions in discretionary spending caps that were in place up until the most recent fiscal year that constrained the total amount of funding for annually appropriated programs.
The most recent version of sequestration, a product of the Budget Control Act BCA of , resolved the debt ceiling negotiations. The failure of the Super Committee triggered sequestration, causing discretionary spending caps to be automatically lowered for both defense and non-defense. Congress has never allowed the full sequester to take effect, passing partial sequester relief in and , and more than fully reversing the sequester in and If appropriations bills violated the increased spending caps, then across-the-board cuts would have been triggered.
What is a government shutdown? What services are affected in a shutdown and how? Is the government preparing for a shutdown? How would federal employees be affected? How and why do mandatory programs continue during a shutdown? How many times has the government shut down? Does a government shutdown save money? To get the best possible experience please use the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Microsoft Edge to view this website.
Today, Congress approved extending funding for the federal government through Dec. The extension comes just hours before current funding was set to run out.
That means the federal government, and nonessential services, can stay open. Millions of federal workers will continue to be able to show up for their jobs and receive paychecks. But how lawmakers will handle government funding at the end of the year remains unknown. When a government shutdown occurs, nonessential federal services stop until new funding legislation is passed and signed into law.
Each federal agency has its own shutdown plan, which indicates if its activities can continue during the shutdown—and if it has to furlough its employees. However, many services would suffer negative consequences that would be passed on to ordinary Americans. Here are four of the biggest. It would also have difficulty answering taxpayer questions and resolving compliance issues quickly. During a press conference on Wednesday, however, Press Secretary Jen Psaki made a point to tell reporters that the IRS would be expected to continuing processing tax refunds and child tax credits, should a shutdown occur and IRS employees became furloughed.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program SNAP , commonly referred to as food stamps, has been a critical lifeline for families struggling with the economic consequences of the pandemic. According to the CRFB, past continuing resolutions have only authorized the benefits to be sent out for 30 days after a shutdown begins. Should a shutdown go on longer than that, families that already have limited means could be forced to slash their grocery budgets.
But new applications or claims for federal benefits, such as Social Security or Veterans Affairs payments, would not be processed during a government shutdown, potentially leading to a delay in receiving first payments. National parks have proven to be a very popular refuge during the pandemic— parks like Yellowstone set monthly visitation records in During the government shutdown of , more than parks, national monuments and other sites were closed.
However, during the shutdown, many remained open, just with no visitor services or maintenance. The longest government shutdown in history, which lasted for 35 days, occurred between and An estimated , federal workers and 1. She explained that the vast majority of federal employees work and live outside of Washington, D.
The work they perform ranges from protecting waterways and ensuring food safety to investigating crime. Read more: Who are the federal workers affected by the shutdown? One short-term consequence of not paying so many people is that it provides a short-term brake on consumer spending, according to Scott Baker, a professor of finance at Northwestern University.
For households with a member furloughed in the shutdown, the drop in consumer spending almost doubled. This is a problem not just for federal employees and their families. As Baker explains, it has a ripple effect on local businesses. One area of particular concerns is restaurants. When people tighten their purse strings, eating out is one of the first things to go.
Given the challenging times the restaurant trade has had during the pandemic, any additional disruption would come as a further blow. Read more: What's the economic impact of a government shutdown?
This manifested in a number of ways during the shutdown.
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