Government Shutdown Cartoons

A look back at every government shutdown in U.S. history

The government has shut down a total of 18 times since Congress introduced the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, which established the federal budget process in 1976. Half of those shutdowns occurred over a weekend.
"I call them 'fake shutdowns,'" Marc Goldwein, senior policy director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget – a bipartisan, nonprofit organization that educates the public on fiscal policy issues – told Fox News. “Most shutdowns occur over the course of a weekend. We’re talking days or weeks – not months.”
But there has been a handful of lengthy government shutdowns in the history of the U.S. According to data from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), six shutdowns in the past four decades lasted more than 10 days.
However, Goldwein says, only three of those shutdowns are significant.
Two occurred during the Clinton administration in the winter of 1995 to 1996 when former President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress were at odds and shut the government down for a total of 26 days, Goldwein said.
The third occurred during the Obama administration in 2013. A stalemate between the House and Senate led to a 16-day hiatus.
Here’s a look back at every government shutdown in the history of the U.S.

President Gerald Ford

When: Thursday, Sept. 30 to Monday, Oct. 10, 1976
Duration: 10 days
The first partial shutdown occurred under Gerald Ford’s presidency when Ford vetoed a $56 billion spending bill for the Departments of Labor and Health, Education and Welfare, according to a 1976 report from The New York Times.
This was the year the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act became law, allowing Congress to take an extension, known as a continuing resolution (CR).

President Jimmy Carter

When: Friday, Sept. 30 to Thursday, Oct. 13, 1977
Duration: 12 days
When: Monday, Oct. 31 to Wednesday, Nov. 9, 1977
Duration: 8 days
When: Wednesday, Nov. 30 to Friday, Dec. 9, 1977
Duration: 8 days
There were three shutdowns, referred to as the "abortion shutdowns," in the late 1970s under the presidency of Jimmy Carter. The Democratic party may have dominated both the House and the Senate, but they couldn't get Republicans on board when it came to using Medicaid to pay for abortions.
When: Saturday, Sept. 30 to Wednesday, Oct. 18, 1978
Duration: 17 days
In 1978, Carter vetoed a $37 billion defense authorization bill, which included a $2 billion nuclear-powered Nimitz-class aircraft carrier -- equipment he didn't consider essential to national security, The Washington Post reported. This led to the second largest shutdown in the history of the nation.
When: Sunday, Sept. 30 to Friday, Oct. 12, 1979
Duration: 11 days
Another funding gap took place a year later when the House and Senate disagreed over raising pay by 5.5 percent for members of Congress and senior civil servants, The Washington Post reported. And there was yet again another debate over abortion funding.

President Ronald Reagan

When: Friday, Nov. 20 to Monday, Nov. 23, 1981
Duration: 2 days
President Ronald Reagan vetoed a spending bill because it didn't make enough cuts.
When: Thursday, Sept. 30 to Saturday, Oct. 2, 1982
Duration: 1 day
The government shut down for one day when Congress failed to pass the spending bill on time.
When: Friday, Dec. 17 to Tuesday, Dec., 21, 1982
Duration: 3 days
Both the House and Senate wanted to increase public works spending in order to create more jobs -- a move Reagan opposed. The House also opposed MX missile funding, which, The Washington Post noted, was a "major defense priority" of Reagan's.
When: Thursday, Nov. 10 to Monday, Nov. 14, 1983
Duration: 3 days
Reagan argued over the Democratic-controlled House's proposed foreign aid and spending cuts and their plea for an increase in funding for education. At the same time, Reagan was pushing for more funding for the MX missile.
Eventually, both parties reached an agreement.
When: Sunday, Sept. 30 to Wednesday, Oct. 3, 1984
Duration: 2 days
In short, Reagan agreed to the House's proposed crime-fighting package, but he opposed their water projects package.
"Reagan offered to forgo his crime bill in exchange for junking the water package...but a deal wasn't reached in time to avoid a brief shutdown," The Washington Post reported.
When: Wednesday, Oct. 3 to Friday, Oct. 5, 1984
Duration: 1 day
Lawmakers reportedly needed another day to discuss the spending bill.
When: Thursday, Oct. 16 to Saturday, Oct. 18, 1986
Duration: 1 day
The Democratic-controlled House was once again in disagreement with Reagan and the Republican-controlled Senate. This time, over a welfare package deal.
When: Friday, Dec. 18 to Sunday, Dec. 20, 1987
Duration: 1 day
Reagan and Democrats couldn't agree on funding for Nicaraguan "Contra" militants. Democrats also pushed to reinstate the "Fairness Doctrine," which required licensed broadcasters to give equal air time for people with competing political points of view.

