How Government Shutdowns Work

And if you want to come see me, I will be in Chicago at Lincoln Hall on September twelve, and I will be in Austin, Texas at the North Door on October two. Uh. Ticket links are weirdly hard to find, so just look up End of the World, Josh Clark, Austin or Chicago and you will find what you're looking for. See you guys soon. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,

and welcome to the podcast. So I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck, Brian, there's Jerry over there, and this is the podcast. Like I said, in particular, it's the Stuff you Should Know podcast. So if that's not what you're here to listen to, you're in the wrong place. And if you don't want to listen to us talk about government shutdowns, then you're in the wrong place. But

who doesn't want to know about government shutdowns? Yeah? I agree, educate yourself right as a matter of fact, because it's gonna happen again soon enough. That's exactly right. That is why I wanted to do this episode because I've been meaning for us to do this for years now, and every time, um we do it, and it's like, every time I go to do it, say, let's do a government shutdown episode, I think, is what I'm trying to say. Sorry, just drank a red Bull because I was about to

fall over, and now I'm talking really fast. Just give me like ten minutes, okay, and you're drinking a Coca Cola. Well, we don't have zero here anymore. This is all we have. You want that extra caffeine kick on top of the red bull? I think I have just this twelve ounce can. It's not even gone, and I think I've burned a hole in my stomach. It's crazy, but delicious. It is delicious. I'll give you that. But coke zero is really delicious

too for being a diet cola at any rate. Government shutdowns. Um, you were saying, Yeah, every time we go to do this, the government shuts down, so it looks like we're chasing a trend. So we have to wait. And I'm like, finally the time is right, because it wouldn't be cool to do one in the midst of one. Is that the deal definitely not gotcha. No, that's like buying a T shirt at a concert and then putting that T shirt on and looking around like, yeah, I'm at the

concert with that horrible smell. No T shirt, especially concert t shirts they're printed out of, you know, straight chemicals, out of Buffalo Bill's basement, Native skin Man. He's been on my mind a lot because of the Geen episode. Well because that, and then I just saw on the movie Crusher's page someone posted a funny little thing that was a Buffalo Bill tender profile. Is really funny that, uh, and then there was something else from this past weekend.

There was a lot of Buffalo Bill happening. He's he's everywhere. Yeah, remember we used to send each other that that one screen shot that was great back when we shared a cubicle wall I know, and it was easy enough to do that back in the day. Now we have gold plated air on chairs and no walls anywhere I take a regular air on. I think that's what you're sitting here right now. It was quite comfy. So anyway, welcome

to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck. We should edit all that other stuff out, don't you think, or get money from Red Bull, Coca Cola and Airon and Buffalo Bill right, um or the Buffalo Bills football team. Dang man, you just really pulled it together with that last one. So we've been through some shutdowns in our time, Chuck our day. Yeah, as a matter of fact, Um, you'd think based on how common they kind of seem. I

mean every few years. There's like the federal government, I should say, for our fellow listeners outside of the United States, our government is broken, right, We're talking about government shutdowns, and it's a lot like what it sounds like. I mean, we'll get to the nuts and bolts of it, obviously, but it's basically where the federal government, not state governments, but the federal USA government parts of it just stop functioning.

And the reason they stop functioning is because those agencies that those parts of the federal government have not been funded, and since they haven't been funded by law, by Congressional Act from years back, they are not allowed to pay workers any longer. They're not even allowed to accept volunteer work from their workers. So with no workers, that means the agency shuts down, and that's a that's a government shutdown.

That's what we're talking about. Literally parts of the government shutdown. Yeah, and again we will get into all the nuts and bolts, but it's uts down because of funding gaps, and those funding gaps happen almost always because of um entrenched politics. Yeah, it's it's two sides playing chicken over the budget, and

when the government shutdown happens, neither side blinked, right. And it's also very important to point out that a big part of government shut downs is trying to get the other side too, maybe not accept blame, because no one ever does, it seems like, but at least the perception in the general media that this person or this side is the one to blame. Yeah, and more often than not, public polling shows that it's Congress that almost always takes

to blame. Until this last one, it was always Congress, right, no matter what, which is funny that they would try to pull us off because it's so politically risky, because it's so damaging on an individual level among like federal employees or just average Americans, but also on a national level. Yeah, our economy takes a huge, huge hit that we just

never regain. All right, that's a great setup and I think so too, So Chuck, to start, I think we should talk about how money moves around the federal government, don't you. Yeah, And this is uh again, if you live outside the country, and even if you live in the United States, um, you you may not understand what power of the purse means. But in the United States and in the US Constitution, Article one, Section nine, Class seven. Yeah,

not even the Bill of Rights, like the Constitution. Yeah, like this is one of the first things they thought about. It was Congress who was granted control over the money. So, um, the president and can't just fund something. Uh, the Senate can't just fund something. Everything has to be agreed on and they can't spend a dime without Congress's express approval. Through this process, we're going to get into called appropriations, right, and so in the Constitution It just said the Congress

