Midterm Practice CA FRQ

Large chunks of the federal government, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to the National Archives, are shut down because there’s no money to keep them open, and federal workers are facing possible mass layoffs. The new federal fiscal year began on Oct. 1, but Congress didn’t pass any of the dozen annual appropriations bills it’s supposed to enact. Nor did lawmakers pass a stopgap spending law to buy themselves more time.

Congress’ chronic inability to follow its own appropriations process is hardly new. In the nearly five decades that the current system for budgeting and spending tax dollars has been in place, Congress has passed all its required appropriations measures on time only four times: fiscal 1977 (the first full fiscal year under the current system), 1989, 1995 and 1997. And even those last three times, Congress was late in passing the budget blueprint that, in theory at least, precedes the actual spending bills.

The impact of a shutdown depends on how long it lasts and which parts of the government are forced to close their doors. During the 2018-19 standoff, for instance, only about 300,000 of an estimated 2.1 million federal workers were furloughed, largely because five of the 12 spending bills – those covering the Defense, Education, Health and Human Services departments and other major parts of the federal government – had already become law. Still, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the shutdown shaved about $3 billion, or 0.02%, off that year’s gross domestic product.

1. Describe the process for which the budget is passed and enacted. 
2. Explain how Congress’s failure to pass appropriations bills can impact state run, federally mandated programs. 
3. Explain how a government shutdown may impact the 2026 midterm elections.