The Work of Government Shutdowns

Preliminary notes on the Big Beautiful 2025 Government Shutdown and the ongoing weaponization of bureaucratic paralysis

“Our real worry is that they might open it back up.” — my father, 1995

The federal government officially shut down at 12:01 a.m. EDT on October 1, 2025, after Congress failed to pass new appropriations or a continuing resolution for Fiscal Year 2026. What began as another partisan slapfight over spending priorities rapidly escalated into something more consequential. Vice President JD Vance told reporters that the federal government would begin laying off workers if the shutdown continues, echoing President Trump’s statement that “you have to do layoffs” in the event of a shutdown.

The immediate trigger appeared straightforward enough. Democrats refused to support a funding bill unless Republicans agreed to reverse deep cuts to Medicaid and extend Affordable Care Act subsidies, with the Congressional Budget Office estimating that 4 million people could lose coverage next year if subsidies lapse, with an additional 10 million becoming uninsured by 2034. Republicans countered that Democrats were holding the government hostage over “unrelated policy demands.” The Democratic plan which would have restored $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts passed into law this summer on top of a permanent extension of the Obamacare subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, went down along party lines, 47-53. Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV)and lurch-like John “Fettermania” Fetterman (D-PA) along with finely-mustachioed independent Sen. Angus King (Mustache-ME), who caucuses with Democrats, voted for the Republican plan that would have extended funding for seven weeks, but it failed on a 55-45 vote.

But this shutdown differs from its predecessors in alarming ways. The White House moved to pause or cancel billions of dollars in funding meant for blue states on the first day of the shutdown, including $18 billion in infrastructure projects in New York and $8 billion in climate-related projects in 16 states that voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. OMB head Russell Vought declared on X that the Trump administration was freezing various NYC initiatives to “ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.”

The operational impacts have already spread rapidly across government agencies. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will not issue any economic reports, including the closely watched monthly jobs report on October 3, during the shutdown. The Department of Education warned that information on its website “may not be maintained, and inquiries may not receive a response” while the government remains unfunded. States across the country have been scrambling to keep their national parks or monuments open to the millions of visitors that frequent them.

The Securities and Exchange Commission furloughed more than 90 percent of staff while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is operating with approximately 6 percent. Initial public offerings and some exchange-traded fund approvals pause. The Department of Education furloughed about 87 percent of employees, though Pell Grant and FAFSA processing continues. Federal courts can operate through October 17 on non-appropriated funds, then shift to “excepted” operations if needed.

White House estimates peg losses at $15 billion in GDP per week if the shutdown persists, though the Congressional Budget Office suggests the immediate economic impact might remain limited if the shutdown stays brief.

How One Lawyer Created a Powerful Political Cudgel

The story of how America arrived at this point begins not with political brinkmanship but with legal interpretation. In 1980, Benjamin Civiletti invented the government shutdown. Civiletti, a Johns Hopkins and Maryland-Baltimore Law School graduate who died in 2022, certainly didn’t intend to. As Jimmy Carter’s attorney general, Civiletti was merely asked for a legal opinion parsing out what exactly the federal bureaucracy is supposed to do when Congress doesn’t pass a budget by deadline. The request came during a period of increasing budget dysfunction. In the four fiscal years from 1977 to 1980 — every year of the Carter presidency to that point — Congress had failed to pass a budget on time.

Remarkably, Civiletti determined that Carter’s request for a legal opinion on the matter “apparently represents the first instance in which this Department has been asked formally to address the problem as a matter of law.” For nearly two centuries, the federal government had muddled through funding gaps without dramatic shutdowns. Agencies would continue operating, assuming Congress would eventually appropriate the necessary funds.¹

In the course of legislative research, a staffer for Representative Gladys Spellman came across the Antideficiency Act provisions, and Spellman contacted Comptroller General Elmer Staats for an opinion. Staats responded that “we do not believe that the Congress intends that federal agencies be closed during periods of expired appropriations.”

