The government shutdown that began Wednesday after lawmakers failed to pass a funding measure is the 22nd lapse in government funding since 1976, and the fourth under President Trump.
Once seen as an annoying but semiregular symptom of Washington dysfunction, government shutdowns have grown longer and more disruptive over the past 15 years. Funding gaps have stretched to weeks, and hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed or forced to go without pay.
The most recent government shutdown, which occurred during Mr. Trump’s first term, lasted more than a month and affected hundreds of thousands of Americans. Middle-class families relied on food pantries, travel delays and cancellations snarled airports and the day-to-day mechanics of American life were upended.
With little indication of an imminent political compromise in the partisan standoff over spending, many Americans were bracing for what could be a long, destabilizing slog of mass layoffs, funding cuts and a reordering of life.
Government shutdowns have their roots in 1974, when the U.S. government’s budget process was reorganized to transfer much of the approval power to Congress. Before that, the executive branch retained broad powers to fund the government and, in some cases, could approve continued funding without congressional approval.
In 1977, legislators jostled over whether Medicaid could be used to pay for abortions. The standoff led to three separate lapses in federal funding, when the government could not support the Labor Department or what were then called the Health, Education and Welfare Departments. In total, those agencies were without funds for 28 days that year.
The next year, President Jimmy Carter took issue with a costly public works bill and military spending, causing a shutdown that lasted 17 days.
The effects of those early shutdowns tended to be limited to certain agencies. Attorney General Benjamin R. Civiletti issued two legal opinions, in 1980 and 1981, that made shutdowns more severe and wide reaching.
Until that point, most government agencies could continue to operate even if funding bills had not been passed, with the understanding that money would eventually be approved. But Mr. Civiletti argued that it was illegal for the government to spend money without congressional appropriations save for a few exceptions, including for work by federal employees that protected life and property.
In the years since, government shutdowns have had wider reaching effects and caused significant disruptions for much of the federal work force.
Shutdowns under the Clinton administration closed the government down for a total of 26 days. A shutdown under the Obama administration lasted 16 days.
The longest government shutdown began in December 2018 during Mr. Trump’s first term, when the closure lasted for more than a month over Mr. Trump’s insistence that Congress approve funding to build a wall along the southern border. That shutdown, which dwarfed previous instances, rattled the country and its infrastructure. Mr. Trump eventually backed down from his border wall demands, and the government reopened in January 2019.
Ali Watkins covers international news for The Times and is based in Belfast.
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