THE WASHINGTON UNION PAPERS: NO. 26

WHY GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWNS MUST END PERMANENTLY

To the People of the United States,

A government that ceases to function ceases to be legitimate. A republic that allows itself to halt operations, to withhold the wages of its workers, to suspend the very services that sustain the public good, is a republic in decline. There is no greater betrayal of the social contract than for a government to willingly turn against itself, to shut its doors not from lack of means but from lack of will. And yet, we have allowed this farce to repeat itself time and again, each time at the expense of those who place their trust in the promise of stable governance.

Let there be no misunderstanding: A government shutdown is not a tool of fiscal discipline, nor is it a legitimate expression of political disagreement. It is the abdication of responsibility, the abandonment of duty, the deliberate infliction of harm upon the very people that government exists to serve. It is a spectacle of dysfunction, a performance of paralysis, a demonstration of incompetence so profound that it shakes the very foundations of democracy. And worse still, it has become routine.

This is not leadership. This is cowardice dressed in the rotting garments of political theater. This is not governance. This is sabotage—an act of deliberate harm inflicted upon a nation by those who swore an oath to protect it. It is the legislative equivalent of arson, a willful act of destruction waged by those who refuse to engage in the difficult work of compromise, negotiation, and statesmanship. It is the practice of extortion masquerading as principle, where a handful of ideological zealots hold the livelihoods of millions hostage, leveraging their suffering for personal political gain. It is a declaration of war against the very concept of functional government.

No serious nation on this earth willingly shuts itself down. No other global power is so reckless, so irresponsible, so consumed by its own partisan infighting that it chooses to cripple itself from within. And yet, the United States, the supposed leader of the free world, has made this disgrace a routine affair. It has turned government shutdowns into predictable cycles, like seasons of a wretched, never-ending political drama, where the cost is measured not in television ratings but in shattered lives, missed paychecks, and an erosion of public trust so deep that cynicism has become the default state of the American psyche.

There is no dignity in this. There is no justification. This is the conduct of a government that has lost its way, that has allowed partisanship to become a higher virtue than governance, that has permitted extremists to hijack its institutions and wield them like blunt instruments against the very fabric of the republic. A shutdown is not a reset button; it is a declaration of failure. It is an admission that those in power lack the competence to fulfill even the most fundamental duties of public service. It is an act of sabotage against the nation itself.

And who suffers? Not the lawmakers who orchestrate these crises. Not the wealthy donors who fund them. No, the suffering falls squarely upon the backs of federal workers who are expected to work without pay, upon the small business owners who depend on government contracts, upon the families who rely on vital services now left in limbo. It is the soldier stationed abroad, the TSA agent at the airport, the scientist in the lab, the single mother waiting for her food assistance—these are the people punished by the childish tantrums of elected officials who would rather burn down the system than participate in its function.

This is the height of governmental malpractice. It is the grotesque spectacle of dysfunction turned into an institution, of national self-sabotage transformed into political strategy. And yet, the architects of this chaos face no consequences. They continue to collect their salaries. They continue to grandstand on cable news, pontificating about fiscal responsibility while actively costing the economy billions. They continue to manufacture crisis after crisis, knowing that no matter how many livelihoods they upend, they will never be held accountable for the wreckage they leave behind.

Enough. No more. The time for polite condemnation has passed. This is not an unfortunate quirk of the American political system; it is an existential threat to its very survival. A government that cannot guarantee its own continuity is not a government at all—it is a failed state masquerading as a functioning democracy. If those in power refuse to do their jobs, then they should be removed from them. If lawmakers are incapable of passing a budget, then their paychecks should be the first to stop. If they are willing to weaponize the basic functions of government for political gain, then they are unfit to hold office in a free nation.

A republic cannot endure when its stewards treat it as a game. A nation cannot lead when it cannot even govern itself. A government shutdown is not just an inconvenience—it is an indictment, a glaring neon sign flashing "FAILED STATE IN PROGRESS." And if we allow this to continue, if we resign ourselves to this dysfunction as an inevitability rather than a choice, then we are complicit in the slow and steady unraveling of a once-great democracy.

