As the 117th Congress comes to an end in the next couple of weeks, we are once again facing a looming government shutdown. Congress has until midnight on Friday to reach a deal to avoid a partial government closure. 

This comes as Democrats and Republicans debate over a $1.5 trillion dollar omnibus bill that would fund the government through the end of September 2023.

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer asked for members to be prepared to pass a short-term continuing resolution that would give Congress an extra week to hash out the funding bill before the holidays.

But this isn’t the first time we’ve faced a potential government shutdown this year. On September 30th, Congress narrowly avoided a shutdown by 12 hours, by passing a stopgap measure that kicked the shutdown can down the road to where we are today. And if it feels like the threat of a looming shutdown happens on an annual basis, that’s because it does. Just last December, Congress punted their spending deadline into the new year, and didn’t pass a government funding bill until March of THIS year. The government has shut down 21 times since 1976. 

And while it might seem like shutting things down saves a little money – it turns out that turning off the federal government is expensive! The 35 day shutdown during the Trump administration was the  longest in history and according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) it reduced Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by a total of $11 billion dollars. A Senate report estimated the last three shutdowns cost taxpayers about $4 billion.

We speak more about the looming government shutdown with Roben Farzad, host of Full Disclosure on NPR’s member station station Virginia Public Radio.