President George H.W. Bush

When: Friday, Oct. 5 to Tuesday, Oct. 9, 1990
Duration: 3 days
Only one shutdown took place during George H.W. Bush’s presidency. It occurred in October 1990 after Bush vetoed a stopgap spending bill, The New York Times reported at the time.
But the timing was right. The shutdown happened over Columbus Day weekend and most federal workers were already off for the holiday.

President Bill Clinton

When: Monday, Nov. 13 to Sunday, Nov. 19, 1995
Duration: 5 days
President Bill Clinton vetoed a continuing resolution in November 1995 over Medicare premium increases.
"The government is partially shutting down because Congress has failed to pass the straightforward legislation necessary to keep the government running without imposing sharp hikes in Medicare premiums and deep cuts in education and the environment," Clinton said during an address on Nov. 14, 1995.
When: Friday, Dec. 15, 1995, to Saturday, Jan. 6, 1996
Duration: 21 days
It's the longest shutdown in U.S. history: 21 days.
The government shut down after Clinton vetoed the spending bill proposed by the Republican-controlled Congress.
After a long 22 days, the president and Congress agreed to a seven year budget plan, which included "modest spending cuts and tax increases," according to research by the Regional Oral History Office at the University of California, Berkeley.

President Barack Obama

When: Monday, Sept. 30 to Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013
Duration: 16 days
Seventeen years later, the government shut down once again. Lawmakers couldn't seem to come to an agreement on the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, in 2013.
The House passed several versions of the bill to fund the government. But each time, the Senate sent it back.
“This is an unnecessary blow to America,” Harry Reid, the Senate democratic leader at the time, said of the shutdown.
John Boehner, the House speaker during the shutdown, said Republicans were fighting to keep the government open, but the Senate "continued to reject our offers.”

Trump administration to revoke Obama-era policy for abortion providers

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Friday that it would revoke an Obama-era “legal guidance” that discouraged states from defunding organizations, such as Planned Parenthood, that provide abortion services.  

According to officials who spoke with Reuters, HHS will implement new regulations aimed at protecting health care workers’ civil rights based on religious and conscience objections.

HHS said the changes were necessary after years of the federal government forcing health care workers to provide services like abortion, euthanasia, and sterilization.
The Obama-era guidance restricted states’ ability “to take certain actions against family-planning providers that offer abortions,” according to a statement by HHS.
Medicaid is funded by both state and federal taxes. But under federal law, Medicaid is prohibited from funding abortion services. Abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood receive funding for abortions from other sources.
Critics derided the HHS measure as the Trump administration’s latest effort to dismantle President Barack Obama’s legacy.
Friday's HHS announcement coincided with the 45th annual "March for Life." The event is held every year by pro-life protesters on the anniversary of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion across the country.

Do Democrats really care about Dreamers? No, they will do anything to score political points

Democrats are threatening to shut down the federal government, refusing to pass a spending bill unless it contains a path to legal status for the so-called “Dreamers” protected under President Obama’s DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program.

Are the Democrats really concerned with the status of these young people brought to the U.S. illegally as children, or with reforming our broken immigration system? No. They are trying to score political points.

