Who shut down the government?
by
Matt Giwer (c) 1996 <1/3>

      No one.

      That could be the least wordy article I have ever written but far be it from me to let it go at that. Here we have from Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution.

No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.

      Drawing money from the treasury means paying salaries, bills and any other movement of money from the government to anyone else. It means any check signed by any branch of the US government to any person or entity that is not part of the government. That is the supreme law of the land.
      The 437 elected officials involved in this -- the Congress, the President and the vice-President -- have taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Obviously that means they can not violate any of its provisions. That is clearly an impeachable offense.
      The way for money to be spent is as a result of a spending bill that is signed into law. For a spending bill to become law it must pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the President. Therefore, when the President refused to sign some of the spending bills, there was no law authorizing the spending of money.
      No one overtly shut down the government. The government simply lost the power to spend money. The situation is in no manner different from you not sending a check for some service such as the telephone. For the government to continue spending money without authorization in law would be no different than the phone company continuing to take money from your checking account without benefit of a check from you.
      So the issue of getting the government back to work is not one of ceasing to do something but rather getting the bills signed in whatever modified form that may come from the negotiations.
      The only other issue is whether or not there should be a continuing resolution to get people back to work while the negotiations continue. In that regard, there is a different issue. That issue is the integrity of the participants.
      It would be the second continuing resolution and the President has proposed the same conditions as last time. Save that the last time he failed to live up to his word. That means quite clearly the man can not be trusted. It would be like granting parole a second time to a man who had violated the first parole and showed no sign of having changed.
      That is the honest view of anyone who looks at the present machinations. The President gave his word to present his version of a balanced budget and refused to do so. If there was ever any question of it, on the 3rd of January he promised to keep his word if the House would re-open government. That is the parole violator trying to bargain with the parole board. Again.
      It is not a secret that there would be a budget "crisis" at this time. I wrote about it in December 1994. Gingrich talked about it in March 1995. Only the blind did not know this was going to happen.
      Clinton and the Democrats welcomed it and did nothing whatsoever to avoid it. And since the Republicans were doing only what they campaigned saying they would do there is no surprise that they are in fact doing it. The only real surprise to the "government as usual" types is that they are actually doing what they said they would do.
      It is the political wisdom of this country that no one does what they said they would do during the campaign. The shock to the political elite and their journalist media following is that they are in fact violating all the rules and doing what they said they would do. The grand art of compromise is supposed to submerge campaign rhetoric in the business as usual politics of Washington.
      Once more for those who have not read what I have written before. The art of compromise is always the LAST resort and never the first. For decades business as usual in Washington has meant that if you want change and I say no, you settle for trivial change.
      The roles have been reversed. Now the establishment settles for major change or the old zero funding ploy is in full force and effect. If the president does not like the funding reductions and vetoes the bill then he has zero funded everything in the bill.
      It is about time the president and the Democrats realize this is not another compromise first rather than last confrontation. This is a crossroad in the future of America. This is not a trivial political difference even that is the only thing journalism majors are able to report is not understand.
      If this fails then the political clamor for more services than this country can afford will have won. The political demand for more spending than income will have won. That means ultimate bankruptcy for the United States as even at a 90% tax rate such a government ruled by such an electorate will continue to spend more than it can bring in.