Here’s everything you need to know about Washington’s ‘shutdown season’

It’s September in Washington, which means it is shutdown season. In what has become regular political theater genre, some politicians, most media and more than a few commentators are breathlessly opining on the next looming closure of the federal government. 

It remains to be seen whether there will be a lapse in appropriations this year (more on that in a bit). But whether it happens now, Christmas or five years from now, it is likely that the government will close again sometime in the future. So it might be helpful, amid all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, to know more about what that really means. 

First of all, you might be wondering why this always seems to happen in September. It is because the federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30. Unlike most individuals, but similar to many large corporations, the federal government operates on a fiscal year, not a calendar year.   

Right now, we are in the last days of 2023 as far as the government is concerned. The appropriations bills that actually allow the federal government to spend money – please don’t call it a budget, because that’s something else – typically run from Oct. 1 of each year to Sept. 30 of the next. If Congress does not approve new spending beyond Sept. 30, then appropriations will lapse. 

(By the way, “lapse in appropriations” is an unpopular term in Washington. Most politicians refuse to use it, and the media never uses it. I was once excoriated during a Senate confirmation hearing by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for using it. He accused me of Orwellian doublespeak, of minimizing what he considered to be the existential threat that shutdowns pose. I should have pointed out to him that “lapse in appropriations” is the term the law uses to describe the condition when no new legislation permits new spending.) 

There are two basic ways the government can avoid a lapse or shutdown. One is to pass a stopgap spending bill called a “continuing resolution” or CR. The other is to pass one or more new full-year spending bills. The former is typically for a short period of time, from a few weeks to a few months, although CRs can go as long as a full year. They basically just extend the previous year’s spending bills by that given period of time.  

The latter could take the form of up to 12 separate individual appropriations bills, or small bills that blend two or more appropriation bills (known as “minibuses”), or a monster bill that combines all 12 (an “omnibus”). One year last decade Congress even passed a so-called “cromnibus,” which was a CR plus a minibus. 

More to the point at hand, what happens if nothing passes — if, at 12:01 am on Oct. 1, the federal government does not have specific legislative authority to spend money?  

In that case, some of the government shuts down, but far from all. 

It is the Office of Management and Budget that generally manages a shutdown. The director of OMB signs the declaration that appropriations have lapsed, and instructs parts of the government to suspend operations. 

But that is hardly a full government shutdown. Indeed, the OMB, and through it the various federal agencies, have a tremendous amount of flexibility in how to manage the situation. That is because the law “excepts,” or exempts, many types of work from a shutdown.   

Federal work related to health, safety and “protection of property,” for example, is “excepted” and can continue during a shutdown. So can work related to the legislative process and diplomacy. The military can still “contract for necessary clothing, subsistence, forage, fuel, quarters, transportation or medical and hospital supplies.” Tax refunds are still processed.  

Oh, and despite what some politicians might have you believe, Social Security payments can still go out. 

Of course, what constitutes each exception – for example, “protection of property” — is open to interpretation, and might well be interpreted differently by different administrations. 

In early 2019, for example, during the longest government shutdown in history, the Trump administration decided to keep most national parks open. Thus, visitors to our nation’s capital were still able to visit the World War II Memorial, despite the shutdown. Compare that to 2013, when the Obama administration not only erected fences around that same memorial, but also put up signs on those fences: “Because of the Federal Government SHUTDOWN, All National Parks are CLOSED.” The signs, including the almost Trump-esque ALL CAPS, had been professionally made, which means that they were either made before the shutdown, or were deemed exempt from the shutdown, and so were the government workers who put them up.

Why the different interpretation? In 2019, the Republican Trump administration was interested in making the shutdown appear as insignificant as possible. We wanted to focus attention on funding for the border wall. Conversely, in 2013, the Democrat Obama administration wanted the shutdown to seem as dire as possible in order to put political pressure on the Republican-controlled Congress to increase spending. 

None of this is to say that government shutdowns are insignificant. Nor are they cost-free. They can have real effects on the operations of various functions of government. And if they go on long enough, they can create real hardship for federal workers who live paycheck-to-paycheck. 

But at the same time, they aren’t what most people probably think of when they hear the word “shutdown.”  Or at least, they don’t need to be.   

Like so many things in life these days, it seems, shutdowns are subject to the prevailing winds of partisan politics in Washington.   

Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina, is a contributor to NewsNation. He served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and acting White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump.