Congress failed to pass stopgap funding for federal agencies and programs before the new fiscal year began Wednesday, so a shutdown of federal activities is happening again -- for the 22nd time since the modern budget process began in 1976.

The road to this impasse is filled with political and economic Gordian knots. Our federal debt has doubled in 10 years , to over $37 trillion now. Servicing that debt now takes 17% of total federal spending .

More signs of this breakdown are apparent:

Passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill also demonstrated that bipartisanship is dead. Not a single Democrat in either chamber backed the bill. That bodes ill for any compromise to get the government operating again. It’s time to admit that Washington, D.C., is broken, and find ways to fix it.

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