Government Shutdown
Trump: “[Even] if we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall”.

What is the issue?
In a campaign-style rally held in Arizona on Tuesday, 22 August, US President Donald Trump again reiterated his pledge to build a physical wall along the US-Mexico border.
What is the factual/historical context?
The president has made repeated assurances that Mexico would somehow pay for the wall (which has been estimated to cost anywhere up to US$70 billion). Unsurprisingly, he backed away from the bombast upon taking office — instead saying that the US government would fund construction first before Mexico would “eventually” pay “in some form” at an unspecified later date.
What exactly is a government shutdown?
Before anything, the US government’s executive branch (loosely, the presidency) and the legislature (Congress) must agree and pass legislation that funds the running of the government and its various agencies.
Disagreements between Congress and the White House can occur over any number of issues — from military funding to welfare spending. This becomes especially acute when the two branches of government are not in ideological alignment: the government shutdown of 2013 primarily stemmed from Republican desire to delay or defund the Affordable Care Act (at this time, Democrats controlled the White House and the Senate while the Republicans controlled the House).
When there is no agreement and funding from the previous year’s agreement runs out, the federal government “shuts down”, and most services that are deemed “non-essential” are stopped.
What exactly happens?
For starters, around 40% of public sector workers are put on unpaid leave, with no guarantee of future compensation. US citizens will face a bevy of administrative bottlenecks — ranging from the closure of national parks to delays in application processing.
For sure, the above description does not lend itself the air of severity or panic the term “government shutdown” itself suggests. Most of government work, however, is not glitzy — yet 40% of the gears in a huge factory going offline at one go causes predictable disruption to the economy. Standard and Poor estimated that the 2013 shutdown, which lasted “only” 16 days, cost the US economy $24 billion.
What about today?
The 2013 battle featured an intransigent Republican majority in the House dug in against a Democratic president defending his signature legislative accomplishment. This time, the Republicans control both Congress and the White House. This in theory should result in a succession of legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by a president who, in his own words, is “waiting with a pen in his hand” to sign bills that come across his table.
That said, the border wall is the current president’s “signature” campaign promise. Very few in Congress are willing to make it a priority, much less pay for it. It is also an idea that meets with widespread opposition for two main reasons: the sheer logistical challenge in building the wall itself, especially in the context of its impotence in achieving an actual “reduction in crime and drugs flowing across the border”, as well as the overt xenophobia existent in the proposal itself.
Given the current president’s resolve on issues can be charitably stated to be “malleable” (and flip-floppy for those who don’t offer the benefit of the doubt), it appears unlikely the government will shut down over wall funding. That said, given the mounting pressure on the White House over issues as varied as Russian election hacking to the president’s weak-kneed response to the white supremacists in Charlottesville (all in the backdrop of no legislative victories in his first seven months in office), it certainly would not be past this administration to dig in on wall funding in search of an elusive political “victory”.