is the one that approves all money. Everything comes through Congress. Right, Yeah, we should read that because it does have one funny line. Go ahead in from the Constitution, no money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of the appropriations made by law. So far, so good, and a regular statement of account of receipts and expenditures of all money shall be published from time to time. It's very non specific. Whenever you get to it. Why not, like you know,

in November of every year. I honestly don't know, because I mean from time to time makes it seem unimportant. It makes it seem uh, what's the word when you don't have to do something, makes it seem non mandatory? Yeah, optional, optional, that's the word. I know you so well after all these years. So that's the from Article one of the Constitution, and presidents from seventeen seventy eight onward said, okay, I can work with that. There's a huge loophole here, like no,

I can't. I can't, you know, spend money myself, Like I can't pay anybody myself. I have to wait for Congress. But that doesn't mean I can't like get the work done first, and then when it comes time to pay, I can just direct this contractor vendor, whoever, militiaman to Congress to go get money, which is really I mean, that is so United States government to be like, well, I'm technically not writing the check. I've just engaged someone services and now we owe them this money. Yeah, Congress,

pay this guy. He's he yeah, yeah, we he did what he's saying he did. And so there was this representative in Virginia who was not happy about this, this kind of precedent that had been adopted by the executive branch um. This representative said in eighteen o six that presidents were acting like a saucy boy whose wealthy grandfather was going to cover his needs, and that that was the case. So eventually Congress said, we got to close the sloophole, and they did in eighteen eighty four. I

think yeah. The Anti Deficiency Act basically said no, you can't just uh pay the guy to paint your house and then stand there tapping your toes looking at the guy with the checkbook right exactly. As a matter of fact, they said you can't spend a single time that Congress hasn't already appropriated for that. That's right. You just can't do it so much so that again you can't even accept volunteer work unless it is basically to protect life,

for public safety, something really really important. But when we say we fund you, Congress funds the Executive Branch, all the agencies in the federal government, we really mean it. And that's what the Anti Deficiency Act really said. Yeah, but it would take until nine when Richard Nixon signed

the Congress Budget and Impoundment Control Act. It's a barn burner. Yeah, but that's what really changed everything, and that's what kind of laid out this process that we still work with today or don't work with, or sit on our hands and hold our breath, right I ideally it functions kind of clunky even in its best form, but purposefully so it's to keep Congress from being profligate with its spending, right, Like I mean, it's to say, this group over here

and this group over here, we're taking the same tasking, making you guys do it twice separately and then come together and hammer out the details. Yeah, it's really discouraging to look at the history of our country in the you know, the idea should be that, like, all right, we know that in this country we have a lot of people that feel one way about a lot of stuff, a lot of people that feel the other way, and the government's job should be to come together and negotiate

and find nice middle grounds. And it seems like it's more like the government just finds loopholes and is sneaky and underhanded to find workarounds from actually trying to work together and find a middle ground. Stinks? Does stink? Sick of it? I'm I'm pretty fed up with government too. I think most people in America, and I would gather the UK too, all right, oh man, especially right now. So, uh,

here's how it happens. Every year, the two chambers of Congress, they have to agree on a budget for the discretionary spending, which is I think only of the overall budget is is discretionary. Um. Everything else is mandatory or nondiscretionary, and that means stuff that you just can't not pay for, right um. And it's mostly things like Medicaid, medicare, social security entitlement programs to where these are These are mandatory programs that are created by an Act of Congress that

says whatever these programs need to run and operate. That's how much Congress gives them. There's no spending levels, there's no you know what about this is like you can go in and monkey with the operation by Congressional Act. But as far as spending in budget goes, whatever they need they get. That's right. The other stuff, the discretionary stuff, that's what you say about thirty of the budget. But that's still like in two thousand eighteen that was one

point two trillion dollars. And it's really important stuff. It's not like the mandatory spending is the only important stuff. We're talking about. The f d A, Homeland Security t s A, UH, the n i H, National Parks, the i r S, the Department of Defense. Yeah, big time stuff. Basically everything except so security, medicaid and medicare. Oh really is that essentially? Geez? I know? All right, So this

all starts, this appropriations process. Uh. It's laid out for the first Monday in February UM and this is the deadline. It lines up with the deadline for the president to submit uh their budget to Congress, which you always here. This is the president's budget. The president over you know, overseas stuff, and approved stuff. But the president is not in there with the calculator crunching numbers. No, No, it's Office of Management and Budget that does it for the president.

