Thanks for all the comments. Sorry for delay in resolving as I was under the weather on Saturday. I have reviewed all the comments and news articles -- it is clear from NYT, WSJ, etc.. that there was no shutdown. They all mention "shutdown averted". As mentioned even the OMB did not declare a formal shutdown. The only place that seemed to think that there was a shutdown was Fox News article(s). I am going to disregard that and assume the funding gap for a few hours did not result in a shutdown.

@Orca

Thanks for giving it your best effort, reviewing multiple sources, and explaining how you came to your conclusion.

It looks like there were supposed to be 6-7 additional days before this was due to resolve No, do you know if there is any chance of a shutdown before the original closing date of 1 April 2024?

@Eliza With the passage of this law, shutdown is not a possibility until September of this year. So, it is safe to resolve this now in my opinion. This law funds the government through the rest of the fiscal year that ends September 30th.

@Orca It didn’t go my way, but fwiw this was a fair resolution.

Biden signed the bill, and it's being reported this averted the government shutdown. Clearly Biden wasn't at all worried about a shutdown either or he would have signed it hours and hours ago when it actually passed. Looks like this supports NO.

Wikipedia article, for reference.

It seems like the OMB started shutdown preparations for at least a little bit and then stopped sometime between 12:00 and 1:00 am so the government was technically shutdown for 20-30 minutes

@JamesF preparing for something isn't the same as the thing happening. People would have been "preparing" for a possible shutdown since long before the actual deadline.

The OMB did not actually order a shutdown, and as such no federal agency shut down (which is what the resolution criteria refer to).

What occured (so far) is a "funding gap". Not all funding gaps lead to shutdowns. For example, the funding gap that occured a couple of weeks ago did not lead to a shutdown.

I bet yes but since it's being debated in the comments I think it should be resolved as no. @Joshua convinced me with the OMB fact. If they're the ones that officially shut it down and they didn't I don't think it matters when who signed what when

This should resolve to YES. Congress failed to pass funding legislation before the deadline. 2 hours of “shutdown” is still a shutdown.

@BobSnodgrass No agency actually shut down. Again, this is no different from the situation earlier this month in which Biden did not sign the bill the same night it was passed. OMB decides when there is a shutdown and there has not been one.

@Joshua See also, the new york times:

There is a shutdown when the government says there is a shutdown. There wasn't.

@Joshua

@Joshua Feels pretty bad that this market resolved to "no" because of the midnight deadline for Congress to pass legislation, but the above market, which specifies Congress failing to pass legislation to continue funding, resolves to "no" because the WH directed agencies to keep the lights on.

Despite the politician speak, WaPo indicated earlier this week that a shutdown begins at 12:01 on 23 March.

@BobSnodgrass Joshua made that market in order to explicitly ask a different question, knowing that there is confusion around the distinction between a shutdown and the failure to pass legislation. He would not have made it, if it were equivalent to this market.

As has been mentioned, earlier this month there was a similar funding lapse where even though Congress did pass the relevant bills, Biden did not sign it into law until after midnight. Yet this was not reported on as a shutdown, as no government departments actually shut down - failure to sign legislation into law before midnight and government shutdowns are different things.

Some in the media have decided to report on the failure of legislation becoming law before midnight this time as a shutdown, yet it's the same thing - whether it's Congress or the president failing to do their bits before midnight is of no relevance to the legal status of the bill. In either case it did not become law before midnight, and in either case did not lead to a shutdown.

As of yet, no government departments have shut down, no shutdown has been declared by the government. Market creators would do well to specify exactly whether they are referring to a failure of legislation to become law, or government departments undergoing shutdown procedures, to minimise ambiguity. This market's description refers to government agencies shutting down due to the failure to pass legislation. So far, that hasn't happened. Whereas Joshua's market referred to the legislation directly.

Trust our politicians to come up with a weird situation like this. I am going to sleep now and wake up and think about it in the morning

I agree. Legally there was a few hours of shutdown I suppose. But still let us wait till Biden signs it

Looks like an N/A resolution to me, technically the legislation didn't pass in time, so funding expired and shutdown procedures began, but because of when it happened it will be as if it didn't occur since funding was restored before morning when the first disruptions would occur.

