The government is hurtling towards a shutdown if Congress cannot agree on funding past Sept. 30. It would be the first shutdown since late December 2018, when most government activity came to a halt for 34 days, the longest one in the modern era.
While government shutdowns have become rarer, they now typically stretch on longer as parties dig in.
The guidelines that a funding gap should lead to a government shutdown emerged in the early 1980s, and short federal funding gaps were common in that decade.
The shortest shutdown, however, occurred in February 2018 — just ten months before the longest. Sen. Rand Paul briefly filibustered a two-year bipartisan spending bill over its cost causing a lapse in federal funding that lasted several hours.
Some shutdowns were resolved in a matter of days as negotiators worked out a deal to reopen the government. Other funding gaps lasted such a short time, such as overnight or on weekends, that government agencies did not fully shut down.