That's right, but it's under the president's direction. The president says, I really want to do this, but I don't want to do this anymore. But the thing is, it's almost like a little kid going through the Montgomery Ward wish book and then writing their list in crayon that has about the same polling power as the president's budget. It really is saying this is what the president wants to do, and then Congress either says these are good ideas or they say we're not listening to that at all, because

it's not legally binding in any way. There's probably in fact party line templates. They just throw down like a mad lib and they tweak it a little bit, but they say like, well, here's the Republican style budget, and here's the Democratic style budget Obama or Trump, and now do your minor tweaks. Right. I think that is kind of it's got to be because it's a huge, massive document. Yeah, they can't like start from scratch every time, can they know?

It's got to be like the first few pages are what really count, you know what I mean, it's got to be. But again and this is like, uh, they call it in this article like a the wish list of funding priorities, and that's a good way to put it. The Montgomery Award wish book wish list that I was Sears kid. I didn't discriminate. I went through all of them to make sure. Yeah, we didn't even have Montgomery Wards. So I never I've never laid eyes upon that catalog. It was. It was good. It was a good one.

I put it up against the series one. Yeah we had Sears. And then I guess Service Merchandise was I remember that didn't they sell everything from like diamond rings and Cassio keyboards? They sold everything. I think I bought my very first guitar from Service Merchandise and returned it like a week later because it was cretty, and I went to a real guitar store, sam Ash. No, actually I remember I went to dirt cheap music on Memorial Drives any shop local. Yeah, yeah, dirt cheap buzz marketing

for a business that is no longer around. So, uh, they've got this wish list. Then it goes on to Congress and they have to pass what's called a concurrent budget resolution, right, and Congress can totally ignore the president's budget. They can taken into consideration, um if the if Congress is in the controlled by the same party the president is, the president's wishes are probably going to be taken into constitution. But ultimately Congress says, this is what we want to do.

And from what I can tell, when they come up with this concurrent um budget, right, yeah, concurrent budget a CBS are current budget resolution, it's basically just setting the spending for the year. Right. That's that's all that is, isn't it like this the cap on what the federal government can spend entirely? I think. So it's just that broad agreement of the total amount of spending, and then it starts to get divvied up. Yeah, they're not in the weeds at this point, but they're supposed to pass

that by mid April. Uh. And that's where they set these spending levels for twenty categories. And this is where you know, this is where it starts tore down or not breakdown, but like in a bad way, but they start to break it down because it's such a massive thing. You gotta break it down into smaller departments. Right. So Congress says, here's the total amount of money that we're

going to spend this year. Uh, And it goes to the Appropriations Committee in the Senate and the Appropriations Committee in the House, and then each of them says, Okay, we've got this this whole. Let's divvy it up into twelve slices. Not necessarily equal slices. I think they'd probably be pretty lazy. Um, but they say, you know, Agriculture and Rural Development, you're going to get this much this year, Commerce, Justice, and Science you're going to get this much, like this

slice of the pie. And they do that over twelve departments that roughly correspond to the different cabinet posts in the federal government. That's right. And it's up to those subcommittees, those twelve different ones, once they get their little slice of pie, to then decide how to eat that high. Yeah,

I think it's that piece of the pie. There's an appropriation subcommittee that says, this is how you're going to spend this, and they have hearings and stuff like that, where like the heads of these departments come and say, we really need this we've got some really exciting stuff coming up. Give us some more money. Where we figured out how to ride sharks and hunt dolphins with spear guns, and we really want to get into that this year.

Or you know, we really need to build this thing, or the military really needs to upgrade that thing, stuff like that. And then these appropriation subcommittees, each one dedicated to a group of agencies or a couple an agency, just a single one, um say okay, this is how

we're going to spend this money. And then once that happens in the House and the same thing happens in the Senate, those two groups, the appropriation subcommittees for each of these twelve slices of pie, come together ideally and they say, well, we came up with this, what do you guys come up with? And they say, well, we came up with this, and we're off by seven billion dollars. How are we going to figure this out? That's great?

Only seven billion hours, right, that's nothing these days. Well, they negotiate with each other to come up with a joint spending bill. UM. I imagine those meetings are contentious and tough, and eventually, though ideally, they negotiate that spending bill. Then that gets sent to the president and they can veto that or sign that. Right. So, remember there's twelve there's actually twenty four of these going on over twelve

different slices of pie. And when they come back together and form twelve different appropriations resolutions, um, they can say we're done, this is good, Let's send it to the president and the president can sign that. If things are going along really smoothly and Congress wants to show off there, they will say, we want to get all these together in one package, but we're going to present all twelve to the president and the president can either sign or veto.

So they could the president can sign or veto each one separately, in small groups or as a whole. As a whole is called omnibus. If you if you've ever heard the term omnibus spending bill and you're like, what in the world is at That just means this everything

group together, right. And so one reason that you would go through the headache of trying to put all twelve of those appropriations bills into one package is that if there's something in one of those appropriations bills that you want out, you've got a lot more leverage than the other eleven that you can trade from the budget as a whole to get that thing out or get this thing in. If it's one appropriations bill, you have much less leverage. So that's why they would go to that trouble.

