The previous shutdowns never affected every agency. They happened after some appropriation bills has passed, generally, at least, VA and Defense. Some shutdowns on your list seem to only have affected one or two agencies.
A shutdown this big would be a rare event. And predicting the a rare event will happen is generally a mistake.
But for what it’s worth, here are some pieces by a smart guy who seems to be predicting a shutdown:
Wanted to mention, nearly all of the affected employees will have Paid Time Off saved up.
A day off with pay isn’t quite like a vacation but it’s not exactly a hardship either.
They won’t get reimbursed for the time though, it’s gone. Just One of Those Things.
I wanted to mention that this is completely false.
And also at least a little dangerous, in the off chance that a casual reader who is a federal employee reads this and makes plans under the assumption he can use his leave, and buys that Winnebago anyway.
All paid time off during a shutdown furlough period is canceled. The requirement to furlough overrides leave and other paid time off obligations. The Antideficiency Act (31 U.S.C. 1341 et seq.) does not allow authorization of any expenditure or obligation before an appropriation bill is passed into law. Paid time off creates a debt to the Government that is not authorized by the Antideficiency Act.
No paid time off for non-excepted employees.
And I urge you to check your facts before confident spewing of inaccurate information.
Yep, Bricker’s totally right. Annual leave cannot be used in a government shutdown, nor can it be used for the furlough days that happened this year due to sequester. aNewLeaf is just totally wrong: if someone isn’t an essential/emergency employee, they lose pay for every day the government is closed, unless Congress later passes a law to compensate them for the time.
And as most people are predicting, that is unlikely.
Actually, there are two categories of employees that will still get paid.
“Excepted employees” are those whose jobs constitute emergency work that protects life or property. The law permits these functions to continue even during a lapse in funding.
The second category is “exempt.” Employees are exempt if they are paid by some source other than annually appropriated funds, OR are appointed by the President and not covered by the leave system in 5 USC § 63, or some equivalent formalized leave system.
You win again.
Ravenman! What have you done?! You couldn’t be satisfied with just unleashing the Kraken, could you?
Heard an interesting take on this by way of Ezra Klein. His take is that he hopes the government shutdown does happen rather than see Boehner postpone the crisis to the credit limit. His reasoning is that although no crisis at all is best, of course, if we must have one because the Insane Clown Posse must have one to slake their bloodlusts, then let it be a government shutdown. Get the poisons out of their systems.
He figures that once the impact of the shutdown begins to reach Wall Street, the squeals of porcine rage will rain down on the Republicans and they will come around, having “made their point” or “shot their wad”, whichever. Then, properly chastened, they will make the needful moves to avert disaster.
An interesting idea, but I remain skeptical of any prospect that depends on the reasonability and rationality of the aforementioned clown posse.
(Perhaps I should start a separate thread in GQ, but I’ll ask here first.)
With U.S. Federal government possibly headed to another shutdown, I’m curious what other governments have “shut down.” I think the City of Detroit has closed some schools, etc., but it’s not “shut down,” right? Iraq in the 2000’s and some Eastern European countries in the 1990’s effectively “shut down,” I think. Are there examples of “normal” countries “shutting down”? Or is this a uniquely American phenomenon?
Foreign Policy magazine says yes. And that it almost happened in Japan, but didn’t.
The system of government that leads to shutdowns (and other general gridlock) seems to be pretty uniquely American. We have absolutely fixed terms of office with an independently-elected executive, which most countries don’t have.
It could also theoretically happen in Australia, I think, as the Senate has the power to reject budgets, but has no input over who is in government. But the last time it came down to that, it was resolved (very controversially) by other means. And that was an unprecedented event with an unprecedented outcome that gets labeled as a “constitutional crisis” rather than a ho-hum thing that gets threatened every three months.
I believe an Australian state also did some dodgy things to keep running at one point. I’m going off of half memories, but I think a state was heavily in debt and had to withdraw all of its money and store it as cash in a vault. That was the only way to keep the debt collectors away and the state solvent.
Well, that was a brilliant prediction. Shall we go double or nothing and predict how long the shutdown will last?
I’ll take three days.
Three days? After quoting Green Eggs & Ham, that’s all you’re thinking? Since they’re being so damn biblical, I’ll go with 40 days. 
In most Parliamentry democracies, if the budget is not passed, the government of the day falls and usually parliament is dissolved and you have new elections. So politicians faced with the prospect of losing their jobs and facing a seriously pissed off electorate have an incentive to continue to compromise.
Moreover, budgets are usually passed in advance of the fiscal year, one month generally.