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Party leaders in Congress have long criticized government shutdowns as toxic and destructive.

“Always a bad idea,” former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said of shutdowns in 2024. A potential “disaster,” Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said of the shutdown the country narrowly avoided when he voted with Republicans to keep the government open in March.

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“I don’t think shutdowns benefit anybody, least of all the American people,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said last week.

Yet Congress often finds itself at the brink of one as the two major political parties’ differences grow more intractable with each passing year. Democrats are threaten

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