But that's fairly rare, I believe. Yeah, And this is all due by October one, because that is the beginning of the federal government's fiscal year, is October one. And since we've been doing this in modern times, I believe in ninety seven, um was when we started this process. Congress has passed all twelve by October one by that deadline only four times. Four times, that's right. So we'll take break and we'll discuss what happens all of the

other times right after this. So okay, Congress comes. Also, big shout out to Dave Rouss. This is his first article that we're doing an episode on. Yeah, Dave is one of the great writers from how Stuff Works dot Com that we long admired over the years and tapped him to do some stuff for us, tapping him. We're tapping him and he's tapping back. It's great. We've got

a pretty great little stable going here. We've got Dave Russ Julia Layton in the grab st all writing for stuff you should know right now, that's right, And I think if they keep up the good work, then that's all we need. Sure, Yeah, I think so too, because we still put together our own stuff too. I want to give us a pad on the back as well. All right, that's fine, alright, So I just pulled the

muscle in my I can't write this week. So Um, like we said before the break, UM, this has only happened four times in the since nineteen seventy seven that all twelve approp appropriations bills were passed by that October one deadline. So when it comes to October two, it doesn't mean if um, we haven't passed those appropriations bills, that's like everything just stops working. Because if you pay attention to the news, you will notice that there's something

called a continuing resolution. So this can happen for a lot of reasons. One UM, One good and sort of non offensive reason could be that, man, we were really close and we're almost there. We just need another week or the weekend. We'll work through the weekend even to get this done. Um. A good but offensive reason is because someone farted and everyone cleared out of the chamber and missed the deadline, so they had to do it continuing.

Uh No, I mean if they're close and they just need a few more days to work it out, then that can happen. They'll pass a continuing resolution, which means everything stays the same. You don't get any more money, or you don't get money taken away, just keep like operate as usual. Right. You can't increase spending. You can, you can spend differently or whatever, but you can't spend above the levels of the previous fiscal year're currently in. Right,

that's right, Okay, I'm with you. I think continuing resolution, whether it's one for a day or for a year, and there have been ones that have been like year long continuing resolution. Yeah, there's no limit. You can pass them forever long you think you need. Um, it does show that negotiations are still ongoing. They haven't broken down. It haven't reached the point where where they're in agreement yet, that's right. The problem comes when they stop issuing continuing resolutions,

that's right. Uh. Day two and a few pretty cool facts here, UM, A hundred and eighty six continuing resolutions have been passed since nineteen seventy seven and a hundred and seventeen or those of those or those have been since nine. Yes, so it's taking them a hundred and seventeen times that they could not work it out since nine. That's a lot. Yeah, that's it is. But if you think about it, the um it's about evenlyplit. Well, no,

it's not evenly split. It's like seventy two I think, six hundred and seventeen over to twenty year periods, and it does seem to be getting worse, but that's kind of lopsided because in two thousand one there were twenty one of that hundred and seventeen. Twenty one of them all came in two thousand one. Yeah, so I'm not quite sure about this, but I wonder is the number of increasing continuing resolutions is that like a barometer for

government or how government is working? Uh? I don't know, because I wonder, because I mean, ideally like they would get all this done by the October first deadline every time, Well it depends because um, as this points out, like sometimes it is over the weekend and it's just a few days and they're like really close to having it worked out. So to me, that's not the biggest deal in the world. That doesn't mean the government isn't functioning well, I mean as well as it ever does, am I right?

But like in two thousand, seven, eleven, and thirteen, they were all year long. There were no appropriations bills, right, they just said we're just gonna repeat last or no real appropriation spills. I guess right. They just they just said, remember the spending levels from before. Go with God, that's what you got again this year because that's when things are bad. So um continuing resolutions to like it doesn't affect spending levels or it doesn't increase him. It can't,

I wonder. I don't know if it can decrease him or not. I know you it just basically says the same spending levels last year, So maybe it can't decrease him either. I think you can't decrease I think it's just your current funding is locked. Right, But you can attach writers onto continuing resolutions. Yeah, these policy writers. Um, those can be like the make or break And if it's clean, which I don't know how often that happens, I'd be curious to see a stat But if it's

a clean policy writer. That means it has nothing else, or a clean cr CR it doesn't have any policy writer. That's right. So um. A lot of times though, if there's a policy writer on a CR, it might be like, Okay, we can't come to an agreement about medicaid funding abortion. That was a big one in the nineties seventies. Um. And but in this same appropriations bill that we're haggling over,

there's this other thing that's like super critical. It's like, um, like, uh, local hospitals aren't going to get any any nique funding and it's about to run out. So we need to increase the nique funding for local hospitals. And we'll attach that as a policy writer to this continuing resolution because this is kind of an emergency and it doesn't really have anything to do with the contentious part that that's keeping the policy or the appropriations built from being passed. Right.

