US Government Shutdown Reaches 67 Days

The partial government shutdown reached 67 days this week, a record. The Department of Homeland Security warned of an imminent payroll crisis — the department processes roughly $1.6 billion in payroll every two weeks, and the available emergency funds are close to exhaustion. The practical consequence is that federal employees who have continued working without being paid will face a situation that is difficult to describe accurately without using language that would constitute editorializing.

The political mechanics of the shutdown are not complicated. Republicans have blocked certain Democratic demands while proposing a budget that would allocate up to $140 billion in new deficit spending for immigration enforcement. Democrats have blocked that. The shutdown continues. The people most immediately affected by it are not the people making the decisions about it.

DHS Secretary Mullin described the payroll situation publicly this week, which is the kind of disclosure that happens when an agency is trying to apply pressure rather than when it is managing a situation with confidence. Whether that pressure produces anything before the payroll accounts actually run dry is the operative question. The record duration of the shutdown suggests that the pressure required to end it has not yet been reached.