There can be no compromise with this level of incompetence. There can be no patience for those who wield dysfunction as a weapon. Government shutdowns must not be mitigated; they must be eradicated. The system must be restructured to ensure that never again will the federal government grind to a halt over the petty squabbles of those who have mistaken obstruction for leadership. The choice is simple: Either we end this insanity now, or we accept that the American experiment is entering its death spiral, undone not by enemies abroad, but by its own elected saboteurs.

The history of government shutdowns is not a history of necessity but of failure—failure to govern, failure to negotiate, failure to uphold the most basic obligations of statecraft. It is an invention of modern political cowardice, a weapon wielded not against enemies abroad but against the citizens at home. The American people do not demand this. The economy does not require it. The Constitution does not prescribe it. It exists only because those entrusted with power have allowed it to exist, because they have found it easier to govern by crisis than by competence, because they have learned to exploit chaos rather than to resolve conflict.

The consequences of these shutdowns are neither abstract nor theoretical. When the federal government closes, the damage is immediate, severe, and wholly unnecessary. Hundreds of thousands of workers are furloughed without pay, their livelihoods placed in limbo not by economic downturns or natural disasters but by the reckless indecision of those who claim to lead. Essential services—from food inspections to disaster relief, from national security operations to small business loans—are delayed or abandoned, not because the resources do not exist, but because the political will to sustain them has been sacrificed on the altar of partisanship. The markets tremble, businesses suffer, families are thrown into uncertainty, all because those in power have refused to wield that power responsibly.

And yet, even in the face of such obvious harm, even as the costs of these shutdowns mount into the billions, the dysfunction continues. Why? Because there are those who benefit from it. There are those who see in these manufactured crises not a failure of governance but an opportunity for political leverage. There are those who, insulated from the consequences of their own inaction, have come to believe that governance itself is a game, that to serve is to manipulate, that to hold power is to wield it against the very institution they are sworn to uphold.

This must end. And it must end permanently.

A nation cannot thrive under a system that permits its government to periodically collapse under the weight of its own absurdities. It cannot prosper when the machinery of the state is allowed to grind to a halt at the whim of political factions. It cannot lead when its own institutions are vulnerable to the petulance of legislators who refuse to do the bare minimum required of them. The ability to govern is not a privilege—it is an obligation. And those who fail in that obligation must no longer be permitted to hold the people hostage to their failures.

The solution is not complicated, nor is it radical. The No More Shutdowns Act presents the framework necessary to ensure that never again will the operations of government be suspended for lack of political consensus. At its core, this act establishes a principle that should have been self-evident from the beginning: that government must function, regardless of partisan gridlock.

First and foremost, it mandates automatic budget continuation—a mechanism that ensures that if Congress fails to pass a new budget, the government will continue operating at current funding levels, adjusted for inflation. This provision removes the ability of legislators to use shutdowns as a bargaining chip, stripping them of a weapon they have long used to extract concessions at the expense of national stability.

Second, it introduces multi-year budgeting, eliminating the need for the annual fiscal brinkmanship that has become the hallmark of Washington dysfunction. By ensuring that budgets are planned on a longer cycle, the act promotes stability, predictability, and strategic planning, rather than the short-term reactionary governance that has come to define the modern era.

Third, it enforces No Budget, No Pay. If Congress fails to fulfill its most fundamental duty—the passage of a budget—then its members will not be paid. This is not a punishment; it is accountability. It is the simple recognition that those who fail to govern should not be compensated for their failure. The American people do not receive wages for work left undone. Neither should those who claim to serve them.

Fourth, it establishes a Balanced Budget Rule, ensuring that fiscal responsibility is enforced without resorting to destructive austerity measures or reckless spending increases. This provision, coupled with the requirement for periodic audits of federal spending, will ensure that waste is eliminated, resources are allocated efficiently, and future budgetary crises are prevented.

