The United States Government Shutdowns and Emergency Declarations. Kofi Aninakwa

So the "shutdowns" that happened between 1976 and 1979 did not always entail an actual stop to government functioning; they were often simply funding gaps that did not have any real-world effect.

      If the Congress fails to pass budgetary approval by the end of the fiscal year, a "funding gap" results. The Antideficiency Act requires government functions to begin to shut down immediately so that the Constitutional authority of Congress is not breached through over spending. The Office of Management and Budget provides the agencies with the annual instructions on how to prepare for and operate during a funding gap according to the Antideficiency Act. Most were partial or for single days or weekends and involved few if any furloughs. The first was in 1976. Only the shutdowns of 1995–1996 involved the whole federal government and were longer than four days.

      CRs differ from normal appropriations bills in that they often “continue” the funding allocations from previous bills at the prior year’s rate or through a formula based on the prior year’s rate. Even when overall funding levels have differed, lawmakers have often simply scaled up all accounts by a percent change in spending rather than making individual decisions on spending accounts. However, the CRs often do include certain “anomalies,” where specific items are increased or decreased to work around some problems that would occur from continuing the previous year’s policies, or “policy riders,” specifying certain statements of policy. A “clean CR” does not contain policy riders or politically-motivated changes to funding levels.

      When the government shuts down, that does not mean that all federal operations cease — just the ones deemed nonessential. The nonessential federal workers are furloughed, which means they are sent home and docked pay. These jobs can include the national parks or monuments, processing passport and visa applications and maintaining government websites.

      The military will still go to work; they will not get paid. The border will still be patrolled; they will not get paid. Fire fighters will still be fighting the fires and they will not get paid.” Government offices related to national security law enforcement, air traffic control, the United States mail and others all will remain open. The immediate and most visible impact of a shutdown is in the government’s day-to-day operations. Some departments and offices, like the Internal Revenue Service, would be closed, and nonessential federal employees across the government would stay home.

      A short or lengthy shutdown can affect the broader United States economy as well the individual workers and families. While a shutdown affects the economy in a number of ways such as the delaying of the issuing of business permits and visas to reducing service hours at innumerable agencies – a primary channel through which a shutdown affects the economy is through the withholding or foregoing of the emoluments from federal employees from their paychecks.

      Since the consumer spending makes up 60 percent of the economic activity in the United States, the withholding of emoluments from even some government workers could introduce a significant economic decline in the short run as it occurred in 2013. Similar to the situation, a partisan standoff in Congress led to a partial shutdown of the government that lasted a little over two weeks beginning on Oct. 1 of that year. Over a million federal employees were affected and did not receive a paycheck during the shutdown.

      Some were furloughed and sent home, told not to do anything related to their job. Those deemed “essential” or “exempted” – such as security personnel screening passengers at airports or border patrol agents – were required to continue working at their jobs, although they were not receiving paychecks. The government eventually paid both groups the money owed them, regardless of whether they worked, after Democrats and Republicans reached an agreement on October 16.

       General Short-term impact on spending

      First, we found that the shutdown led to an immediate decline in average household spending of almost 10 percent. Despite the fact that most federal workers have stable jobs and income sources, they were quick to cut spending on pretty much everything, from restaurants to clothing to electronics, just days after their pay was delayed. While households with less money in the bank cut their spending by larger amounts, even those with significant resources and easy access to credit reduced their expenditures.

      Second, the households with a member who was furloughed and required to stay home from work slashed their spending more dramatically – by 15 percent to 20 percent, or almost twice as much as the average of those affected. This larger decline reflected the fact that these households suddenly had a lot more time on their hands. Rather than going out to eat or paying for child care for example, they were able to spend more time cooking and watching their own children.

      This trend is what tends to spread the economic effects of a shutdown that affects a slice of the population to a wider group of businesses and individuals behind Washington, D.C. and in regions with substantial numbers of federal workers, these declines in spending can greatly hurt the health of the local economy in the short run more especially the moms and pops shops, truck food sellers and florists.

      The December 22nd, 2018, shutdown is the 21st government shutdown since Congress adopted new budgeting procedures in 1976, according to the Congressional Research Service, and it's also the third this year alone. For perspective, there were only three shutdowns in the 25 years before 2018, lasting from one day to 10 days. The last shutdown was in 2018-2019 and lasted for grueling 35 days. The partial government shutdown that started Saturday, 22, 2018 stretched through to Friday January 25th 2019. It has now become one of the longest, the worst and grueling ever. The history of government gridlock shows the same pattern: Shutdowns are usually resolved in just a few days, or they drag on for two or three weeks. The Standard & Poor's (S & P) in 2018’s estimated that the shutdowns cost the U.S. $6.5 billion a week. The last major shutdown, in 2013, cost $24 billion - a rate of nearly $1.5 billion a day, according to Standards and Poor.

      Chapter Two – The Southern Border Wall Shutdown

       22nd December 2018 – January, 25th 2019

      The partial government shutdown dubbed The Southern Border Wall Shutdown that started Saturday, December 22 stretched into the third weeks of January 25th, 2019. That means it became the longest ever. This is the since Congress