My Thoughts on the Government Shutdown

Well, this sucks.

As I write this, the federal government is on its 5th day of being shut down, and there's guaranteed to be another tomorrow, and after that, who knows. This is the fourth time I've seen a federal shutdown during my lifetime, but only the first I've experienced as a federal employee. I frankly didn't think there was going to be a shutdown last week, since the CR the House of Representatives proposed was the same that got passed in March. What changed? There are a few guesses as to what changed that made the government shut down this time, and both sides of the political aisle are (unsurprisingly) pointing fingers at each other. There is one that seems reasonable but still doesn't explain some details, and it has something to do with Chuck Schumer.

I remember that during the last shutdown scare, back in March, Chuck Schumer decided on the day before the shutdown would have begun to support the CR to fund the government through September, arguing it was better to fund the government so that Trump's agenda could be restricted by federal courts, rather than have a shutdown and let Trump lay off federal workers scot-free. That inspired enough Democrats to support the CR, but not every Democrat agreed. In fact, Schumer was criticized by many Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, "AOC", who was encouraged to run for Schumer's Senate seat in 2028. It's still unknown whether she really plans to do so, but it's certainly possible. Either way, many believe that Schumer is now trying to prevent that kind of defeat by voting against the CR this time and advocating for other Democrats to do the same. Come to think of it, if I remembered that bit of drama from March, a shutdown now wouldn't have surprised me.

Here's the strange thing about the Democrats allowing this shutdown. Trump's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said at the start of the shutdown that mass layoffs of federal workers could start as early as the weekend. If federal layoffs upset the Democrats when they happened in February, and have worried them ever since, wouldn't they want to prevent the shutdown in that case, or at least end the shutdown before the layoffs happen? So far, the threatened shutdown layoffs haven't happened, but they easily could tomorrow. Hopefully, the nay-voters will see what kind of a dangerous game they're playing and change their minds, unless they want to see federal layoffs happen so they can complain about it for political gain. If that's really the case, though, that Democrats want more layoffs to happen so they can continue griping about the Trump administration, that would be "down-to-the-marrow-of-the-bone stupid", as one senator likes to say.

I will say that regardless of whose fault it might be that the government has shut down, it's really the fault of both sides for not talking it out sooner. I hate how Congress has been waiting until the last week or even the last day before a budget deadline to come up with a deal for new funding. If Congress would meet over a month before these deadlines hit, so that they pass new funding legislation well in advance of the deadline, it would save a lot of nervousness and uncertainty for the federal agencies that receive federal funding. Laziness should have no place in the federal government.