So that's I think usually what happens with that. You know, what show really nails the stuff is veep, Oh my gosh, for all it's like you know, comedy and funny stuff. They it seems like they really nail kind of what it's like in Washington, because there's a lot of talk of this kind of stuff, clean bills and writers and who's on whose side? And can we sway this one person and doctor's side. Yeah, a lot of just dirty, dirty language. Oh yeah, man, Julie Louis Dreyfuss, she is

a nash She's an international treasure. Totally. At one interaction with her briefly when uh in l A and my friends building in Los Felis, the Holly Mountin building. He lived there, Scotty, you know Scotty, and we had a case of beer and a pizza and some snacks and we were going she showed up. It's like, where's the party. Well,

that's sort of what happened. We were going up in the front of the building and she was shooting uh, New Adventures of Old Christine right there at the entrance, and we literally walked by her and they were like putting on her makeup, like right in front of They were right about to go, and she said, who were those guys? I want to go with them? Where are you guys going? And of course we're like, come on up,

that's cool. And then an electrician knocked on her door and asked to put a light in his apartment shining out the window. How much does you charge? No, we didn't. We were just like come on in, and then Ericastrada showed up and arrested you. Uh, all right, so where are we here? So I'll tell you where we left off, Chuck.

We left off with continuing resolutions, temporary funding. Yeah. Eventually, if a position is contentious enough about some part of the budget, and very rarely is it something is it something financial? Necessarily like it has to do with finances because it's in the budget, But typically it's something more political than that, like the idea of medicaid funding abortions.

In nineteen seventy seven and ninety eight, there were, um there impasses were reached where they could not come to an agreement on using medicaid to fund abortions, federal dollars to fund abortions. Right, very contentious issue. Yes, it had to do with money and had to do with finances medicaid funding, but really it was about the social issue,

is cultural issue abortion. That's usually the kind of um, the kind of political uh impass or divide that it takes to really reach a point where one side says, you know, I don't even agree to this continuing resolution anymore. Just forget it, We're done. Yeah, it seems like it's usually something that is so important to that either president or party or both, that they feel like it's worth

digging in. Um. And a lot of times that has to do Sometimes that has to do with the thing itself, but sometimes it has to do with the perception of that thing to your voting base. Sure that's part of it too, But I mean we're talking politicians here. I think you could have just said the last part. You know that's true. So what happens when they failed to pass that appropriations bill and they're not talking, You're going to get a funding gap. And that doesn't necessarily lead

to a shutdown either. Can we please get to the shutdown? Well, since more than half of the fundy gaps lasted just a few days when I talked about solving it over the weekend, a lot of times that will happen over the weekend. Um. And if it's less than a few days, that means no one had to sit out work or whatever. It was furloughed. Right, So technically the government was shut down, but no one noticed because it happened on days when

the federal government isn't open anyway. Yeah, and until nine one, they were actually allowed to keep operating, but the Reagan administration changed all that. Yeah, what was the name Benjamin Sivelletti Chivoletti technically an Italian to be hip because as a sea followed by a vowel makes a chill sound. Did you know that? I do? And I don't remember this guy? I don't either. I mean we were young and probably too young to really know about attorney general.

Like I knew the president, the vice president, and maybe the Speaker of the House or something. First attorney general I was cognizant of was Edwin Mease, wasn't he or was he state? I don't even know he was the first cabinet member. I was aware of Edwin me because I think they made phonem in in Mad magazine, showed him like getting hit by a mouse trap or something, because he was a mess. That's kind of how I

was exposed to politics too, Mad, I think. So. Yeah, I knew all about spear o agnew even though I know who he was, still don't really know who he was. There's this great Simpsons quote where Millhouse and barter looking at a bad magazine. They're like, they're making fun of that Spiro Agnew guy. Again. He must work there or something. And I remember thinking, like, I guess Spiro Agnew works there because they used to skewer like the publisher too, So I just thought Spiro Agnew was one of them.

I think it's a funny name to comedy circles. Yeah, that's a good one. Um. Yes. Attorney General Benjamin he was Reagan's a g and he said it is not constitutional to keep spending money without congressional approval, which is what's happening when you say we'll go ahead and keep working federal government. So he I mean they kind of made shutdowns happen. Yeah, Like it was like, okay, we're shut down, ha ha. We're still discontinuing on like normal

until CHIVALLETTI said, well, remember that Anti Deficiency Act. That's actually for real. And I saw somewhere that it like they actually enforced that, and like federal agencies are are um are frequently fined for violating these things like going into contracts or hiring people when they don't really have the money for it. And I saw somewhere the SEC got an eight hundred million dollar fine ones for it. Couldn't find it anywhere else, but it was a spectacular

enough number to at least mention it. Um. So Chivaltti really changed the rules for shutdowns, because before, if the government shut down but the government still functioned, it was almost more of like a um, uh, what's the word I'm looking for ceremonial kind of thing, didn't really mean anything. It was um symbolic um. Once Civilletti said no, no no, no, we actually can't stay open during a shutdown, that made the whole thing way more politically risky, and so they

stopped happening nearly as frequently from that point on. Things have changed since then tremendously. Uh. And there have been four times and sort of recently where uh people really dug in and there were what we would call major shutdowns. The winner of there were two shutdowns because of Bill Clinton being a Democrat and Newt Gingrich hating his guts.

