Every country has a gov. budget. Do any other democratic countries have these constant threats of federal shutdowns or actual shutdowns because parties cannot agree on a topic ?
The current record is held by Belgium, which was without a government for 589 days:
but that Belgian case says the normal government functions went on as before. Gov. employees did not stay home and not get paid.
In Canada (and, I imagine, most other republics) if a government failed to pass a budget, it would have to resign (since a budget is a confidence motion) and either a new government would form and pass its own budget or there would have to be an immediate election. The big difference is that the executive function is part of the legislative function. In practice, in Canada, the prime minister proposes a budget and the members of his party or of a governing coalition will go along or risk losing their jobs.
The UK - and likely all parliamentary democracies - has a permanent Civil Service, so if a finance bill fails to pass it’s the Government that resigns, but the humdrum day-to-day business of government continues. That’s the basics of it - the details will vary.
Concur with Hari Seldon and Baron Greenback.
In a parliamentary system, the most basic obligation of the government of the day is to keep the government functioning.
If the government can’t pass its budget, it either resigns and lets some other party form the government, or elections are called to let the people resolve the impasse.
There are standing appropriations that come into force during the election to keep government operating
The last time this happened at the federal level in Canada was 1979. In the general election in the spring of 1979, Joe Clark and the Progressive Conservatives defeated the Liberals under Pierre Trudeau, but only won a minority government.
When they presented their budget in December, they were defeated in the Commons.
Clark called a new general election for February 1980, which Trudeau and the Liberals won, forming a majority government.
Government operations continued during the election period without a break.
What Northern Piper said. In a parliamentary system, parliament has the whip hand over the executive. You can’t have the situation that you get in a presidential system where parliament has so little confidence in the executive that they won’t even fund it to discharge its functions, and yet the executive remains in office.
So, if you’re looking for other examples of US-type government shutdowns, you need to look at countries which have a US-type presidential system, with the legislature and the executive having independent mandates.
Yet ANOTHER reason that the US constitution needs a radical redo, which won’t and probably can’t happen, which is arguably the worst thing about it. The US could stay in the 18th Century forever. That’s 18th, not 19th.
why is the US system “18th century?” yes that is when it started but the system of a Prime minister is an even older system , it was around way before the USA existed. and the idea of having a king/queen goes back 1000+ years .
Its a claim that its 18th century because the constitutional clauses that allow the President to shutdown the public service, are obviously only going to be put in there in the 18th century… Not before … not after…
Re: the argument that the US shutdowns are rooted in our constitution.
That doesn’t seem likely as the first shutdown was in 1980 (or 1976 depending on one’s definition) and was based on the consequences of a 1976 budget reform law passed by congress. Prior to 1980 (when the anti-deficiency act was more strictly interpreted by the then Attorney General) federal agencies didn’t shut down but simply limited their activities to what they interpreted as essential.
Of course it is only possible in a divided government scenario such as occurs in the US which is based on our constitution. But as noted above, it certainly isn’t required. Any Attorney General could eliminate all shutdowns with a few strokes on a keyboard. Just as the current situation is based on two opinions written in 1980. But then we would lose all this political theater! The horror!
Same thing for Spain about the same time: there was no Council of Ministers, but the Government chugged along merrily. Jokes about “maybe we should just go on having the bureaucracy but not the Ministers” abounded.
The idea of a Government going on “company shutdown” makes Spaniards’ heads explode. That the top can’t tell its head from its arse is not considered a sufficient reason for anything other than newspaper titles in large font.
As others have indicated, in the UK refusal by the legislature to pass the budget as presented by the administration amounts to a confidence vote and normally results in the government resigning. Like a nuclear bomb, it is a big threat but it only works once.
IIRC, the Canadian government - acting government, if there is like in 1980 a reason there’s no budget passed - can get along with “orders in council”. These are like emergency decrees that are allowed when parliament cannot do its business or is not in session. If I recall, there have been several instances where the budget was delayed for various reasons and Canada financed it’s operations with orders in council for many months.
