Ag Policy Blog

As afternoon approached on Monday in Washington, news articles pointed out talk is more about each side blaming each other for the federal shutdown than doing anything to stop it.

For the rest of us outside of Washington, we can turn our attention to baseball playoffs, pro football or college football. In some cases, we can do all three.

A timeout here to gush that the Kansas City Royals won 86 games and made me care about watching baseball again, even if they fell short of a wildcard. The Chiefs are 4-0. The Missouri Tigers are 4-0.

Does September have to end?

To avoid the shutdown, the Senate must take some action to respond to the measure approved after midnight Saturday by the House. The Senate, however, was not scheduled to be until the late afternoon. That means to get a deal, Congress will have to strike some sort of agreement truly at the proverbial 11th hour.

2:32 p.m. Eastern: The Senate voted 54-46 to "table" the House amendments on Obamacare, effectively rejecting the House bill.

Barring a moment of drama tonight before 25 microphones at the Capitol with Harry Reid putting his arm around John Boehner, I suspect most federal employees will get tomorrow off. How long that layoff will last remains to be seen.

Tourism is one of the main areas that will be hit hardest if the federal government shuts down tomorrow. Places such as the Smithsonian museums and national parks will be closed.

Mail delivery will continue.

USDA Farm Service Agency offices and a broad range of conservation, rural development and research facilities would be closed as well.

All of this is just the start. The Continuing Resolution and the debt-ceiling battle are staring at everyone over the two weeks. Moreover, the CR is just short-term. There will be one more line-in-the-sand fight by mid-November. While my former boss suggests the partisanship at the moment could make it even harder to pass a farm bill, I'm going to take the opposite view here.

Digging deep into page 6A of my Sunday paper, I found some shutdown nuggets over the weekend. An Associated Press piece detailed dates of prior shutdowns going back to 1976 under President Gerald Ford in a shutdown just weeks before the presidential election.

So shutdowns are more common than you might think even though a government shutdown hasn't happened since 1995-96. We just haven't had a shutdown in the current partisan era of 24-hour multi-network media environment. President Jimmy Carter dealt with five government shutdowns. The Great Communicator, President Ronald Reagan -- who largely governed with a Republican Senate and Democratic House -- went through eight government shutdowns from 1981 to 87. George H.W. Bush had one, 3-day shutdown. President Bill Clinton had two in 1995. The last shutdown was from Dec. 5 1995 to Jan. 6, 1996.

After the public gets its fill of this nonsense, I think lawmakers from both parties will be searching aimlessly at the end for any bi-partisan bill that they can cling to like a life raft to tell voters back home that they can play nice with others -- sometimes.

For a little history on that, look at the last federal shutdown battle. Two shutdowns occurred from Nov. 13, 1995 to Jan. 6, 2006. In January 1996, just as the shutdown was concluding, then-House Ag Committee Chairman Pat Roberts reintroduced Freedom to Farm. The House passed the Freedom to Farm before the end of February. The Senate passed it on a voice vote. By April 4, President Clinton was signing it into law.

So it is possible Congress could get something done digging out of the ashes of the political carnage, though the outcome in that case -- Freedom to Farm -- didn't become the piece of legislation many had hoped.

You see, this is what happens when your sports teams are winning. You become some sort of crazy optimist.

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