Why government shutdowns seem to only happen in US

BBC News:

The US government has shutdown ten times over the past 40-plus years. Meanwhile, in other countries, governments keep functioning, even in the midst of wars and constitutional crises. So why does this uniquely American phenomenon keep happening?

For most of the world, a government shutdown is very bad news – the result of revolution, invasion or disaster. That leaders of one of the most powerful nations on Earth willingly provoked a crisis that suspends public services and decreases economic growth is surprising to many.

In a last-minute deal on Saturday, Congress’s managed to avoid a shutdown by passing a stop-gap spending bill that will keep the government running for another 45 days. But that means the politicians will have to go back to the bargaining table, and the country could be facing another shutdown yet again, once the funding runs out.

So why does this keep happening?

America’s federal system of government allows different branches of government to be controlled by different parties. It was a structure devised by the nation’s founders to encourage compromise and deliberation, but lately has had the opposite effect.

That’s because in 1980, the Attorney General under President Jimmy Carter’s administration issued a narrow interpretation of the 1884 Anti-Deficiency Act. The 19th Century spending law banned the government from entering into contracts without congressional approval; for almost a century, if there was a gap in budgets, the government had allowed necessary spending to continue. But after 1980, the government took a much stricter view: no budget, no spending.

That interpretation has set the US apart from other non-parliamentary democracies, such as Brazil, where a strong executive branch has the ability to keep the lights on during a budget impasse.

The first US shutdown occurred shortly after in 1981, when President Ronald Reagan vetoed a funding bill, and lasted for a few days. Since then, there’s been at least ten others that led to a stop in services, lasting anywhere from half-a-day to over a month. The last one, from 21 December 2018 to 25 January 2019, was the longest on record.