A number of operations at the Department of Defense will be affected unless Congress agrees on an extension of government funding by midnight tonight, when the current continuing resolution expires. Some of these operations are directly related to our nation’s military readiness and the welfare of our troops and their families.
This impending budget crisis inevitably evokes comparisons to the winter of 1995-1996 when President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress were unable to reach agreement on the overall fiscal year 1996 budget for nearly three weeks. But DOD had a budget in place during that period. This time it does not.
For this reason the current situation more closely resembles the shorter and less-publicized Clinton-era shutdown of November 1995 when lawmakers had yet to approve defense appropriations for that fiscal year. Without a budget or continuing resolution, that shutdown forced DOD to suspend all nonessential functions.
A similar shutdown now would impose a significant burden on an already overburdened force.
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