He was the House Speaker at the time and the Republican controlled Congress, and new it was all about the Contract for America, which basically was small government, lowering taxes, really sticking it to the poor. Yeah, like really higher restrictions on or more strict restrictions on welfare recipients. So he and Bill Clinton went at it for a long time. They really did, and I mean like each side was dug in and um Gingrich was trying to shove that

contract for with America down Clinton's throat. It's not what Clinton's policies were, and Clinton said no, and neither i'd would would would give. And finally, this is how um shutdowns usually get resolved. They start doing polls of the American public and say who do you blame for this? And almost invariably the public says, Congress, this is Congress's fault, that that the country is um just being weakened right now by this government shutdown. And then Congress relance, and

that's what happened for those two. Both of the shutdowns were combined twenty six days, and Republicans in the Congress were to blame, according to American people and polling numbers at least. Uh so, you know, they they said, sorry, fine, fine, well we'll try to get you impeached instead. Should we talk about two thousand thirteen? Yeah, I remember this one

really clearly. That's right, President Barack Obama Republicans in Congress. Again, Ted Cruz like almost single handedly shut the government down, if I remember it correctly. Yeah, he passed the bill that UM. The Republicans were very upset about the Affordable Care Act, and he did all he could to defund that, basically defund what was later to be known as Obamacare.

And he was like leading a kind of a rogue faction of Tea Party Republicans because John Bayner was the speaker at the time, and he was a traditional conservative Republican UM, and I believe he was on board to just at least with continuing resolutions to keep the UM negotiations going. And I remember Ted Cruz just being like, nope, I'm shutting the government down. And it was a ballsy move. I'll tell you that, that's right, And that lasted sixteen days.

Eight hundred thousand federal workers were furloughed, which we'll talk about what that means here in a minute. But again, uh, public polling and public outcry was against the Republicans at the time, and they said, all right, we'll pass a c R and let's change some things about the Affordable Care Act, but we will pass a CR. Right. They

basically got some minor changes. I think a big one with the biggest concession they got was that, um, there will be income verification for people who were applying for Obamacare. We should talk about the most recent shutdown as well, two thousand and eighteen nineteen. I remember this one too,

like it was yesterday. Basically was yesterday, and this was obviously when uh, Donald Trump said I want a border wall and I want five billion dollars to get this thing going, and Democrats said, no, you're not, and they had a meeting on TV which was really weird, and Chuck Schumer um trick to Donald Trump into taking responsibility for the shutdown. Did Schumer do it? I thought he just, like,

out of nowhere, asserted it. I think I thought I remembered Schumer sort of tricking him in the room into sort of claiming ownership, almost like a dare. And Trump was sort of like, yeah, it's my shutdown because this is important, and you know, you could see Schumer kind of laughing like, oh, I don't think he even understands what he just said. Yeah, I'm sure the Republicans were like, I can't believe you just said that. That's right, And there was a partial shutdown on December twenty two that

ran for a historically long thirty five days. Yeah, the previous one in two sixteen days. The previous record was combined day. This is thirty five days over Christmas and New Year's which was a tough time to do that. Yeah, it was because again the deadline is October one, so they had created continuing resolutions from October one or September thirty on to December twenty two, and then finally on

December twenty two. I remember this. Trump had been signaling that he was willing to give uh and I guess at least keep negotiating continuing resolutions and Culture, that's right expressed on Trump's it would not be giving on this position and that the government shutdown would go on. And Culture basically single handedly forced this government shutdown because she said, if you give on this like we're done, I'm go I will vote against you at the polls to make

sure everybody else does. And that's when Trump's will was bolstered tremendously, and that's when the government shutdown happened. That's right, You wanna take a break. How many people are still listening to this? Do you think roughly, we'll be right back, okay, Chuck, So um, well we should. We left a cliffhanger. The government was shut down when we left. Oh yeah, it

came back. It came back after how long? Again. Thirty five days later, on January, Trump called off that shutdown without that funding for the border wall, again because public perception was swayed not in his favor, right, which is rare. Again, every single one of the shutdowns, everyone said it was Congress's fault. With this one, they said it was the president's fault. Surely that at least partially had to do with him claiming on TV that it was his responsibility

for shutting down the government. That didn't last long though, because I remember, and it gets so just childlike and snippy. But with the tweets from both sides calling it the Trump shut down, Trump calling it the Schumer Pelosi shut down, trying to hashtag these things see what's trending, it's all just so ridiculous, it is Twitter. So, um, the shutdown ended, and like you said, Trump didn't get that five billion

dollars for the wall. I think they ultimately added like one point six billion for border security, but nothing specifically for that wall right, and and the Democrats started saying, well, like, let's really define wall right. Yeah, I remember that. But what people like to point out is, not only did Trump not get that five billion dollars, but America lost at least eleven billion dollars right during the shutdown income right,