But Civiletti saw things differently. On April 25, 1980, Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti overruled this, issuing an opinion that the Antideficiency Act did require agencies to shut down during a funding gap. His reasoning was precise and legalistic. Civiletti based his opinion in the Antideficiency Act of 1870, enacted by Congress to stop the then-routine practice of agencies intentionally overspending and secure in the knowledge that Congress would eventually have to pick up the tab.

Civiletti’s justification was clear enough: “During periods of ‘lapsed appropriations,’ no funds may be expended except as necessary to bring about the orderly termination of an agency’s functions, and that the obligation or expenditure of funds for any purpose not otherwise authorized by law would be a violation of the Antideficiency Act.”

Then Civiletti went further. The Justice Department, he said, intended to enforce the criminal provisions of the act against federal officials who continued running their agencies without funding. That meant fines of up to $5,000 and as much as two years in prison.

Wrote Civiletti, “On its face, the plain and unambiguous language of the Antideficiency Act prohibits an agency from incurring pay obligations once its authority to expend appropriations lapses.” The “legal authority for continued operations either exists or it does not.” And to those who argue that federal agency operations ought to carry on even without appropriated funds because Congress doesn’t mean for the government to shutdown, he responded thusly: “Faithful execution of the laws cannot rest on mere speculation that Congress does not want the Executive branch to carry out Congress’ unambiguous mandates.”

The consequences were immediate. On May 1, 1980, five days after the Civiletti opinion was issued, funding for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) expired, causing the first ever shutdown of a government agency due to a lapse in appropriations. Around 1,600 federal workers for the FTC were furloughed as a result, and Federal Marshals deployed to some FTC facilities to enforce their closure. The shutdown ended after one day when Carter threatened to close down the entire US government if Congress did not pass spending bills by October 1 later that year.

In the aftermath of the shutdown, Civiletti issued a revised edition of his original opinion on January 18, 1981, detailing that shutdowns would still require agencies that protect human safety or property to continue operating if funding for them expired. This second opinion refined which functions might legally continue during a lapse, establishing the framework for “excepted” versus “non-excepted” work that governs shutdowns to this day.

Civiletti’s opinions concluded that unless an activity fell under the narrow “life and property” exception, the Act legally required an agency to suspend operations upon a lapse in appropriations. This transformed the government shutdown from a minor administrative disruption into a mandatory, large-scale event with immediate and visible consequences.

The attorney general’s interpretation introduced several concepts that remain central to shutdown mechanics. He established that the only legitimate use for funds once a budget deadline passes is to facilitate an “orderly termination” — the reason federal employees get to go into work for a few hours to batten down the hatches on the first day of a shutdown. His second opinion carved out exemptions for constitutional “leeway to perform essential functions and make the government ‘workable,’” which is why air traffic controllers still go to work while most of NASA stays home.

Civiletti told the Washington Post in 2019: “I couldn’t have ever imagined these shutdowns would last this long of a time and would be used as a political gambit.” He said he was only offering “a purely direct opinion on a fairly narrow subject” that “has been used in ways that were not imagined at the time.”

“Our country survived the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II, all without anyone ever once shutting down the government,” lawyer and former Agriculture Department official Kenneth Ackerman wrote in 2019. By contrast, Civiletti’s legal interpretation, well-intentioned and arguably correct as to its finer points, spawned what would become one of the most destructive and newsworthy recurring features of American governance.

The Evolution of Shutdown Politics

The transformation of shutdowns from legal technicality to political weapon occurred gradually. Since FY1977, 20 funding gaps occurred, ranging in duration from 1 day to 34 full days (see the appendix, infra, for a full list). About half of these funding gaps were brief (i.e., three days or less in duration). But the nature of these events changed fundamentally after Civiletti’s opinions.

Prior to the issuance of the opinions in 1980 and early 1981 by Civiletti, while agencies tended to curtail some operations in response to a funding gap, they often “continued to operate during periods of expired funding.” The six lengthiest funding gaps before Civiletti’s opinions, lasting between 8 and 17 days, occurred between FY1977 and FY1980 without triggering government shutdowns in the modern sense.

