Learning the right lessons from the government shutdown
Public resources and government power should be used only for the public good, not to serve a personal agenda or a power grab by a president.
Among the defining features of the longest-ever government shutdown, which was just temporarily resolved, was the way President Donald Trump used it to continue his campaign of traumatizing federal workers, extracting a political price from his adversaries and callously causing harm to the public.
When Senate Democrats blocked a temporary funding bill because it did not extend expiring health care subsidies, Trump was only too glad to take advantage. He did so by withholding federal funds from largely Democratic enclaves, laying off civil servants, threatening to not pay furloughed federal workers, denying food aid to millions of poor people, and adding to the disruption of airline travel, among other malevolent actions that have penalized the American public.
Trump also fostered violations of the law prohibiting government employees from engaging in partisan political activity. Administration officials took the unprecedented action of posting videos at airports and information on agency websites blaming Democrats for the government shutdown. Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled the administration violated the First Amendment rights of Department of Education employees by putting out-of-office messages on their email accounts blaming the Democrats for the shutdown.
The heightened political tension and damaging withdrawal of government services came during a year in which the administration executed a de facto shutdown by arbitrarily removing more than 211,000 civil servants through haphazard workforce cuts, unilaterally freezing congressionally approved funding, failing to enforce laws and effectively sabotaging the work at agencies dealing with everything from public health and education to consumer protection, foreign aid, law enforcement and scientific research. The cutbacks have had a negative impact across states and communities nationwide.
Unfortunately, the resolution of this latest shutdown is temporary, with the appropriations fix slated to last only until Jan. 30 for most government operations and with the same drama likely to unfold all over again. It is much like coming home after a hurricane has caused untold damage and knowing that the clean-up will be followed by another storm that could again create chaos, hardship, and destruction.
Public resources and government power should be used only for the public good, not to serve the personal agenda of or a power grab by a president. And weaponizing government and denying people vital services should never be an option.
The time is long overdue for Congress to recognize and for the public to demand that the operations of our government be removed from the partisan battlefield and never held hostage to policy differences. The latest shutdown was a manufactured crisis, and Congress should use the moment to stop this from happening again.
Past legislative proposals with bipartisan co-sponsors have called for automatically imposing temporary funding measures at current levels to avoid a shutdown if deadlines are not met; requiring lawmakers to stay in Washington and show up for work seven days a week until regular funding is approved; banning use of taxpayer funds for travel by lawmakers during a shutdown, and adopting a biennial budget and appropriations process to forestall yearly battles and create greater certainty for agencies to plan and meet their missions. None of these plans has advanced primarily because of partisan divisions.
It is unconscionable that federal employees who are on enforced furloughs and those still on the job were denied a paycheck when House lawmakers had not shown up for work for more than 50 days and were being paid their full salaries. Congress passed a law in 2019 that requires federal employees to paid after a shutdown ends, but, at a minimum, the House and Senate should enact a law requiring that civil servants should be paid in real time if there is a shutdown so they are not held hostage to these routine political machinations.
Our political leaders are elected to serve the public, but, by allowing the government to shut down, they reneged on that central promise and instead engaged in a reckless and flagrant disregard of taxpayer resources and the national interest.
The time is long overdue to end the continual threat of shutdowns and the suspension of congressionally approved services so that our government can better serve the public good and concentrate on solving our substantial and pressing domestic and international challenges.
Max Stier is the founding president and CEO of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, an organization focused on building a better government and a stronger democracy.
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It has always been the felon acting in bad faith.during this shutdown.I agree there should be protections from such power grabs.
Good summation of the unnecessary shutdowns and resultant problems forced on people by whom I consider lazy and incompetent Congresspeople (Republican) listening only to a power hungry and cruel president. It is the job of both sides of Congress to work together and set the budget in a timely manner to continue to have our government run smoothly and economically for all the people.