If Congress is unable to meet a September 30 deadline to fund the federal government, a shutdown could bring much of Washington to a halt. The last government shutdown, from December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019, lasted 35 days and was the longest in four decades.
While government shutdowns have become less common in recent decades — there have been six since 1990 — an increasingly partisan Washington has left Congress unable to resolve sticking points on spending for longer periods of time.
With Speaker Kevin McCarthy overseeing one of the narrowest and most factitious congressional majorities in decades, there’s no telling how long a government shutdown this year could last.
in case someone does not know. The reagan and bush ones where because they were vetoing spending bills. Not that congress was not passing them. This happened with clinton to but the whole doing it with the debt ceiling which is easier for a minority to do became the norm under obama. So before obama it was arguments over the budget but starting with obama we started getting these things where congress says they don’t want to pay for the bills they already passed (or at least one party is that way anyway). so the sorta double dip shutdowns.