Another Possible Government Shutdown

On Thursday, February 8th the New York Times posted an article titled Facing Shutdown, Congress Set to Vote on Sweeping Budget Deal which discusses the new government spending bill and the controversy surrounding it. If the bill does not pass by midnight on the 8th there will be a temporary shutdown of government spending.  The new deal is expected to be met with some opposition from Democrats who don't believe the bill provides enough funding for immigrants. The bill is expected to easily pass in the Senate but will not have such an easy time in the House. Some of the key changes the new deal proposes include raising domestic and military spending to caps by nearly 300 billion, providing 90 billion in disaster relief funds, and most importantly it will keep the government funded for another six weeks allowing it time to construct a "long-term" spending bill that will cover the remainder of the fiscal year.
The new bill has become controversial to both political parties. Some Republicans, like those in the House Freedom Caucus, believe the increase in spending is too large, and have subsequently "formally opposed" the bill. Some Democrats dislike the bill because they don't believe it provides enough funding to help the undocumented young immigrants known as "Dreamers". Because the bill is not garnering much bipartisan support the odds of avoiding a government shutdown seems unlikely.

This article is worth reading because it highlights how complex and difficult it is to succesfully pass a bill through Congress. All of the competing interest groups want funding and there is never enough to satisfy everyone. I think it is a good example of Madisons idea that a large representative republic with cause majority parties to fragment and prevent them from steam rolling minorities.