Should Funding for the Federal Gov’t Automatically Renew at Current Levels to Avoid Shutdowns? (S. 198)

What is S. 198?

(Updated April 14, 2019)

This bill, the Stop STUPIDITY Act, would automatically renew funding for all aspects of the government, minus the legislative branch and president’s office, at the previous year’s levels, with adjustments for inflation, in the event of a shutdown. Congress and the office of the president wouldn’t receive funding until they reached an agreement.

This bill’s full title is the Shutdowns Transferring Unnecessary Pain and Inflicting Damage In The Coming Years Act.

Argument in favor

Government shutdowns hurt federal employees and make the government dysfunctional. Ending these events would help the government run better and ensure that government negotiations don’t hurt the economy and the American public.

Argument opposed

Automatically continuing funding for the entire federal government at previously enacted levels simply to avoid a partial shutdown encourages waste and lets lawmakers off the hook for of their constitutional responsibility to enact funding through appropriations.

Impact

Congress; shutdowns; and the president’s office.

Cost of S. 198

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) introduced this bill to put an end to future shutdowns by keeping the government running during lapses in funding by automatically renewing government funding at the previous fiscal year’s levels:

“The Stop STUPIDITY Act takes the aggressive but necessary step of forcing the President and Congress to do the jobs they were elected to do. It is disturbing that the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of workers are at the mercy of dysfunction in Washington. Workers, business owners and tax payers are currently paying the price of D.C. gridlock and my legislation will put an end to that.”

Sen. Warner adds that this bill would force Congress and the White House to “come to the negotiating table without putting at risk the economy or hurting the American public."

Republican National Committee Spokesman Garren Shipley criticized this bill, saying:

"If Senator Warner had put half as much time into actually negotiating as he did coming up with that acronym, federal workers would have never missed a paycheck."

Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), have introduced similar legislation to this bill in the form of the End Government Shutdowns Act, which has the support of 10 Republican cosponsors.

This bill has no cosponsors.

Of Note: In 2011, House Democrats introduced a bill saying that if a shutdown went on for more than a day, the president and Congress wouldn’t receive their paychecks. However, the bill didn’t pass due to Republicans’ arguments that such a move would be unconstitutional.

During the recent government shutdown, around 800,000 federal workers were either furloughed or working without pay.

Media:

• Sponsoring Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) Press Release
  
• MaddowBlog (In Favor)
  
• The Hill