Shutdowns Aren’t The Problem, They’re The Solution

Federal shutdowns—along with the debt limit like that the Republicans sought to extend in the American Relief Act (ARA)—may represent the last remaining pressure points to compel fiscal and regulatory restraint.

While pared down from 1,547 pages to 116, the latest crisis-induced continuing resolution (CR)—framed as a necessity to “keep the government open”—was rejected in the House, with 38 Republicans voting against it.

This sets the stage for the 22nd federal government shutdown since the 1970s, just before Christmas. Yet, despite alarmist headlines, the government never truly shuts down; payroll deductions continue unabated, and many essential services persist.

Elon Musk liked the compromise bill; Vivek Ramaswamy praised its exclusion of congressional pay raises, biocontainment research laboratories and the censorious Global Engagement Center. Both now head the advisory Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

But the abbreviated bill still rankles the few Republicans who consider $36 trillion debt plenty and dislike the final page’s extension of the public debt limit for two years.

While likely a strategic immunization on Trump’s part against Democrat obstructions in 2025 when the debt limit will reached, it’s still jarring as the first major House floor mobilization influenced by DOGE leaders. After all, the DOGE deadline to lay out $2 trillion in yearly cuts is July 4, 2026, which does not resonate well with the $4 trillion extra spending the ARA will enable.

Trump has threatened to primary fiscal conservatives who objected to the CR, and supports getting rid of the debt limit altogether—a Janet Yellen special—saying it “doesn’t mean anything, except psychologically.”

The media narrative invokes missed paychecks and disruption at agencies vulnerable to closure, such as the Internal Revenue Service or National Park Service.

Rarely asked are more fundamental questions: why are we so dependent on federal government bloat in the first place? Why does anyone tolerate the sheer magnitude? Most shutdown coverage inadvertently highlights activities that should be left purely to citizens—or if necessarily governmental, to the states and localities.

Americans rely heavily on taxpayer largesse for farm aid, health care, education, housing, transportation, energy, small business loans and much more. They are regulated down to the design of dishwashers and gas cans and Mother-may-I craft brewing permits by agencies funded through these colossal spending packages.

The real crisis is not shutdowns themselves but Congress’s refusal to confront the actual disruption caused by unchecked growth in spending and regulatory programs. Today, discretionary spending effectively operates on autopilot just as entitlements like Social Security and Medicare do. This dysfunction has birthed a federal behemoth the Framers would scarcely recognize. Nominally, deficits alone can now exceed total federal outlays from the 1990s.

We’re going to need better from DOGE. During the 1990s, efforts by policymakers like then-House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich to eliminate the Departments of Commerce, Education, and Energy failed. Even the first Trump administration’s pre-DOGE “Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch” registered barely noticeable consolidation rather than elimination of agencies and programs. The regulatory agendas of agencies previously eliminated, such as the Civil Aeronautics Board, migrated elsewhere.

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