You could easily argue either outcome occurred, and the description of the market doesn't detail how to resolve in this circumstance

I interpret it as NO because

This will resolve to yes -- even if any one government agency -- shuts down in Q1 of 2024 because Congress fails to pass legislation to continue funding (either in form of CR or a full legislative bill for the entire Fiscal year).

no agencies shut down or will shut down and because (iirc) something similar happened recently and all the similar markets went NO

@jacksonpolack Market creators should clarify how they interpret situations like this beforehand - where they don't it's basically up to their whims since it's easily argued either way

@Tripping The only reasonable outcome would be N/A in the absence of such clarification

@Tripping unlike most of the markets this one has a pretty clear description- resolving based on an agency actually shutting down. which is very unlikely to happen.

@SemioticRivalry Just because other markets might have worse descriptions, I don't think you can say that therefore this market has a clear description. There's no mention of how the creator would interpret this situation in the description at all.

@Tripping you don't have to enumerate every single possible situation that might take place if there is a clear description of what will resolve the question.

@SemioticRivalry Which this market doesn't have, that's my point

@Tripping Traders in the market could review the comment thread for hints as this shifts from a question of what will happen, to what the creator might do about it.

@Tripping Shutdown has already occurred, the fact that they're confident that funding will be restored in time for the workday to start such that the Office of Management and Budget won't actually have to do anything as a result of what will probably end up being a 3-ish hour shutdown doesn't really change that. The YES case is pretty strong in that sense.

@Tripping no federal agencies have shut down.

@SemioticRivalry Someone can call over to Hawaii and ask if they're still at work.

@SemioticRivalry Funding has expired, they're currently shut down. The Senate is trying to restore funding right now but are yet to do so. We are right now in a world where funding has lapsed, at least for a few more hours. The fact that the shutdown will be brief enough to not result in any disruptions does not mean a shutdown did not occur

@Tripping the white House disagrees

"Agencies will not shut down"

@SemioticRivalry Pausing the process of going through the motions of what a shutdown entails in expectation of restored funding isn't the same as there not having been a shutdown, the fact that the OMB had already began shutdown procedures makes this clear

@Tripping IMo the executive branch decides when there is or isn't a shutdown. Earlier this month Biden didn't sign a bill until after midnight, and there was still no shutdown.

@Tripping they very specifically said agencies will not shut down. Not pausing a process, they will not shut down. OMB was preparing for a shutdown previously because it was not clear whether the bill would pass at all.

@SemioticRivalry We are in the world where the bill hasn't even passed yet, and yet we have passed the shutdown deadline. The fact that it's a small shutdown such that no-one will notice that it occurred doesn't mean it's not a shutdown

@Tripping The description of this market makes it pretty clear to the extent that it is clear about anything that it cares specifically about whether "Congress fails to pass legislation to continue funding (either in form of CR or a full legislative bill for the entire Fiscal year)."

Since this is all we have to go off of, I think a YES is more than reasonable. The point is that the argument is very easy to make.

@Tripping I'll buy NO to prove that I think that even when I have a incentive to argue for a NO resolution I think this should N/A

@Tripping

" This will resolve to yes -- even if any one government agency -- shuts down in Q1 of 2024 because Congress fails to pass legislation to continue funding"

that clause is specifically connected to the part about an agency shutting down, which has not happened.

@SemioticRivalry I mean it depends on how you interpret it, do you care about funding expiring, or do you care about e.g. workers being turned away when they show up for work? There's no formal definition, but the description very specifically cares about the congress failing to pass legislation to continue funding - and that is the very specific thing that actually occurred. If you just take the description at face value then that would mean a YES resolution.

@Tripping the resolution of NA would only be appropriate if the question creator contadicted himself, messed up the market in some way, or something happened completely outside of the resolution criteria. In this case, none of those happened yet. The resolution criteria says if there is a government shutdown, resolves YES. Right now OMB says there is no government shutdown. Seems pretty clear to me and resolving based on anything else wouldn't be correct.

This same thing happening earlier this month and this market not resolving YES also heavily points toward a NO resolution at this point.

@mint The creator very specifically was concerned with whether congress fails to pass legislation to continue funding in time or not. That was the specifically laid out criteria for what a shut down constitutes. To the extent that we care about what the creator has actually said on the matter, that points to a YES resolution, regardless of how other markets with different criteria have resolved.