How Painful Could a Shutdown Be? That’s Up to Biden
WASHINGTON—If House Republicans can’t pass spending legislation by the end of this week, how painful would a government shutdown be? To some extent, that is up to the White House. When the federal government ran out of money in the mid-1990s, President Bill Clinton tried to “emphasize the pain" of the shutdown, his then-budget director later said, betting that the funding lapse would backfire on Republicans.
His administration shut down national parks and museums, stopped processing passports and visas, and curtailed veterans benefits. More than two decades later, when a GOP-led Congress oversaw another government shutdown, the Trump administration played it down, keeping national parks open and processing tax returns.
Russell Vought, a senior Trump administration budget official, said at the time that the then-president had directed staff “to make this shutdown as painless as possible." An obscure 1884 law called the Antideficiency Act and other federal statutes require that swaths of the federal government come to a screeching halt when Congress fails to green light agency appropriations. But the law includes exceptions, so the White House has some wiggle room to interpret the rules, legal experts say.
President Biden and his top aides may have a political incentive to ensure that voters feel the effects of a shutdown. The White House firmly believes that House Republicans—who have so far been unable to agree among themselves on how to keep the government funded starting Oct.
1—will shoulder the blame for any lapse in appropriations. “If the administration thinks the blame for a shutdown is likely to be pointed at its opponents, that gives them an incentive to resolve tough legal questions in favor of a tougher, more
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