Lawmakers Should Avoid a Wasteful Government Shutdown

Government funding runs out at midnight tonight, with none of the twelve appropriations bills nor a temporary continuing resolution (CR) having been passed and signed into law. Unless a government funding deal is reached today, the federal government will experience its first shutdown since 2019 and its first full shutdown since 2013. Many functions of government are able to continue during a shutdown, either because they are funded on a mandatory basis or deemed ‘essential.’ Read our Shutdown Q&A to learn more.

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: 

It’s Fiscal New Year’s Eve, and lawmakers in Washington are poised to drop the ball once again. Despite all the talk in recent months about addressing waste in government, we are about to create a totally wasteful situation: a government shutdown. For the good of the country, lawmakers should work together in good faith to keep the lights on tonight.

Shutdowns don’t save money, they waste money. Under shutdowns, we pay federal workers not to work and rent buildings that aren’t being used, all while requiring costly shutdown planning, inefficient allocation of government resources, and a reduction in the services available to the American people. We should avoid a shutdown and keep the government funded.

Beyond that, we need a plan to actually reduce our massive deficits – and that should include extending discretionary spending caps. The last thing we should be doing is coupling a CR or appropriations bills with new debt-financed spending or tax cuts.

Here are the things our political leaders have failed to do this year: present a full President’s budget, adopt a Congressional budget resolution, and enact a single appropriations bill. Let’s not add keeping the government open for the new fiscal year to that list. 

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For more information, please contact Matt Klucher, Assistant Director for Media Relations, at klucher@crfb.org.