The weaponization of the shutdown began in earnest during the mid-1990s. The 1995-96 confrontations between President Clinton and Speaker Newt Gingrich marked a turning point. These episodes, which consisted of a five-day shutdown followed by a 21-day shutdown, established the shutdown as a tool of partisan warfare and better-than-normal CNN ratings rather than merely an unfortunate consequence of legislative deadlock.

The pattern accelerated in the 21st century. The 2013 shutdown over the Affordable Care Act lasted 16 days. The 2018-19 shutdown over Trump’s request for border wall funding (among other “line-in-the-sand” approrpriations) stretched for 35 days, the longest in American history. Each episode normalized the use of government closure as a negotiating tactic, despite consistent evidence that shutdowns achieve minimal policy gains while inflicting substantial collateral damage.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the 2018-2019 shutdown reduced Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by a total of $11 billion. A 2019 Senate report found that the three government shutdowns in 2013, 2018, and 2019 wasted nearly $4 billion of taxpayer dollars. Not vast sums in the grand scheme of things, but the ramifications extend far beyond a billion here and a billion there (“pretty soon you’re talking about real money!”).

The Proliferation of Continuing Resolutions

Indeed, the dysfunction extends beyond shutdowns themselves to the broader appropriations process. Congress has enacted one or more continuing resolutions² in all but three fiscal years since FY1977. In total, 207 CRs were enacted into law during the period FY1977-FY2025, ranging from zero to 21 in any single fiscal year.

During the past 28 fiscal years, Congress used an interim CR to provide funding for an average of almost four months (118 days) before final appropriations action was taken for the fiscal year. The reliance on temporary funding measures has become so routine that passing actual appropriations bills on time has become the exception rather than the rule.

Lawmakers’ unhealthy dependence on CRs to fund the government on a short-term basis undermines the budget process and introduces uncertainty to government agencies. These stopgap measures typically continue funding at the prior year’s level without regard for changing policy needs or program effectiveness. They prevent agencies from starting new initiatives, force wasteful spending on obsolete programs, and consume countless hours of staff time revising work plans with each funding change.

The theoretical solution seems obvious: Congress should simply pass appropriations bills on time. The only times when Congress passed all appropriations bills by that deadline were for fiscal years 1977, 1989, 1995 and 1997. In nearly five decades, Congress has met its basic constitutional responsibility to fund the government on schedule exactly four times.

As our outdated and strained constitutional order ossifies (a necessary first step to some eventual break, one supposes), continuing resolutions become normalized. As continuing resolutions become normalized, the pressure to use shutdown threats as leverage increases. As shutdown threats increase, governance deteriorates further, making regular order even more difficult to restore. In any event, this produces a lot of compelling free media for the swamp’s lich-like grandees, and the best grandstanding grandees on the hill can alternate between making pleas for bipartisan cooperation and denouncing their partisan rivals as communists, fascists, insurrectionists, and the like.³

Credit Rating Agencies Sound the Alarm

The cumulative impact of this governance failure has not gone unnoticed by financial markets. Now, all three major rating agencies have lowered their ratings for U.S. debt, reflecting deep concern about the United States’ growing debt and deficits.

On August 5, 2011, following enactment of the Budget Control Act of 2011, S&P lowered the US’s sovereign long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+. The press release sent with the decision said the downgrade reflects the view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges.

In January 2019, Fitch Ratings warned that an extended 2018–19 United States federal government shutdown might lead to a downgrade in the U.S.’s Triple-A credit rating if lawmakers were unable to pass a budget or manage the debt ceiling. The warning proved prescient, with Fitch following through on its downgrade of the United States’s long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+ in 2023. Fitch described the key drivers of the rating downgrade as “the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to ‘AA’ and ‘AAA’ rated peers over the last two decades that has manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions.”

On May 16 of this year, Moody’s Ratings downgraded the U.S. credit rating from the top level of Aaa (negative) to Aa1 (stable). Moody’s continues to warn that “successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs.”

The downgrades explicitly link governance failures, including shutdowns, to creditworthiness concerns. Fitch’s and S&P’s stated concerns related to an erosion of governance and fiscal management by the U.S. government are explicitly and directly tied to the unwillingness of lawmakers and the administration to address the underlying problems with the fiscal state of the nation.

