Resolves YES if there is any US government shutdown or funding gap between market creation and market close. It is not necessary for a YES resolution that government services be disrupted or any workers be furloughed. For example, something as minor as the 9-hour gap on Feburary 9, 2018 would count.
Otherwise, resolves NO.
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Can someone please explain in layman's terms for a non American (me) what caused the funding gap? Is the US somehow set up so that the government has to keep manually passing budgets that only apply for a limited time, rather than the budget being a standing order that keeps being in place until overwritten? I thought the republicans had a trifecta, so even if this is the case, what stopped them from easily passing their budget?
@TheAllMemeingEye That's basically how the budget works, yes. Congress was able to pass the budget resolution, but apparently they did it so late that by the time Trump signed it, the budget had technically expired. (So there was a very brief moment when there was no government budget at all.)
As for the question of whether the Republicans have a trifecta - they sort of do, but it's complicated. In order to pass a law, you generally need approval by the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the President. Republicans have slight majorities in both the House and the Senate, and a majority is enough to pass a law in the House, but it's not enough to pass a law in the Senate, because of the filibuster.
The filibuster is a strange rule in the Senate: if a Senator is talking, you can't tell them to stop talking unless you use a special procedure called "cloture" which takes 60/100 votes to pass rather than just a simple majority. Therefore, if at least 40 Senators oppose a bill, they can take turns giving lengthy speeches about nothing - there was a famous moment when Senator Ted Cruz read Dr. Seuss books during a 21-hour filibuster speech. In practice, nobody wants to go through a filibuster, so if more than 40 Senators oppose a bill, the Senate just abandons the bill altogether.
There have been some efforts to repeal the filibuster, which would only take a simple majority. However, there have always been enough moderates in the Senate to prevent this from happening, no matter which party was in power.
Right now, the Republicans have a 53-47 majority, so they need at least 7 Democratic votes to get cloture on any law in the Senate - sometimes more than that, if any Republicans refuse. The budget resolution got cloture from 52 Republicans and 10 Democrats, which was enough to cross the 60-vote threshold and pass the law.
@ZaneMiller thanks for the excellent explanation :)
On the one hand it's scary that the budget isn't a standing order and thus the world's most powerful government can collapse if everyone keeps bickering and a consensus can't be reached in time, but also it's a little reassuring that 60% majority is defacto needed to do stuff so the narrow republican majority doesn't just give them instant unlimited power, while it's also frustrating that they wouldn't just make that dejure instead of relying the super convoluted time wasting fillibuster loophole.
A few follow-up questions:
Why isn't the budget a standing order to prevent this narrowly averted disaster from happening?
Why on earth did they leave it so last minute and thus risk collapse?
How on earth did they manage to get 10 democrats to vote with them without those democrats becoming total outcasts expelled from the party?
@TheAllMemeingEye It's very rare for an actual filibuster to take place; the threat is enough.
I'm not familiar with the history around the budget, but I think the idea of it being this way is to have government spending be accountable to the President and Congress.
The standard process for passing a budget is that the majority comes up with a budget, the minority says they refuse to support it, and then at the last minute a couple members of the minority cave in because they think they'd look bad if they were involved in a government shutdown.
As a coda before I say farewell to Manifold Markets (which unfortunately has frustratingly been losing popularity, per its own data trends), I note that this market (Robin’s Govt funding gap/shutdown) is another classic example of why I do think market writers should not play in their own markets. They become predisposed towards a directed resolution, perhaps developing ad hoc bases for resolution along the way that fly in the face of reality. This remains a serious flaw in Manifold Markets. It may endanger its longterm success. Change is possible, though!
I’m a NO holder but this market should resolve YES. The resolution criteria clearly specified “something as minor as the 9 hour…” so it’s cut and dry.
That being said… the NEXT SHUTDOWN MARKET THAT PPL MAKE ON HERE SHOULD FOLLOW THE KALSHI CRITERIA, NOT THE POLYMARKET ONES LOL.
@Joshua this is a "will thing happen before date" market, it can resolve early when the thing happens
@Robincvgr https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RS20348.pdf
According to the Federal government, this was not a funding gap. In 2023, the Congressional Research Service published a document which asserts what is and is not a funding gap. The 2018 event you reference is not a funding gap, according to the US government. Lacking official timely signature is not an automatic trigger designating a funding gap.
No one in Washington is referring to the events of the last 24 hours as amounting due to a funding gap. Does anyone have an official government document positively asserting that this was a funding gap?
@PGeyer this market presupposes that the 2018 event was a funding gap. that should set your expectations for this market. if you thought my resolution criteria didn't make sense, you shouldn't have traded
@Robincvgr At the very least, the title does not match the criteria and thus the market should be an NA.
@Robincvgr The 2018 event hinged on Congress truly not passing legislation before midnight. I accepted that in the criteria, The facts are different here. Here it was clear that there would be no funding gap.
@PGeyer I prefer to use words as tools, not sledgehammers to suit my purpose. I go by official and commonly accepted definitions.
@PGeyer you will not get a low rating from me. I liked your market. Unfortunately, I am now an NPC, as you so casually exposed to everyone ;)
Ok, trump seems to have been awake at the DOJ during voting so it is within the realm of possibility that he signed it
Unfortunately, Congress.gov does not often include the hour and minute that bills are signed and therefore "become law". Here's an example from S.5 (the only legislation to become law in the 119th congress so far according to the website)
It includes hours and minutes for steps up to that, though. I assume if it lists the date as 14th, then we have to assume this resolves NO, unless other widespread reporting confirms the signing was after midnight?