How to prevent the next government shutdown: Ban continuing resolutions.
The game of chicken between congressional Republicans and Democrats has resulted in a partial government shutdown, with none of the 12 regular-order appropriations bills enacted into law. The last federal government shutdown lasted 35 days in late 2018, during President Trump’s first term, when his battle with Congress over his southern border wall could not be resolved.
What both sides proposed this time around were continuing resolutions, the de facto way the federal government now gets funded. Since 1998, there have been 134 interim and four full-year continuing resolutions, ranging in time from 21 days to 216 days. This averages out to around five continuing resolutions per year during this period.
Who is to blame for this shutdown? Although both sides of the aisle are culpable, a few people stand out.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) genuflecting to the president with his “One Big Beautiful Bill” is a deficit growing nightmare. And although Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) deserves some credit for not preventing a bill funding the government back in March, this only ended up laying the groundwork for the current shutdown. Finally, recall that Trump stated back in 2011 that “I actually think the president would be blamed” for government shutdowns; based on his own opinion, he too should be added to this list.
For fiscal 2026, Republicans in Congress proposed a “clean” seven-week continuing resolution, ending Nov. 21, 2025, their way to buy time for yet another budget battle just before Thanksgiving.
This sounds reasonable. However, the lack of trust between the two parties moved Democrats to say no, lest their support for the Republican continuing resolution be interpreted as an endorsement of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that Republicans pushed through Congress in the summer. Democrats wanted several funding cuts to be restored, with those affecting health coverage at the top of their list.
There have been 11 government shutdowns since 1980 that resulted in furloughs, with five presidents (Trump, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan) experiencing one or more during their time in the White House. We already know the world does not stop when the federal government shuts down.
Like every government shutdown, this one will end, with both parties claiming victory. Yet there is no victory when Congress cannot do its job and fund the government.
The government employees who are furloughed — hundreds of thousands across numerous government agencies — will not be paid until the shutdown ends. They will then be paid for all their furloughed time for not working. Taking into account the preparations required prior to the shutdown, and the actions required to ramp up the government again after the shutdown ends, the cost borne to taxpayers is prohibitive and inexcusable. All these shutdown costs will only add to an ever growing national debt, now well over $37 trillion.
But that’s not all. When government workers do not get paychecks, their personal bills don’t just stop coming in. They might not be able to pay them. If this delay lasts long enough, landlords may not receive rent checks, which in turn limits their ability to cover their mortgages and other expenses. People without regular paychecks are also less inclined to eat at restaurants and make other discretionary purchases. The downstream impact of an extended shutdown can have significant implications on local economies, particularly in Virginia and Maryland.
As long as Congress has continuing resolutions available to them to fund the government temporarily, they will continue to use them. What is needed is a voluntary agreement to end continuing resolutions. If Congress is forced to pass all 12 appropriation bills no later than Oct. 1 each year, without the safety net of a continuing resolution, they will need to work together to find a compromise.
The risk of not having continuing resolutions available to fund the government is government shutdowns. Yet this is what periodically occurs anyways when the two parties cannot come to an agreement. The key difference is that bills to end the government shutdown would not be a continuing resolution, but rather, appropriation bills that fund the government and can be agreed upon by both parties.
With polarizing differences between the two parties fueling an atmosphere of mistrust, and few checks-and-balances on the executive branch by the legislative branch, this shutdown feels different. On the surface, there are no clear indicators pointing to an end to the standoff between the two parties. Yet some unexpected unifying event could emerge — perhaps a major infrastructure breakdown, a terrorist attack, or a catastrophic accident, which will force the two sides to come together and reach a compromise.
What the American people deserve is functional government. Given the partisanship that permeates all branches of government, a rethinking of priorities is in order. And there is no better place to begin such a rethink than with sensible budget compromise and a permanent end to continuing resolutions.
Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a computer science professor in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. As a data scientist, he uses his expertise in risk-based analytics to address problems in public policy.