After a day of theatrics, Congress passed a "stopgap" measure that will keep the Government operating for 45 days. But is that a good thing?

First of all, while much media hyperbole surrounds Government shutdowns, much like the debt ceiling, there is a long history of shutdowns going back to the 70s. As Katherine Buchholz of Statista recently penned:

"The 2018/19 Government shutdown was the longest in recent U.S. history at 34 days. A timeline shows that government shutdowns have been getting longer in the last three decades, with the second and the fourth-longest Government shutdowns taking place in 1995 and 2013, respectively. Throughout the 1980s, shutdowns were numerous but shorter, while in the 1970s, they also ran somewhat longer but only surpassed two weeks once, in 1978. Government shutdowns aren't all that rare: Since 1976, there have been 20 shutdowns that lasted an average of 8 days."