The great threat to the federal government today, which includes Congress, is the threat that the American public will not notice any significant disruption of their lives because of the furlough of 800,000 workers. 

https://www.garynorth.com/public/19065.cfm

Gary North

If President Trump holds firm on the shutdown until January 20, 2021, he will have struck the greatest blow for liberty and against bureaucracy in American political history.

To achieve this, all that he has to do is nothing.

In doing this, he will have overturned a classic slogan of American politics: “You can’t beat something with nothing.”

DON’T DO SOMETHING. SIT THERE

Trump is exercising his legitimate constitutional right to do nothing. All he has to do is do nothing until January 20, 2021.

These days, Congress does not get around to passing a real budget. It just keeps passing budget extensions that last a couple of months. There is not enough agreement in Congress to produce an annual budget any longer. Gridlock is here.

These extensions are called continuing resolutions. They are now permanent. Wikipedia reports:

Between fiscal year 1977 and fiscal year 2015, Congress only passed all twelve regular appropriations bills on time in four years – fiscal years 1977, 1989, 1995, and 1997.Between 1980 and 2013, there were eight government shutdowns in the United States. Most of these shutdowns revolved around budget issues including fights over the debt ceiling and led to the furlough of certain ‘non-essential’ personnel. The majority of these fights lasted 1–2 days with a few exceptions lasting more than a week.

The article provides a list of these continuing resolutions since 2001. It goes on for pages. Read the rest of this entry »