Each downgrade increases borrowing costs marginally, but the symbolic impact may matter more. Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan correctly noted how strange this is: “It’s ridiculous that other countries have higher credit ratings than the U.S. when they depend on the stability created by the U.S. and its military. To have them be triple-A and not America is kind of ridiculous.”

Shutdowns as Inefficient Bargaining Tools

The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that shutdowns fail as negotiating tactics while inflicting substantial collateral damage. They disrupt essential services, waste taxpayer money, damage economic confidence, and achieve minimal policy concessions.

Consider the pattern of recent shutdowns. The 2013 shutdown aimed to defund the Affordable Care Act; the law remained intact. The 2018-19 shutdown sought border wall funding; Congress eventually appropriated far less than demanded. The current 2025 shutdown centers on health care subsidies and Medicaid funding, with neither side showing signs of achieving their maximal demands.

Meanwhile, the operational chaos multiplies. Federal employees temporarily work without pay (they will receive back pay) or face furloughs. While the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 guarantees back pay for those employees, that provides little comfort to families struggling to pay inflated D.C. rent or buy inflation-wracked groceries during the shutdown itself. Contractors face even worse circumstances, with no guarantee of compensation for lost work.

The international implications extend far beyond unpaid PMCs and downgraded (albeit somewhat bogus to begin with) credit ratings. America’s numerous adversaries observe and exploit periods of government dysfunction. Wishy-washy allies question the reliability of a partner that regularly paralyzes itself. Trade negotiations stall. Military readiness, always already questionable, may degrade as training exercises cancel and maintenance delays accumulate.

The inefficiency extends to the shutdown process itself. Agencies spend countless hours preparing contingency plans, determining which employees are “excepted,” and implementing orderly shutdowns. When funding resumes, they reverse the entire process. The administrative burden alone costs millions in lost productivity.

The 2025 Escalation

The current shutdown represents a troubling escalation in several respects. White House budget director Russell Vought sent a memo telling the heads of agencies and departments to “execute their plans for an orderly shutdown.” But his earlier comments suggested something more radical. Vought said the government has the authority “to make permanent change to the bureaucracy,” such as cutting jobs and programs rather than just furloughing government workers.

President Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, said “we’ll probably have a shutdown,” and said he might use a funding lapse to make “irreversible” cuts to health care-related programs. Trump suggested Tuesday that his administration could take major actions during a shutdown, including cutting government benefits for “large numbers of people.”

The partisan targeting of blue states on day one of the shutdown marks another concerning precedent among many, though one that (like all the rest) can be expected to swing in the other direction if and when the party in charge of the executive branch changes.⁴ Using shutdown dynamics to punish political opponents transforms a governance failure into a tool of retribution. As standard operating procedure, this approach could further impair federal-state relations and the basic compact of American federalism, which, to be fair to the work of my various grad school mentors, has been strained almost ab initio.⁵

Failed Reform Attempts

Recognition of shutdown dysfunction has spawned numerous reform proposals, yet none have gained sufficient traction to become law. The most frequently proposed solution involves automatic continuing resolutions that would maintain government funding at previous levels if Congress fails to pass new appropriations.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) reintroduced a bill called the Government Shutdown Prevention Act. If enacted, the legislation would compel Congress to default to a continuing resolution if lawmakers cannot reach an agreement by any government spending deadline. Agency appropriations would start at 94% of the previous fiscal year’s budget, and reduce by 1% for every 90 days that lawmakers cannot reach an agreement.

Similar legislation from Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY), called the End Government Shutdowns Act, would also default to a continuing resolution in the absence of a government spending agreement. But under Barr’s bill, appropriations would start at 99% and decrease by 1% every 30 days until an agreement is reached.

A third bill attempting to avert future government shutdowns, the Eliminate Shutdowns Act, would automatically move appropriations to a 14-day continuing resolution in the absence of lawmakers reaching a spending agreement. Once those initial two weeks elapse, subsequent 14-day CRs would continue to take effect indefinitely. “Shutdowns are stupid, and everyone knows it,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD), one of the lawmakers who introduced the bill.

