I want to point out that that a new and dangerous kind of "shutdown" was already happening before today, just in a patchy partisan manner. [0][1] In a nutshell:
1. Democrats and Republicans reach a typical legislative compromise with enough votes to pass a law, declaring that federal government shall do both [A] and [B].
2. President Trump: "Meh, I just don't wanna do [B], nobody do [B] or else you're fired."
3. Republican legislators: "Sure, we didn't want [B] anyway, we'll sit back and let Trump break the law without impeaching him. We'll can spend that money for something else we like later."
So... what's the point of Democrats compromising on a package of budget laws, when the Republican party keeps conspiring to break the very laws they agreed-to but don't like?
The Democratic party has realized that negotiating doesn't get them anything. Evenn if the Republicans agree to their demands, they won't actually follow through.
This is a great point, and it's something that the Founding Fathers really just kicked the can down the road for succeeding generations to find out. The executive doing so is technically in violation of the Take Care Clause ("shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"), and SOME judicial proceedings since then have found that the Executive can't use under-spending to deny or delay a congressional act or program (Train v. City of New York, 1975) - but it's still something that's up in the air if we have a complicit Congress AND judiciary.
But then again, with a complicit Congress and Judiciary - what ISN'T in the air is a shorter list.
>what's the point of Democrats compromising on a package of budget laws, when the Republican party keeps conspiring to break the very laws they agreed-to but don't like?
At this point, think of it as continuing to gather the moutains of supprot for the next impeachment trials. For when a scandal happens that Trump can't recover from. From if something untimely happens and power shifts. his won't just be forgotten to history.
It's slow and painful, but when words don't work, you point to actions. Trump has done a lot of actions out of the blue that will bite back had when the power is ceded.
1. Democrats and Republicans reach a typical legislative compromise with enough votes to pass a law, declaring that federal government shall do both [A] and [B].
2. President Trump: "Meh, I just don't wanna do [B], nobody do [B] or else you're fired."
3. Republican legislators: "Sure, we didn't want [B] anyway, we'll sit back and let Trump break the law without impeaching him. We'll can spend that money for something else we like later."
So... what's the point of Democrats compromising on a package of budget laws, when the Republican party keeps conspiring to break the very laws they agreed-to but don't like?
_____________________
[0] https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/new-data-show-t...
[1] https://www.citizensforethics.org/legal-action/letters/the-t...