So there's a real economic cost of government shutdowns. Basically, everyone, I don't care whether you're a Republican. Stuff you should know a listener, A Democrats stuff you should know, a listener. An anarchist stuff you should know, a listener, A central stuff you should know. Listener doesn't matter. You should be really mad at your government whenever there's a shutdown because

it is holding people's jobs hostage. Millions of people depend directly on the federal government for their paycheck, and during a shutdown, you don't get a paycheck. Some people even have to work. But the people who don't have to work not only don't get a paycheck, they will never get that money for the work that they missed against their own will during that shutdown. Yeah, like you can apply for back pay, is that right? No? You can't know for who. No one can know if you worked

during the shutdown, you can get retroactive pay. Congress has to approve it, but you had to have been working. It had to have been in a sense that you can't get back pay for for a load time. Okay, just just gone forever. So people who were out of work, Um, who are federal workers. I think about eight hundred thousand of them during the two nineteen shutdown, the Trump Schumer Pelosi shutdown, Um, they didn't. They went with out pay

for thirty five days. Yeah, three hundred and eighty thousand of the eight hundred thousand federal workers actually had to stop working. That's almost every bit of NASA, h U D, Housing, Urban Development staff, eight percent of National Park Service, fifty workers at the I r S, and then the other four hundred and twenty thousand that they deemed essential. Uh, they still worked, and I believe they're the ones that

could apply, but they aren't guaranteed that money though. Right. No, Again, Congress has to vote, and usually as part of a shutdown, just to kind of like get public perception in Congress's favor. Congress will hold a vote and almost nearly almost every time, nearly unanimously for retroactive pay. When this thing's over, the problem is is again those people who aren't working during that time, whose jobs are deemed non essential, they'll they'll

never get that money. They just don't get it. And that I mean if you project it to your future retirement, like that's money that you're investing a you're not buying things with it, right, So you're not helping the American economy, especially during the holidays this last time. Yeah, you're not investing in the stock market, you're not taking care of your retirement. So it has these ripple effects that last,

you know, months and years. Right. So, so just to get a little bit back to the nuts and bolts of all this, it's not like every time there's a government shutdown, the um the same agency, are the same people are affected in exactly the same way. Each shutdown is different because do you remember how there's twelve different appropriations bills that have to go to the president. Some of those can be passed and signed before the shutdown

ever happened. If that happens and your agency was in one of those those appropriations bills, it's like every other Tuesday or Wednesday for you during the shutdown, right. But you can straddle those agencies and they can be split, and that can get weird. It can UM well like in A good example of it getting weird is when UM this past one happened, the Coast hard which falls

under the Homeland Security UM slice of the pie. Homeland Security hadn't been funded yet, so the Coast Guard had to keep its operations going without pay, while the rest of the military the other four branches were just operating as normally because the Defense Appropriations bill had already been passed before the shutdown. So depending on which bills have already been passed, some groups are working, some groups aren't.

And even in each agency where UM the funding hasn't been appropriated for this coming year, there will be some people who will be working and others who aren't. And it's up to each agency during a shutdown to say, this is how we're going to function during this This is the jobs that have to be carried out whether the government's open or not. And these are the people who can be sent home without ever hopeful, without any

hopes of ever be getting paid. Yeah, like you see, A, you see the thing coming, so it's not like a big surprise, but b you have this sort of plan lady in place, UM it's called you submit it actually to the Office of Management and Budget and you coordinate with him rather and that's where you know, you gotta lay out your plan, like they know it's coming and

so they gotta they gotta plan accordingly. And like I remember, I have friends that worked with the federal government at the CDC in places like that, and you know, they watch the stuff really closely. And some of them were furloughed and you know, went thirty five days without a paycheck. And there's so there's that personal level where you, um

missed rent that that month. I can't remember who was at Wilbur Ross one of the cabinet members was like, go, you know, go uh take up a craft and or a hobby and turn that into like money to pay your rents. Just something some unsolicited advice that no one wanted to. Yeah. Um, so get on Etsy if you are, if you are in that position, like, yes, you missed rent, you mr car payment, you missed like all sorts of stuff. Even if you're not a federal employee. UM, you're still

probably affected in one way or another. And the longer that a shutdown goes on, the more and more people