Yet these proposals face justifiable criticism. Automatic CR proposals would extend funding whenever Congress and the President fail to enact full-year or temporary funding for a fiscal year. But as painful as shutdowns are, automatic CRs could cause the longer-term unraveling of the annual appropriations process and inflict damage that, while less dramatic than a shutdown, could have more significant long-term negative consequences.

If automatic CRs become the norm for significant parts of the federal government, funding is likely to become less adequate and less efficiently allocated over time. Programs would freeze in place regardless of changing needs. Obsolete initiatives would continue indefinitely while emerging priorities would lack funding. The appropriations process, already dysfunctional, might atrophy entirely.

Alternative Reform Approaches

If automatic continuing resolutions prove problematic, what alternatives exist? Several approaches merit consideration, though each faces political obstacles.

First, Congress could restore regular order to the budget process through internal reforms. This would require both parties to commit to passing appropriations bills through regular committee processes, avoiding poison pill amendments, and meeting fiscal deadlines. The Budget Act of 1974 established a framework for orderly budget consideration; Congress simply needs the discipline to follow it.

Second, Congress could establish genuine consequences for failing to pass appropriations on time. Some proposals would dock congressional pay during shutdowns, though the 27th Amendment⁶ complicates this approach. Others would prohibit Congress from recessing until appropriations pass. Still others would automatically trigger across-the-board spending cuts if deadlines are missed, creating incentives for timely action.

Third, Congress could adopt biennial budgeting, passing two-year appropriations in odd-numbered years to reduce the frequency of shutdowns and allow legislators to focus on their reelection campaigns during even-numbered years. While this would not eliminate shutdown risks entirely, it would cut them in half and provide agencies with greater funding predictability. It might also keep many of the dug-in-like-deer-tick swamp creatures in both parties out of D.C. for longer periods.

Fourth, Congress could narrow the scope of potential shutdowns by moving more government functions outside the annual appropriations process. Programs could be funded through mandatory spending authorizations, removing them from shutdown dynamics. This approach has obvious drawbacks, such as reducing congressional oversight and fiscal flexibility, but might be preferable to recurring shutdowns for essential services.

Fifth, and perhaps most radically, Congress could simply repeal or modify the Antideficiency Act provisions that trigger shutdowns. The act serves important purposes in preventing unauthorized spending, but the shutdown mechanism itself is not constitutionally required. Congress could maintain spending controls while eliminating the automatic shutdown trigger.

The political economy of shutdown reform poses the fundamental challenge. Legislators who benefit from shutdown leverage resist reforms that would eliminate that leverage. Members who oppose the governing party’s agenda can use shutdown threats to extract concessions they could not otherwise achieve. Party leaders can use shutdown deadlines to force difficult votes and maintain caucus discipline.

Moreover, the public’s role remains ambiguous. While polls consistently show overwhelming opposition to shutdowns, voters rarely punish legislators for causing them. The political price for shutdown brinksmanship remains too low (largely because blame in such a deliberately gridlocked system is too diffuse) to incentivize reform. Until voters consistently hold shutdown instigators accountable, which they likely and understandably lack the information (and attention spans) to do, the cycle will continue.

A Path Forward

Breaking the shutdown cycle requires acknowledging certain hard truths about American governance. The current system incentivizes dysfunction, rewards brinksmanship, and punishes compromise. Ex-AG Civiletti’s legal interpretation, combined with deepening polarization, has created a perfect storm of governmental paralysis.

Reform must begin with some sort of interest-convergence consensus among various elites that shutdowns represent governance failure, not clever negotiation. Political leaders must stop treating government closure as an acceptable tactic and start viewing it as a dereliction of duty. This cultural shift must precede any statutory reforms.

Next, Congress should adopt a package of reforms that make shutdowns both less likely and less damaging. This could include automatic continuing resolutions with declining funding levels, restrictions on congressional pay and travel during shutdowns, and expedited procedures for considering appropriations bills. No single reform will solve the problem, but a comprehensive package could significantly reduce shutdown frequency and severity.

