Brace yourself for a government shutdown

Everyone has his own motive to let the government run out of money at the end of September

Congress
(Image credit: (Brendan Hoffman/Stringer/Getty Images))

The Republican-led House and the White House are once again on a collision course, and the endpoint of their game of budgetary chicken is a federal government shutdown, starting October 1. We've seen this movie before, and we think we know how it ends: Both sides give enough, a deal is reached, and partisans of each camp are generally unhappy.

This time may be different. Every plot gets stale after a while, and Washington may be getting bored with repeating the same story for the third year running. But boredom alone won't shut down the government.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.