Let’s review:
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., recently went to a closed-door meeting at the White House to push his immigration plan. He was so genuinely intent on getting a bipartisan deal done to save the Dreamers that he torpedoed the entire undertaking by running to the microphones and claiming President Trump’s made a “racist” comment about “s---hole” countries.
Does that make any sense? No, it does not.
Durbin knew full well when he made his accusation that President Trump used such vulgar language that a media firestorm would be unleashed. He was betting that if the talks broke down, and Congress failed to resolve the Dreamer issue, President Trump would be blamed.
That, to Durbin and his Democratic colleagues – Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California – is much, much more important than actually lifting the cloud of uncertainty that hovers over the heads of the so-called Dreamers.
Here is the reality: Democrats are scared to death that a Republican Congress and a Republican president may actually effect some reform of our flawed immigration system. They have pursued the Hispanic community vigorously for many years, seeking to solidify their support within the country’s fastest growing demographic.
Part of the Democratic strategy has been to demonize the GOP as racist and anti-immigrant. Trump’s candidacy and his careless comments about Mexicans greased the skids.
In their eagerness to curry favor with Hispanics, Democrats have increasingly abandoned their earlier professed support for secure borders. Though they continue to pay lip service to protecting against illegal immigration, many have opposed the use of E-verify and other approaches that might reduce the allure of entering the U.S. without authorization.
The Democrats have also encouraged the spread of sanctuary cities, where local governments limit their cooperation with federal officials on the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws. And they just hate Trump’s proposed wall along our southern border.
Now many Democrats are insisting they will not vote for a spending bill needed to keep government operating beyond Friday night unless it includes a lopsided DACA fix proposed by Senators Durbin and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., which allows Dreamers a path to legal status but skimps on border enforcement.
Though nearly everyone supports protecting Dreamers against deportation, Republicans and the White House want to couple that with enhanced border security, to make sure that what some are calling “amnesty” does not result in great numbers of new people flooding in without permission. 
Democrats are taking a risk. Most Americans are compassionate and welcoming to immigrants, recognizing the invaluable contributions of those who have come to the U.S. from other nations legally.
But, at the same time, most Americans favor border enforcement. Hillary Clinton found that out the hard way, when WikiLeaks exposed her making this comment in 2013: "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, sometime in the future.…”
Those remarks gave candidate Trump the ammunition he needed to paint his opponent as weak on protecting our borders; it didn’t help that the lines came from a paid speech Clinton made to a Brazilian bank.
Polling has shown that 65 percent of Americans favor coupling legal status for the Dreamers with tougher immigration enforcement. Some 79 percent of those surveyed think employers should have to verify the legal status of their workers, for instance. Democrats balking at such a compromise are on the wrong side of this issue.
Many in the liberal media argue that the GOP will be blamed for any spending impasse that forces a government shutdown, since Republicans have a majority in both houses of Congress and occupy the White House. But Americans understand that passing a budget requires 60 votes in the Senate, which Republicans do not have. Republicans will need at least 10 Democratic votes.
Democrats are in a pickle. They can anger the nation by blocking a proposed spending resolution that lacks a DACA fix but that would fund our military and provide a six-year extension of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program. Or they can infuriate Hispanics by keeping the federal lights on and working to resolve the Dreamer problem as part of a broader immigration package.
Latinos do not look to Republicans to fix this problem; they expect Democrats to do so. It isn’t the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that has attracted a protest demonstration by immigration activists – it is Chuck Schumer’s.
Everyone wants changes to our immigration system, including the White House. And nearly everyone wants to protect the Dreamers. There’s lots of room to negotiate, and President Trump has signaled support for a compromise.
But a compromise – a win – on immigration would be another nightmare for Democrats. The optics of President Trump hosting a signing ceremony in the White House to celebrate passage of an immigration bill, which has eluded the past several presidents, would be unimaginably valuable for Republicans as we approach the November elections.
A new immigration law would be almost as valuable for Republicans as the millions of workers getting bonuses and wage hikes because of the GOP tax bill that President Trump signed into law.
A few more wins and Democrats are going to have a hard time persuading voters that President Trump and a Republican Congress aren’t indeed Making America Great Again.

Democrats Schumer, Pelosi quick to blame Trump after Senate fails to avert shutdown

After a midnight deadline came and went Friday night in a bid to avert a government shutdown, Democrats in Washington were quick to assign blame.

“There’s no one more to blame for the position we find ourselves than President Trump," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor early Saturday. "Instead of bringing us all together, he’s pulled us apart.”