The executive branch also needs significant reform, though scrapping it and the rest of the 1789-and-late federal constitution for some sort of wonky unitary system is out of the question⁷ and likely wouldn’t be much better anyway in a country this large and divided. If nothing else, the Office of Management and Budget should standardize shutdown procedures across agencies, ensuring consistent application of “excepted” designations. The Department of Justice should clarify the legal boundaries of executive action during shutdowns, preventing their use for partisan purposes.

Finally, we must discover some bipartisan or non-partisan method of helping voters hold legislators accountable. Shutdown instigators should face primary challenges. Party leaders who enable brinksmanship should lose their positions. Voters should get the information they need to reward legislators who work across party lines to keep government functioning, even when they disagree on policy specifics.⁸

Breaking this cycle demands a fundamental recommitment to governance over gamesmanship, to institutional stability over short-term tactical advantage. Until America’s political class makes that commitment, which my gut tells me they would not agree to even in exchange for a lifetime supply of all the AI deepfake pornography soon to appear on that hot new Sora 2 app, the shutdowns will continue. Each one will further normalize dysfunction and accelerate the erosion of governmental capacity.

The question is not whether America can afford more shutdowns, because clearly it cannot. The coal mine’s canary has croaked, the owl of Minerva has taken flight, and the hour of the time is upon us. The question is whether what’s left of the political system retains sufficient health to diagnose and cure its own dysfunction.

This current shutdown, with its partisan targeting and escalatory rhetoric, suggests that cure remains distant and might even be worse than the disease. But recognition of the disease nevertheless marks an essential first step toward recovery. This shutdown will end, but more importantly for the sake of humanzees like us and our doomed posterity, the conditions that enable shutdowns must end. America’s future as a fractious yet still-functional democratic republic may well depend on this. This, and so very, very, very much else. C’est la vie!

Law Review Articles and Legal Scholarship

Constitutional and Separation of Powers Analysis

Subordination and Separation of Powers
Yale Law Journal, 2025
Available at Yale Law Journal
This article examines how separation-of-powers tools such as the “power of the purse” impose skewed costs on marginalized groups during government shutdowns and proposes incorporating antisubordination principles into separation-of-powers analysis.

Determining Rights
Jud Campbell, Harvard Law Review, Vol. 138, No. 4, February 2025
Available at Harvard Law Review
Explores Founding-era views about constitutional rights and how those rights obtained determinate legal content, with implications for understanding Congress’s power of the purse.

The President’s Power of the Purse
J. Gregory Sidak, Duke Law Journal, Vol. 38, No. 5, pp. 1162-1253 (1989)
Available at Duke Law Scholarship Repository
A foundational article examining the constitutional dimensions of executive control over appropriated funds and the limits of presidential spending authority.

Checking the Purse: The President’s Limited Impoundment Power
Christian I. Bale, Duke Law Journal, Vol. 70, No. 3 (November 2020)
Available at Duke Law Journal
Analyzes historical practice from Jefferson to Madison to discern the constitutional boundaries of presidential impoundment authority in the context of defense spending.

Appropriations Law and the Antideficiency Act

Modernizing the Power of the Purse Statutes
Eloise Pasachoff, George Washington Law Review, Vol. 92, No. 2, pp. 359-424 (2024)
Available at Georgetown Law Faculty Publications
Examines gaps in the Antideficiency Act and Impoundment Control Act in an era of expanded presidential control and proposes bipartisan reforms.

Funding Restrictions and Separation of Powers
Zachary Price, 71 Vanderbilt Law Review 357 (2018)
Discussed at Harvard Law Today
Argues that Congress’s power of the purse through annual appropriations is one of its most essential constitutional authorities, despite the dysfunction of shutdowns.

Congress’ Power of the Purse
Kate Stith, Yale Law Journal, Vol. 97, No. 7 (1988) (editor’s note: Kate is the sister of Richard Stith, one of my law school mentors)
Available at Yale Faculty Scholarship Series, Paper 1267
A seminal work on the constitutional foundations of congressional control over federal spending.

Congressional Research Service Reports

Federal Funding Gaps: A Brief Overview
Congressional Research Service, Report RS20348 (Updated regularly)
Available at Congress.gov
Comprehensive overview of funding gaps since 1977, including analysis of the Civiletti opinions and their impact on government operations.

