Is Chaos the Natural State of Congress?

November 02, 2023

The federal budgeting process was broken long before Matt Gaetz and Kevin McCarthy’s recent spat.

by Katherine Mangu-Ward Reason.com

What if the federal government was reduced to its essential functions? What if thousands of federal workers were sent home without pay? What if citizens were forced to examine the real role that the federal government plays in their lives and Congress was confronted with hard questions about spending? What if Americans got a chance to see what life was like in the absence of the hundreds of ways, large and small, that federal spending changes incentives all around them?

Alas, government shutdowns aren’t nearly as exciting as they sound. It turns out there’s a lot of daylight between a government shutdown and actually shutting the government down. Yet they remain an oddly powerful threat in American politics, with an anticipated shutdown playing a starring role in exciting events taking place on Capitol Hill as this issue goes to press.