Throughout his speech, Schumer used the phrase “Trump Shutdown” -- an apparent reaction to the Republicans' insistence during the week that any shutdown should be labeled a "Schumer Shutdown."
Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, also saw responsibility lying with the president -- but also with other Republican leaders.
“What a massive failure of leadership. Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and Republican lawmakers pulled out all the stops to give a massive tax break to their wealthy donors, but now that it’s time to take care of the rest of America they can’t get their act together," Perez said in a statement.
"The American people clearly want Congress to take care of veterans, combat the opioid crisis, ensure children have long-term access to health care, and protect Dreamers. Instead, Republican leaders have pushed our government into a needless shutdown. This is Trump’s Republican Party: chaotic, destructive and driven by greed. Voters won’t forget who the GOP truly cares about on Election Day.”
In her response, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi quoted President Trump as having said that "our country needs a good shutdown."
"There is no such thing as a good shutdown of government," Pelosi responded. "Republicans’ total inability to govern is once again threatening our economy, weakening communities, and dangerously depriving the military of the certainty they need to keep our nation safe.
“I am proud of House and Senate Democrats’ unity in insisting on a budget that supports our military and the domestic investments that keep our nation strong, and that honors our values by protecting the DREAMers.
“I hope that we can now conduct bipartisan negotiations where we find our common ground to honor our responsibility to meet the needs of the American people.”
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. -- who earlier in the week took criticism for his questioning of Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen during a Senate hearing -- tweeted that Republicans had "failed" the American people.
"(A)nd now the American people will suffer," Booker concluded.
Republicans control the Senate 51-49. The GOP needed 60 votes to pass a temporary spending plan late Friday to avert a shutdown, but the tally was 50-49. Five Democrats voted in favor of the measure. Five Republicans voted against it.
The Senate adjourned early Saturday, with plans to resume negotiations later in the day in hopes of reaching a spending agreement and ending the shutdown.

Dems deserve blame for 'Schumer Shutdown,' GOP leaders say

Republican leaders blamed their Democratic counterparts after the Senate failed to pass a spending bill by midnight Friday to avert a government shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the GOP needed 60 votes to pass a measure that would have kept the government running until mid-February, but not enough Democrats went along with the plan. The tally was 50-49, with five Democrats voting in favor of the measure and five Republicans voting against it.

“Most of the stuff we agree on. One reason we ended up here, the shoehorning of illegal immigration into this debate,” McConnell said after the vote failed, adding that the Senate would resume talks later Saturday to prevent a prolonged shutdown.
At the center of the soured negotiations was the Obama-era DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program, which has protected some young immigrants from deportation.
After the Senate adjourned for the evening, McConnell underscored that the shutdown was “avoidable,” while calling the Democrats' decision to filibuster “irresponsible.”
On Twitter, McConnell, R-Ky., singled out Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., claiming he “doesn’t even have an immigration bill.”
“The facts before us are simple. Right now, the Democratic leader has no compromise immigration bill on the table. No bill exists,” McConnell tweeted. Why do Americans need to suffer from a government shutdown when he doesn’t even have an immigration bill?”

"Right now, the Democratic leader has no compromise immigration bill on the table. No bill exists. Why do Americans need to suffer from a government shutdown when he doesn’t even have an immigration bill?”

On Friday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had labeled the potential disruption of government services a “Schumer Shutdown,” in a statement Friday, faulting Democrats for behaving like “obstructionist losers” who put “politics above our national security, military families, vulnerable children, and our country’s ability to serve all Americans.”
Vice President Mike Pence echoed those sentiments in a Tweet late Friday night.
"Rather than solve problems, Democratic leadership preferred a shutdown that has dangerous consequences for our national defense. Their action tonight – or lack thereof – is unconscionable," Pence said.
Tweeting before the vote, President Donald Trump suggested Democrats wanted a shutdown in an effort to “diminish the great success of the Tax Cuts,” with a pessimistic undertone that doubted a deal could be reached in time.
House Speaker Paul Ryan called the Democrats' decision to block a four-week stopgap extension “reckless.”
“Senate Democrats have let down our troops, our children, and all Americans. All of this is just unnecessary. It is reckless. Senate Democrats have brought us to a shutdown,” Ryan said in a statement posted to Twitter.
However, during his closing remarks on the Senate floor, Schumer said no one deserves the blame more than Trump. Schumer claimed that Democrats were willing to compromise with the White House on a U.S.-Mexico border wall in exchange for DACA protection policies.
The spin from both sides was intended to aid the prospects of candidates facing re-election in 2018.
For now, the military, health inspectors and law enforcement were all scheduled to work without pay, while the brunt of the shutdown won’t be felt until Monday as hundreds of thousands of federal employees are set to be furloughed if a deal isn't reached over the weekend.
The Senate planned to reconvene Saturday afternoon, in hopes of reaching a bipartisan agreement to prevent of prolonged shutdown. McConnell has filed a procedure to introduce another short-term spending bill that would fund the government through Feb. 8, but the earliest the Senate could hold a vote would be Monday.
If the Senate bill passes, it would then return to the House for a reconciliation vote.