Automatic Continuing Resolutions: Background and Overview of Recent Proposals
Congressional Research Service, Report R41948 (August 2015)
Available at Budget Counsel
Examines proposals for automatic continuing resolutions and their potential impacts on the appropriations process.

Continuing Resolutions: Overview of Components and Practices
Congressional Research Service, Report R46595
Available at Congress.gov
Analysis of the structure, frequency, and impact of continuing resolutions from FY1977 to present.

Government Accountability Office Publications

Principles of Federal Appropriations Law (The Red Book)
Third Edition, Volume II, GAO-06-382SP (February 2006)
Available at GAO.gov
The authoritative guide to federal appropriations law, including detailed analysis of the Antideficiency Act.

Funding Gaps Jeopardize Federal Government Operations
GAO Report PAD-81-31 (March 3, 1981)
Analysis of the early implementation of the Civiletti opinions and their operational impacts.

Antideficiency Act Reports Compilation
Annual compilation of agency violations
Available at GAO.gov
Documents violations of the Antideficiency Act and remedial actions taken by agencies.

Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel Opinions

Applicability of the Antideficiency Act Upon a Lapse in an Agency’s Appropriations
Benjamin R. Civiletti, 4A Op. O.L.C. 16 (April 25, 1980)
Available at Department of Justice
The foundational opinion that created the modern government shutdown mechanism.

Authority for the Continuance of Government Functions During a Temporary Lapse in Appropriations
Benjamin R. Civiletti, 5 Op. O.L.C. 1 (January 16, 1981)
Available at Department of Justice Archives
Refined the 1980 opinion to clarify which functions may continue during a funding lapse.

Government Operations in the Event of a Lapse in Appropriations
Walter Dellinger, Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (August 16, 1995)
Available at Department of Justice
Updated guidance following the 1995-96 shutdowns.

Policy Research and Think Tank Analysis

Government Shutdowns Q&A: Everything You Should Know
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (Updated regularly)
Available at CRFB.org
Comprehensive FAQ on shutdown mechanics, economic impacts, and reform proposals.

Automatic Continuing Resolutions Not a Good Solution for Government Shutdowns
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (January 30, 2019)
Available at CBPP.org
Critical analysis of automatic CR proposals and their potential negative consequences.

Understanding the Legal Framework Governing a Shutdown
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (2025)
Available at CBPP.org
Explains the legal authorities that continue during shutdowns and limits on executive action.

What You Need to Know About Continuing Resolutions
Bipartisan Policy Center
Available at BipartisanPolicy.org
Analysis of CR impacts on government operations and agency planning.

The Antideficiency Act: A Primer
American Action Forum (September 21, 2016)
Available at AAF.org
Overview of the Act’s history, enforcement, and role in government shutdowns.

Academic Books and Monographs

National Security Law and the Power of the Purse
William C. Banks & Peter Raven-Hansen (Oxford University Press, 1994)
Comprehensive examination of congressional control over national security spending.

Congress’s Constitution: Legislative Authority and the Separation of Powers
Josh Chafetz (Yale University Press, 2017)
Chapter 2 provides extensive analysis of the power of the purse as a tool of legislative authority. This entire book is good and Chafetz knows what he’s doing, IMHO.

The Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance, 1776-1790
E. James Ferguson (University of North Carolina Press, 1961)
Historical foundation for understanding the constitutional importance of legislative control over spending. Absolute classic and a major influence on me when I was writing my dissertation.

Historical and Comparative Analysis

Shutdowns: A History
Stanford Magazine (2013)
Available at Stanford Magazine
Interview with political scientists examining the evolution of shutdown politics from the 1970s to present.

How a U.S. Government Shutdown Impacts Courts
Duke Bolch Judicial Institute (May 2025)
Available at Duke Law
Comparative perspective on shutdowns and separation of powers, arguing shutdowns may be fundamentally inconsistent with the constitutional plan.”

Congress’s Power of the Purse
The Government Affairs Institute, Georgetown University (April 2025)
Available at GAI Georgetown
Analysis of the breakdown of bipartisan appropriations norms and implications for congressional power.