are affected. Everybody, from people who are trying to get their passport application pushed through to people who UM are supplemental nutrition program recipients, welfare recipients, food stamps, UM children's UH morning Breakfast programs, like all these things start to run out of funding and they get affected, and more and more people start to be directly impacted by these shutdowns the longer they go on, sure the f d A food inspections can be curtailed UH and in fact,

during long shutdowns there are safety experts that say, you might want to steer clear fresh food right now. Yeah, don't eat like that bag of romane lettuce, especially if you're pregnant or something. Or let me see. The National Park Service this was a big window in the last shutdown. UM, I think they some parks were closed all together. That's how they did it. In Yeah, that was a big one. They lost seventy six million bucks a day and lost

revenue for the National Park Service. But this most recent when some of them were shut down, some of them were kept open but not staffed, so very famously there was I think it was that Joshua Tree where they damaged like irreparable damage to some of the Joshua tree. Somebody cut down at least one Joshua tree, which takes centuries to grow, um so that they could drive their off road vehicle in an area where you're not supposed to drive an off road vehicle, so they could get

to it. They cut down a Joshua tree, and that became kind of symbolic for that last last shutdown. I mean, there's a range of problems that range from inconveniences to not getting paid. But you know, imagine coming from another country and planning this thing for a year. You put all this money into a trip to come see the greatest places in the United States. You know, I'm from wherever, I'm German, Germany, I was gonna say Germany, and I want to go see the most beautiful things in America.

I want to go to the Grand Canyon in Yellowstone. And I've had this trip paid for and planned and it's not refundable. Right. What do you mean Mount Rushmore is closed? I can see it right there. Well that yeah, sorry, Franz, Sorry, go see. Uh. I don't know what else is around there, not much nothing. That's kind of the point. Yeah, you can see Van Nostran's childhood birthplace right, and again these are seemingly like if you ask the federal government, they

they're like, who cares about that minor inconvenience. Well, there was one thing that I came across that I found particularly scummy. Chuck during government shutdowns, when other people who are working are not getting paychecks, we go some congress people still get theirs. All congress people do, but some have the wherewithal be like, I'm not taking any pay during this shutdown, Like maybe I'll get it retroactively, that's fine,

but you just hang onto my page check. Other other Kindress people are like, yeah, keep the money coming, I need it, which is that's super scummy to me. Other people are out of work or working and not getting paid, like the T s A famously had to work and and whether they wanted to or not, and they didn't get paid. Um or they're calling in sick. They should yeah, they should not be Comress should not be getting a

paycheck during that time because it's Congress is fault. I think they said that T. S A employees is about ten at one point, we're calling in sick every day. Yeah, after after a little while, do you remember that it was not a good time to travel, and that's an inconvenience people flying yep, taking longer. When's the next one coming, Chuck, that's what everyone wants to know October two. We'll keep

an ear up for it. Uh. In the meantime, now you know everything there is to know about government shutdowns. There's more little interesting details. But if you want to know about them, you can be a saucy boy or girl and look it up on the internet. And since I said saucy, it's time for listener mail. We have a couple of corrections. We haven't done these in a while. We haven't made mistakes in years. Uh. These are both

yours not to pile on. Uh. Hey, guys, I want to point out that Donald Trump spoke to the Prime Minister of Sweden Stephan love Vin about the arrest of Asap Rocky, not the king. Yeah. Everybody was really making a lot of noise about that over here because I got it wrong. Uh. And he said, I would not have even sent this email if Josh hadn't have finished that story with this is reality. What I just said is actual facts. It was close enough. Yeah, it was

just a slip at the time. Facts are the lower case F and that is from hump Us bove Jerk. What's try that again, hump Us bob Jerk. Let me see, there's a lot of consonants in there. I'm sure some of those are quite silent. Wow, I think you nailed it, but you forgot the rip his last name. I think Bob Jerk is the middle name of the compass, so Hampa's grip. And I love that he put swede in parentheses, as if I had to see that. Uh. And then the other one was a math thing, and I'm kind

of curious about this one nuclear semiotics. Josh said, nine thousand seconds is four and forty six days. He said, it's a hundred and four days, And he said, I don't know. You guys are busy in recording and performing calculations, he said, But I'm really curious just where that number came from. He said, because no combination of multiplying dividing nine million by sixty or twenty four yield four sixty six. And I'm really just curious. You guys do a great job.

Thanks for everything, Joey Russo, Thanks Joey. I think that that number was where Mike pat Thumb and Syria got together and had a baby. That's where I think that four. And I'm sure the right after you said that, I went, uh huh, that's right. So I'm equally to Blaine, thank you Chuck for taking that for the team. Team josh uh if you want to get in touch with us to let us know what kind of mistakes I've been making left and right and Chuck's been abiding. We love

that stuff. Love it, can't get enough of it, so get in touch with us. You can go on to stuff you Should Know dot com and check out our social links, and as always, you can send us an email to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.