I was reading about the U.S. government shutdown news and got curious. At first, I thought it was just politics, but then I found out it’s actually a pretty big deal.
A shutdown happens when the U.S. President and Congress can’t agree on the budget. If that happens, the government literally runs out of money to run many of its offices.
The last big one was in 2018–19 and it lasted 35 days the longest ever. Around 800,000 government workers didn’t get paid on time, services like passports and tax offices stopped working, and even markets got nervous. The U.S. economy lost about $11 billion because of it.
That fight was mostly over Trump wanting money for the border wall, while the other side refused. Neither side gave up until the pressure got too high.
What’s interesting is in India, this can’t really happen. Our system doesn’t allow the government to “switch off” funding like that.
So yeah, it looks like political drama in Washington, but it actually affects real people, the economy, and even global markets.
Anyone wanna add something or correct me if I missed a point?
not really, it is slightly bit more nuanced.
Apart from budget, US congress has set a ceiling on how much American government can borrow. Since for many decades American govt is running a deficit, once in a while govt approaches this debt ceiling and crossing it requires Congress approval.
This is the time when congress tries to negotiate and force president to accept some of the terms, before increasing the limit by couple of trillions
This problem becomes grave when President’s party does not have absolute majority in Congress and then few congress votes become kingmaker. (very similar to our election where we get hung parliament or assembly and then few leaders negotiate for govt formation)
Why this doesn’t happen in India?
We have no specific debt ceiling. FRBM Act mandates some requirements but politicians have ignored it when needed
Our legislative and executive powers are not separate like USA. One who controls parliament majority becomes PM and hence controls both.
Unlike US congress our MPs have very limited rights and they have to vote on party lines. So there isn’t aa way for them to go against PM.
Thanks for breaking it down like that makes a lot more sense now. I was only looking at it from the budget fight angle, but yeah the debt ceiling part adds another layer of drama.
The way you compared it to hung parliaments here in India was spot on. But I guess the big difference is in the U.S., even a handful of people can stall the whole system, while in India, party lines make that almost impossible.
For me, the curious part is not just how it happens, but why a system would allow so much risk to come from political games. Feels like identity and power struggles drive it more than actual governance.
yeah US is bit weird that way. I think it is mainly due to fact that US is a federation of states and when these states came together to form country, they wanted to ensure each state’s voice is heard.
So their constitution gave lot of power to individual members of congress rather than whole party.
One of the weirdest concept they have is filibuster in senate. In effect even a single senator can decide that he will continue to debate a bill and unless 60 other senators votes to stop him, a bill can be delayed forever.
That is one of the root cause of recent skirmishes as republican have majority of 53 but not super majority of 60 needed to stop fillibuster.
So even with majority they aare unable to pass funding bill
