It’s Groundhog Day again with the US facing a government shutdown

By Matthew Gagnon

Here we are again, living through another tortuous Groundhog Day of grandstanding political incompetence, and all of us are going to be made to suffer through watching it again.

It has happened so frequently, I already know how this all works. 

A fiscal deadline looms — over the debt ceiling or funding running out — artificially created by politicians completely unable to do their jobs. To solve it, Congress needs to either pass a spending bill, or raise the debt ceiling. If nothing happens, the government will run out of money. Sort of. 

That’s when it happens. Some politicians sense an opportunity, and strike. But the opportunity they sense is not one that seeks to reform government, cut spending, or otherwise work toward conquering one of the most intractable problems in modern American politics.

No, the opportunity they sense is one to stand up on a soap box, and pretend to care about fixing that problem. 

Republicans try to convince you they care about spending and debt. Democrats try to convince you that they are the guardians of the solvency of the republic. They’re both liars. 

Many Republicans in Congress do not care about spending and debt, or at least they haven’t cared about it in decades. The last time they truly cared about it was the mid-1990s when they successfully pushed then-President Bill Clinton to ultimately balance the budget. Since the 2000s, the Republican Party has continued to talk a good game about spending and debt, but they have done absolutely nothing about them. 

During the presidency of George W. Bush, when they had either full control or near full control of government, deficits exploded, turning a balanced budget into one that was more than $410 billion in deficit. 

Despite this horrid record, they “rediscovered” their fiscal conservatism in the 2010s during the “tea party” wave, beating the drum on debt and spending. That rhetorical drum beat was all there was, though, as the party dithered through an engineered debt ceiling confrontation in 2011 that accomplished nothing, as the 2011 and 2012 deficits both topped $1 trillion. 

In 2013, another debt and spending battle was sparked, and this time an actual government shutdown occurred, lasting 16 days. The government reopened when Congress passed a bill to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling, but it contained no significant changes or reforms.

Republicans took over the entirety of government in 2017, and even with complete control they did nothing to deal with spending and debt. The deficit increased significantly in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Oh, and they shut down the government in 2018 (twice), but this time it was mostly over a funding dispute for the border wall. 

Which brings us to earlier this year, when once again Republicans pretended to care about spending and debt, and some threatened to shut down the government over the debt ceiling. The deal that was cut was (again) hailed as a triumph by the politicians who crafted it, but was (again) mostly meaningless, and for show. 

Each time this happens, the same script plays out: supposed “hard liners” threaten to hold the government hostage unless we start “being serious” about spending and debt. Floor speeches are written. YouTube videos are cut. Outraged emails (with accompanying fundraising links!) are sent to thousands of supporters. All with the goal of gaining attention and affection, by playacting concern for something they have no concern over. 

Meanwhile, the agents of the status quo get to work blathering on about all the supposed catastrophes that will occur if the government doesn’t have appropriated money for a few days. U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine, for instance, wrote in a column published by the Portland Press Herald last week that a potential shutdown would be “a threat to families, communities and our national economy.” 

None of these people are being serious.

The shutdown advocates are playing a role made for TV. They don’t really care about the deficit, they only wish to be seen as though they do, for their own political and financial benefit. They must know that none of these shutdowns, threatened or actual, have ever produced a meaningful reform to government. They also should know that shutdowns actually end up costing more in the end, than would’ve been spent otherwise. 

The Chicken Little caucus in Congress, by comparison, is apparently so petrified of anything that would disturb the status quo, that they invent one overwrought would-be disaster after another to justify their continued do-nothing attitude about, well, everything.

So, you’ll forgive me for being a cynic, but I’ve seen this movie before, and I’ve never liked it.

Gagnon of Yarmouth is the chief executive officer of the Maine Policy Institute, a free market policy think tank based in Portland. A Hampden native, he previously served as a senior strategist for the Republican Governors Association in Washington, D.C.