Congressional Testimony and Hearings

Protecting Congress’ Power of the Purse and the Rule of Law
House Budget Committee Hearing (May 6, 2024)
Available at House Budget Committee Democrats
Expert testimony on executive encroachment through apportionment, Antideficiency Act exceptions, and other mechanisms.

The Power of the Purse: A Review of Agency Spending Restrictions During a Shutdown
House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (February 6, 2019)
Available at House.gov
Review of agency compliance with spending restrictions during the 2018-19 shutdown.

Law Firm and Practitioner Resources

Government Shutdown Advisory: Summary of Contingency Plans for Lapse in Appropriations
Holland & Knight LLP (Updated annually)
Available at HKLaw.com
Practical guidance for contractors and grant recipients during funding lapses.

Frequently Asked Questions During a Lapse in Appropriations
White House Office of Management and Budget (September 27, 2023)
Available at WhiteHouse.gov
Official guidance on excepted activities and orderly shutdown procedures.

Specialized Topics

Constitutional Liquidation
William Baude, Stanford Law Review, Vol. 71, p. 1 (2019)
Analysis of how constitutional meaning becomes fixed through historical practice, with implications for shutdown procedures.

The Protean Take Care Clause
Jack Goldsmith & John F. Manning, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 164, p. 1835 (2016)
Examines the Take Care Clause’s role in limiting or empowering executive action during appropriations lapses.

Historical Gloss and the Separation of Powers
Curtis A. Bradley & Trevor W. Morrison, Harvard Law Review, Vol. 126, p. 411 (2012)
Framework for understanding how historical practice shapes constitutional meaning in interbranch disputes.

Recent Developments and Current Analysis

Participants’ Experiences of the 2018-2019 Government Shutdown and Subsequent SNAP Benefit Disruption
Wendi Gosliner et al., Nutrients, Vol. 12, p. 1867 (2020)
Empirical study of shutdown impacts on vulnerable populations.

The Rising Costs of Government Shutdowns
Philip Joyce, Public Administration Review (2019)
Analysis of economic and administrative costs of recurring shutdowns.

Appropriations Watch: FY 2026
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (Ongoing)
Track current appropriations at CRFB.org
Real-time tracking of appropriations bills and continuing resolutions.

Government Shutdowns: A Brief Timeline

1. For more on the center-left/centrist leanings of the Carter administration — often forgotten because of Carter’s liberal one-world internationalist stumping during his exceptionally long post-presidential life — read this banger.

2. A continuing resolution (CR) is a temporary spending measure passed by Congress to fund the federal government for a limited period. It is used when Congress and the president fail to enact the 12 regular annual appropriations bills by the start of the fiscal year on October 1, thereby preventing a government shutdown.

3. It is often left to young representatives to do the latter, while the former is left to old, silver-haired senators — “senator” comes from the Latin term senator, which itself derives from senex, meaning “old” or “old man” and is more appropriate now than ever given the average age of members of that body (approximately 64 years old, making this Senate one of the oldest in U.S. history, though not as old as previous one (65.3!).

4. “They want people like us dead” / “Lie lie lie like a” / “tide goes in, tide goes out” / &c.

5. Hence the need for a small clique of Philadelphia-sequestered elites to undo the Articles of Confederation, which had, for all their small-government merits (I’d certainly have backed the Articles, as I told my students), made it very difficult to raise the revenue needed to service debt obligations and borrow even larger sums of money — financialization being the telos of any modern country.

6. Which states that any law that increases or decreases the salary of members of Congress may take effect only after the next election of the House of Representatives has occurred…and is also our most recently ratified amendment, should such a question come up on trivia night.

7. Whether right or wrong, it’s a dead letter, much like any serious efforts to recall the 300-400 million private firearms currently circulating in the United States. Empty “tawk” about new constitutional conventions and “serious” gun control measures will only rile up and further polarize the truculent humanzees.

8. Alas, my decade spent as an educator of eternally spotless undergraduate minds at some of our finest “Moo Us” and “cow colleges” makes me skeptical that this could succeed even were we to embed Neuralink-style devices in those big beautiful brains.