USA's Past History with Government Shutdowns

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now the government shut down is a conversation that we're
going to keep an eye on. Today is the last day?
Did you know the government shutout wasn't even an option
until nineteen seventy four. They put in an act which
essentially locked in deadlines for government federal budget spending and

(00:24):
you have to have a budget put in by a
certain deadline. That seems to make sense. I don't know
how they function otherwise just saying well, we'll get it
done eventually. Well, now they put deadlines to it. Now
over what this is. I think technically, if you count
nineteen seventy five, I think would be the first year
that they actually instituted. This would be the fifty first year,

(00:45):
the fifty first year that we would have the ability
to overstay the deadline on federal budget spending. Pop quiz.
How many times in the last fifty one years? Well,
I guess fifty because they're not going to count this year.
In the last fifty years since deadline has occurred for
federal spending, how many times have we gone over Have

(01:10):
have we had a gap or a full shutdown? Out
of fifty out of fifty, So I mean you have
a finite amount of choices.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
I mean, I don't know the answer, but I'm going
to give an educated guess. I'm gonna say we it
has had twice two times, is my answer.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
If only. Unfortunately it is much more than that. In fact,
the number is twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Wow, mind you, I'm I'm talking from twenty three years
of experience, and how much of that has been educated
about the.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
In focusing in sitting there and you know, staring at this. Yeah, no,
no doubt, Here's where I'm at on it, and this
which is again there's a lot of performative nature to it.
There's a lot of you know, the Democrats want to
blame the Republicans saying, well, they're in control. Yeah, they're
in control, but they're not in control in the way
that you can just do whatever the heck you want.
You need sixty votes in the Senate to pass something

(02:14):
like this. They have fifty three Republicans, and people like
Grand Paul not really easy to negotiate a budget with.
So he's out. Now John Fetterman is in. So you
basically traded Grand Paul for John Fetterman. So you have
fifty three votes. At least, it appears you need seven
additional Republican or sorry, Democrats to vote with Republicans to
get this thing done. And the Democrats are not folding

(02:37):
on this. They are sticking together. They're making sure that
everybody's like, oh yeah, this is good to stick together.
And they're basically saying, if you don't give us exactly
what we want with all this, you know, change in
Medicare coverage, there's all this change in how the budget
would operate with a ton of additional spending. If you

(02:58):
don't give the Democrats what they then we're gonna have
a shutdown. And they're gonna blame the Republicans saying, well,
it's in the balls in their court. If they just
want to agree with us, then we'd pass it. It
is you're getting gas lit by politicians now. Obviously the
Republicans are gonna blame the Democrats for not comming to
the table and be willing to negotiate. And jade Van
said some good words on this yesterday, basically saying, hey,
we try to meet with him. We tried the reason

(03:20):
with them. It's preposterous what they're asking for. This is
not the way that you're supposed to try to negotiate
new ideas of how to spend money for healthcare and
the system that we have here in the United States.
So what are you guys doing over there? You would
think if you want to actually achieve something, you'd do
in an open government. That doesn't seem to be how
it is being viewed across the board, across the aisle.

(03:45):
So how many times in the eleventh hour have they
actually resolved this? In fact, over the last ten years,
five times in the last twelve hours they have actually
been able to come to a resolution and avoid some
sort of big shutdown. That's not insignificant, think about that.
So this is pretty regular for us to be like
knocking on the actual deadline. The fact that five of

(04:08):
the last ten years that we've actually done this, it
has gone to the last twelve hours and then they
have gotten to a point of agreement. We are seven
and a half hours away from the shutdown right now,
so there is still time. It's just not looking good.
I have the list of shutdowns or what funding gaps

(04:28):
look like, because a funding gap and a shutdown never
used to be like one in the same the last
six times that there has been a funding gap, there
has been a shutdown. So the last six times are
nineteen ninety George H. W. Bush twice under Clinton in
ninety five and ninety six. Obama had a shutdown in
twenty thirteen, and then twice in the Trump administration. The

(04:50):
first Trump administration there was a shutdown early in twenty
eighteen and then later in twenty eighteen. Now I mention
all this to say, how long does the shutdown unusually last? Well,
over the twenty times there has been a funding gap
and they've gone past the deadline, and the ten of
those that have technically been a government shutdown, most of
the time it's within a week. Four different times has

(05:13):
only lasted one day, three other times it only lasted
two days, and another time it only lasted three days. Finally,
there was one five day span of a government shutdown
under Clinton in ninety five, But the other half of
the time it is more than a week. And the
longest one actually was under Trump in his first term
December twenty first, twenty eighteen to January twenty fifth to

(05:35):
twenty nineteen, there was a thirty four day government shutdown.
So if you're wondering what a government shutdown looks like
it is, you're still gonna get your MEDICID. You're still
going to have government veteran affairs are going to be
going on. You're still going to have the military operations
are going to be ongoing. There's all sorts of you know,
the mail is going to be delivered, don't have to
worry about any of that. What may be limited and

(05:57):
they may run out if the gap funding gap and
government shutdown goes on for several days, is your snap
in wig benefits potentially? And then lastly, what is this
going to be straight up shut down? Some of the
federal grants, some of the federal money that is usually awarded,
none of that's going to be taking place. Something like
the Smithsonian Zoo and the Smithsonian Museums, those are going

(06:21):
to be they are not going to be operational for
people to come in. Now, the zoo animals will get
taken care of by the people who care for them,
but the zoo, you can't just go to the zoo
and enjoy that. The doors are going to be shut.
And then lastly, the National Park Service national parks, you're
not going to have the ability to access them. So
if you were planning a trip to Yellowstone or Yosemite,

(06:44):
the federal National park system. They're not going to be
operational at all if the government's shut down, but I
know that's very low on the priority list for a
lot of people here. So we will see that this
is going to be what this is exactly going to
take place, and will this be the twenty first time
in fifty one years we will have a funding gap.
We have seven and a half hours to find out