These measures are not radical. They are not extreme. They are the bare minimum required to establish a government that functions as it should. And yet, they have been resisted by those who have grown comfortable with the chaos, by those who profit from instability, by those who would rather rule over dysfunction than be held accountable to a system that demands competence.

To those who argue that government shutdowns are a necessary check on spending, let them answer this: What fiscal discipline is achieved when a shutdown costs more than it saves? What responsibility is demonstrated when millions are denied essential services, when businesses suffer, when families are thrown into crisis? This is not conservatism. It is destruction. It is the act of a government sabotaging itself, of a nation setting fire to its own institutions under the delusion that the flames will bring order.

What twisted logic declares that shutting down the very machinery of governance is an act of fiscal prudence? What fool believes that lighting a match and burning billions in economic damage serves as a responsible economic policy? A government shutdown is not an instrument of financial discipline—it is the reckless tantrum of politicians too incompetent to govern, too craven to lead, and too comfortable in their own privilege to feel the pain of those they harm. It is a self-inflicted wound, a grotesque display of manufactured chaos, a declaration that those entrusted with power have no interest in wielding it responsibly.

Those who peddle this nonsense of "shutdowns as fiscal discipline" are not conservatives, nor are they stewards of responsible governance. They are arsonists, saboteurs, vandals dressed in suits, torching the very structure they were elected to maintain. No business would operate this way. No household would manage its finances like this. No rational entity would take its own paycheck, rip it to shreds, and then proudly declare itself financially responsible. Yet this is precisely the absurdity we witness in Washington time and time again.

Government shutdowns do not shrink the size of government; they amplify its waste. Every shutdown forces emergency spending, racks up back pay for furloughed workers, and derails planned projects, ensuring they cost more to complete once operations resume. Contractors, small businesses, and federal employees pay the price, while the very politicians who engineered the crisis remain comfortably insulated from its effects. Their salaries continue. Their donors remain protected. Their political theater, staged at the expense of millions, rolls on without consequence.

This is not financial conservatism. This is cowardice. Real fiscal responsibility requires negotiation, strategic cuts, and deliberate planning—not the blunt instrument of a shutdown, not the economic vandalism of halting national operations. Those who pretend otherwise betray their own ignorance of governance. Their ideological rigidity is not principle; it is incompetence wrapped in self-righteousness. Their obsession with "fiscal discipline" is a lie, exposed by the simple fact that every shutdown costs more than it would have taken to simply fund the government in the first place.

A government shutdown is not a demonstration of resolve—it is an admission of failure. It is an act of impotence by those who lack the skill or will to govern. It is a national embarrassment, a declaration to the world that the United States has chosen to become a dysfunctional laughingstock rather than a serious power. The damage does not stop at our borders. Foreign investors look upon our shutdown spectacles with unease, questioning the wisdom of staking their money on a nation that cannot even keep its own government running. Our enemies see opportunity in our dysfunction. They do not fear a nation that shuts itself down.

If shutdowns were truly an act of fiscal responsibility, they would have solved our budget crises by now. Instead, they have achieved nothing but financial instability, economic pain, and the erosion of public trust in government itself. If these manufactured crises were a legitimate tool of governance, we would not be drowning in national debt, we would not see markets shaken by political temper tantrums, we would not see vital services held hostage by petty political brinkmanship. But we do. And we will continue to do so until the American people reject this insanity and demand that their government function like the essential institution it was meant to be.

Let those who still cling to this absurd defense of shutdowns stand before the thousands of families who missed paychecks and explain how their suffering was a necessary price to pay for a symbolic political stunt. Let them face the small business owners who lost contracts, the veterans who experienced benefit delays, the travelers stuck in chaos due to furloughed TSA agents, and tell them how this was a noble stand for "fiscal responsibility." Let them justify to the military personnel forced to work without pay that their sacrifice was needed to make a point about budget negotiations. Let them look their constituents in the eyes and tell them that their pain was worth it.

