Government shutdowns are the new normal

Unless our governing class metamorphoses into sane, decent human beings who take their jobs seriously, shutdowns are inevitable

The U.S. Capitol.
(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Another new year, another The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly standoff involving two political parties and a president over government funding for programs supported by all of the players. Nobody shot.

Any thorough recounting of the negotiations through Sunday would sound like a description of what it's like to play Diplomacy with a roomful of stoned teenagers. Simply put, President Trump and the GOP and the Democrats all want the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) — the program created by President Obama to allow immigrants brought to the United States as children to remain in this country — to be made permanent and to secure additional funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program. Which is why — I use that relational adverb in the loosest possible sense — they all agreed that we would have neither.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.