By High Country Advocate Staff
The latest “government shutdown” is less a fiscal emergency than a political performance — smoke and mirrors masking a complete failure by both parties to perform their constitutional duties. Behind the headlines, the truth is simpler: almost nothing meaningful stops for the first two weeks, and nearly every “suspended” program will still pay out.
A Manufactured Crisis
Under the U.S. Constitution, Congress must fund the government. That’s not optional — it’s their most basic duty. Yet every year, lawmakers stage the same crisis, blaming each other for failing to pass a budget. The Founding Fathers intended majority rule for nearly all legislative decisions, reserving supermajority votes only for exceptional actions like impeachment or constitutional amendments.
Instead, the modern Senate has invented its own set of rules — the filibuster and cloture — that allow a minority to block the majority. Nothing in the Constitution requires that 60-vote threshold. The Senate could change it tomorrow with a simple majority. Until then, the country remains hostage to procedural gridlock that the framers explicitly warned against.
Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 22 that giving a minority veto power “destroys the energy of government.” James Madison, in Federalist No. 58, called it “a reversal of the fundamental principle of free government.” Yet today, a handful of senators can freeze the nation’s operations — exactly what Hamilton and Madison feared.
Majority Rule Was the Founders’ Intent
Ordinary laws — including budgets and continuing resolutions (CRs) — were designed to pass by simple majority. Only a few actions in the Constitution require more: treaties, veto overrides, impeachment, and amendments. Everything else is meant to move forward with the consent of the majority.
But instead of governing, Congress has turned procedure into a weapon. The Senate hides behind the filibuster while the House blames the Senate. Meanwhile, both parties point fingers as if “rules” — not choices — are responsible for the stalemate.
If Congress truly wanted to end the shutdown, 51 votes in the Senate and a majority in the House could pass a CR tonight. Both chambers — and the White House — are controlled by the same party. This gridlock isn’t about constitutional limits. It’s political theater.
The First Two Weeks: All Smoke, No Fire
Despite the dramatic warnings, almost no citizen programs stop in the first two weeks. October checks — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits, and SNAP food assistance — continue because those funds were already appropriated before the shutdown began.
Even furloughed federal workers won’t miss a paycheck right away. Most are paid bi-weekly, meaning no salary would be due until mid-October. When Congress inevitably votes to reopen government, all furloughed employees receive back pay under the 2019 Fair Treatment Act. The furloughs themselves are purely procedural — required under the 1870 Antideficiency Act, which forbids agencies from operating without an active appropriation, even if no paycheck has yet been missed.
The result? Offices close, press releases fly, and politicians grandstand, while benefits keep flowing and taxpayers foot the bill for retroactive pay later.
The Real Victims: Trust and Competence
The real casualty isn’t federal payroll or food stamps — it’s public faith in government itself. When both parties refuse to perform their most fundamental function — funding the nation they claim to serve — they reduce governance to a spectacle of blame.
If the framers were here today, they would see a minority manipulating Senate rules to obstruct the will of the majority, and a Congress too cynical to fix it. The Founders gave the people a republic based on majority rule. What we have now is minority control — and the illusion of crisis to disguise it.
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