But yes, to follow along the other thread about Prime Ministers - there are two things that can bring down a government: an explicit confidence vote, or a failure of a “money bill”. For anything else, if the government is defeated, they can simply ask for a confidence vote to prove it was not important.
There’s the famous case of Jim Walding. In the 80’s he was speaker of the Manitoba legislature, and allowed opposition procedures that led to a fight over bilingualism in Manitoba. To get even, the Premier sent a party operative to his riding nomination to replace him at the next election (Speaker is chosen from elected members). The operative failed, so Walding was nominated and won despite being ostracized from his party. His party also cleverly ostracized him but kept him nominally in caucus because they had a majority of 1, but they didn’t keep him up to date on activities. One bill, they were about to lose a vote, they had to chase him from home to come vote because nobody had told him a critical money bill vote was scheduled that night. He voted against the bill - he told reporters later it was because he was just getting tired of it all. The government, to its credit, eventually resigned but not before spending all night and the next morning trying to figure out whether they could weasel out of the iron-clad requirement to resign. They lost the next election. There’s a moral there somewhere about the repercussions of petty revenge.
A shutdown came close in Australia in the 70s. The Whitlam government held the House of Reps (that’s the definition of “government”) but the opposite parties held the Senate.
The government in the Reps passed a Supply Bill (a Bill that authorises the executive to spend money) but the Senate rejected it, raising the prospect of a shutdown. Whitlam wanted to white-knuckle it out, but the problem was “solved” by the Governor-General (the Queen’s representative who is not elected but appointed by the government of the day) dismissing the Whitlam government and ordering an election. Governors-General typically have only a ceremonial role, but they have “reserve powers” that allow this sort of thing. Needless to say, this was highly controversial, and Whitlam lost the election.
The risk of shutdown was solved by a new rule that deprived the Senate of the power to block a Supply Bill, so with the addition of that reform, the logic of Parliamentary democracy as described by others makes a shutdown essentially impossible. If a government loses a vote on a Supply Bill in the House, where by definition it is supposed to have a majority, that government falls and a new one that can get the numbers takes over. That can happen very quickly - within hours - so a shutdown isn’t a realistic prospect.
I see that md2000 has told a similar story about Canada to mine about Australia. His final words about petty revenge ring loud here. We have had 5 Prime Ministers in the last 10 years, mostly as a consequence of party room rules making it too easy for a party in power to change leader, ie, Prime Minister. For the most part, the changes have been about petty revenge on the part of a previous leader being bounced, and the consequences have been minority government or outright electoral failure for parties that indulge that shit.
Fortunately, both major parties have reformed their rules to prevent this nonsense in future. One hopes.
“Confidence” has nothing to do with it. It is simply and solely a matter of sharply-differing priorities regarding how money should be spent.
Israel has a parliamentary system , and failure to pass a budget bill is often the reason that a ruling party falls, and new elections are called.
But Israel uses a very simple way to prevent a government shutdown from actually, well, shutting down the government-- due to lack of money to pay salaries, etc.
The solution is: a permanent law which says that anytime there is no official budget for the new fiscal year, the previous year’s budget remains in effect.
Each and every government body receives, each month, a sum of money equal to one-twelfth of the previous year’s budget for that office.
This ensures that life goes on as usual for a month or two or three, until the new elections are held, and a new budget gets passed.
It’s an easy solution, which I think could be used by any country, no matter whether they have a parliamentary or presidential system.
“Confidence” is a special term in parliamentary governments. Doesn’t translate well to the congressional system.
Canada has similar laws at both the federal and provincial levels. They’re a bit more discretionary, but the gist is that the Cabinet can pass “special warrants” to appropriate money if needed when Parliament is not in session. They’re used to cover expenses during an election or other costs that come up. The executive then has to report on those warrants to Parliament when it is next in session and have them approved.