Portman’s needed reform

Senator has a plan to end shutdowns for good

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, is reintroducing — for the fifth time since he was first elected to the Senate in 2010 — a bill that would eliminate federal government shutdowns.

Mr. Portman — along with eight cosponsors and counting — has proposed the bill that would permanently prevent future shutdowns by creating an automatic continuing resolution for regular government appropriations.

That means that even when Congress and the White House fail to reach budget deals before spending deadlines, essential governmental functions will continue uninterrupted. No more holding the country and its federal employees hostage.

The hope is that Congress will now finally move on Mr. Portman’s End Government Shutdowns Act, so that the current shutdown can be America’s last.

Mr. Portman’s reform would not mean that one side wins automatically. It would mean only that the government would stay open while both sides keep talking. Government workers would keep working and keep paying their bills, and the parks and IRS, to take two examples, would stay open.

The nation would also save a great deal of money. Estimates of what a shuttered government is costing the country per day — in park fees and unpaid bills, for example — vary widely. But the 2013 shutdown of 16 days cost the taxpayers $2.5 billion, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate. We are on day 29 of this shutdown.

Most government workers now furloughed will be entitled to back pay (for a period in which little work was done because it could not be). And the loss in Gross Domestic Product could also be significant. The 2013 shutdown cost the nation an estimated .06 percent of the GDP, according to the Standard and Poor’s ratings agency, or roughly $23 billion.

According to some estimates, the direct cost accrued by this shutdown has now exceeded what the president is asking for “the wall” — $5 billion.

The cost of the wall, in any case, would be 0.11 percent of federal spending, roughly $4.5 trillion for the next fiscal year.

Shutting down the government costs money because the costs continue to be accumulated. And there is also a cost to rebooting the government, when that day comes.

Indeed, as Sen. Rand Paul has said, it costs more to keep the government closed than open.

Yet, observers may notice that in the days leading up to the shutdown, most politicians were concerned with blame. Remember Sen. Chuck Schumer’s undisguised delight at President Donald Trump’s exclamation that he’d own it?

For citizens, that adds insult to fiscal injury. It is time to end this childish and expensive game.

Mr. Portman is a practical man who seeks commonsense and common-ground solutions. In the End Government Shutdowns Act, he has found one.

Let the budget wait when there is not agreement on a compromise. But keep the government running. Don’t hold it ransom. We pay.