Shutdowns are not governance. They are not discipline. They are destruction for the sake of destruction, chaos for the sake of political spectacle.

They are proof that those who claim to be leaders are nothing but saboteurs, wielding crisis as a weapon and laughing while the country suffers for their failure. The time for tolerating this disgrace is over. The time for making excuses is done. The only path forward is the one that ensures these shutdowns never happen again, that government operates as it should, and that those who manufacture crisis are held accountable for their recklessness.

No more shutdowns. No more destruction. No more self-inflicted chaos. This nation deserves better. And those who stand in the way of progress will be remembered not as fiscal conservatives, not as defenders of responsible spending, but as the cowards and con artists who burned their own government to the ground and called it victory.

And to those who would defend the status quo, who would insist that shutdowns are an unavoidable consequence of divided government, let them explain why no other major nation on earth tolerates such dysfunction. Let them justify why the greatest economic power in the world must repeatedly grind itself to a halt over procedural failures. Let them admit, plainly, that their refusal to fix this problem is not a matter of principle, but of preference—that they would rather preside over a broken system than repair it.

But history does not remember kindly those who stand in the way of progress. It does not look favorably upon those who, when given the choice between order and chaos, chose chaos. And so, the choice before us is clear: Either we reform this system, or we resign ourselves to perpetual crisis. Either we end government shutdowns permanently, or we accept that we are no longer governed by a republic, but by dysfunction.

The time for half-measures has passed. The time for excuses is over. The only path forward is action. The only acceptable outcome is reform.

Let no one say that this was inevitable. Let no one claim that government shutdowns are an inescapable feature of democracy. They are not the product of necessity, nor the natural outcome of divided governance. They are a failure of leadership, nothing more. And failures can be corrected. Weakness can be replaced with strength. Cowardice can be cast aside in favor of courage. Incompetence can be removed, erased, and replaced by those who understand that government is not a game, but a responsibility that must be upheld with honor, diligence, and an unwavering commitment to the people it serves.

Government shutdowns are the shameful byproduct of a political class that has lost its sense of duty. They are the self-inflicted wounds of a governing body that has abandoned its moral obligation to the republic, choosing partisan theatrics over competence, obstruction over action, and decay over progress. A government that repeatedly shuts itself down is a government that has lost the right to call itself functional. A nation that tolerates such dysfunction is a nation on the precipice of decline, willingly inching closer to the abyss of irrelevance.

We are better than this. We must be better than this. A republic that aspires to greatness cannot afford to indulge in self-destruction. A nation that seeks to lead the world must first prove that it can govern itself. Every shutdown is a disgrace, a stain on our national identity, an insult to every American who works tirelessly to build a life in a system that refuses to function properly. It is an act of collective national humiliation, a public declaration that the United States—once the standard-bearer of effective government—is now reduced to fits of dysfunction orchestrated by a cadre of elected saboteurs.

The time has come to govern as a nation that is worthy of its people. It is time to hold accountable those who treat government as a stage for personal ambition rather than a mechanism for public service. It is time to reject the charlatans who use dysfunction as a weapon, to expose the frauds who claim fiscal responsibility while costing the economy billions with their recklessness. It is time to demand action, to insist on stability, to require that those in power either govern with integrity or be stripped of that power entirely.

No more shutdowns. No more dysfunction. No more surrender to the forces of chaos. The republic must stand, and it must stand unbroken.

And if they will not lead, then they must be removed. If they will not govern, then they must be replaced. If they refuse to act, then the people must act in their place. This is not a request. This is not a polite suggestion. This is a demand, a declaration, a line drawn in the sand. The American people will not suffer fools in office any longer. The time for excuses has expired. The era of dysfunction must end. The responsibility falls to us—to demand change, to enforce accountability, and to reclaim the promise of a government that serves the people rather than fails them.

Rise. Speak. Vote. Organize. Do not wait for them to change—force them to. Demand better. Demand leadership. Demand a government that does not fold under its own weight, but one that stands, resilient and unyielding. The republic must stand, and it will stand. But only if we make it so.