A Study On The New Characteristics Of The Federal Government Shutdown In The United States Since The Obama Administration

Government shutdown refers to the phenomenon that US federal government in the New Fiscal Year Budget Act,the federal government funding gap leading to the closure of some non-core sector.There have been 21 times of federal government shutdowns in the past half century.The immediate cause of the shutdown is that the budget for the new fiscal year can not be passed by Congress or the continuing resolution is vetoed by the president.The underlying reason is that the U.S.constitutional system and the federal budget process which form the basis of the rule of law。In addition,the political party game between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in the congressional budget field is the key factor to induce it to happen.The process of government shutdown is closely related to the process of federal budget formulation.The process of occurrence,duration and resolution is related not only to the budget process,but also to the president,Congress and partisanship.The impact of the government shutdown involves the political,economic,diplomatic and other aspects of the United States.Since Obama period the impact of the government shutdown has become increasingly significant negative effects.The government shutdown can be divided into three different types according to the main causes of it,which are technical or procedural,political issue and political stance,in most cases,they are not independent,but cross each other.Therefore,this paper divides the half-century American shutdown into three stages according to the historical period,and each stage has its own dominant reasonForeign scholars,especially in the United States,generally adopt a systematic analytical framework of cause,process and effect when they study government shutdown,a vertical comparison of the government shutdown before and after Obama.According to the comparison,the government shutdown in the US since Obama’s time has new characteristics,and analyzes the cause of its formation and the limit of its influence.These new features include the increased negative effects of the shutdown,the bipartisan nature of the budget divide,and the incorporation of the shutdown into populism,the polarization of political parties and the ideological division of the people are the main factors for the formation of the characteristics.The limit of its influence is summarized from four aspects:promoting political participation and social welfare,promoting the self-regulation of American political system,causing the crisis of government trust,and reducing the validity of government governanceThe purpose of this paper is to explore the trend of government shutdown in the past 30 years,which generates the new characteristic of government shutdown since Obama’s time.Government shutdowns before the Obama administration were also frequent,but they never had a substantial impact on U.S.politics or government Some scholars call them the self-repairing mechanism of the U.S.federal government.But since Obama presidency,people have begun to think about the impact of government shutdown on the effectiveness of American governance,to question the dilemma of American governance,and to analyze the phenomenon of government shutdown from the inherent defects of the political system,in reality,the government shutdown has gradually evolved into a means of political game between the two parties,and deviated from its original design of the role of checks and balances of power.The evolution of the new features of the government shutdown deserves the vigilance and reflection of democratic countries,including the United States.