First of all, why is such a thing even possible? The various agencies and departments of the federal government can only spend money that they have been authorized, by Congress, to spend. It is irrelevant whether there is actually any money in the national checking accounts; it is illegal to spend money that there hasn't been a law authorizing it and an appropriation bill directing that the money go to its intended department. The way it's supposed to work is that a budget is submitted by the President and Congress approves it or changes it, then approves it. If there is less money coming in from taxes, then the government borrows to make up the difference. The difference is called "the deficit". But two things come together to get us to the point where we have shutdowns. One is that Congress hasn't passed a budget in I can't remember when. They pass "continuing resolutions" that authorize funding the government at current levels with any changes that they can squeeze in. The other issue is that Congress has imposed a limit to how much debt that we, as a nation, can accumulate. Periodically that limit is reached and Congress has to raise the limit. These situations require that Congress take some kind of action or the government's non-essential functions shut down and most of the essential employees, including the military, are called into work, but don't see their paychecks until the shutdown ends. Some paychecks go out since they are Constitutionally required; ironically the President and Congress are among this group.
Usually various factions within Congress use these moments to try to get something that they want from the other side, reasoning that the majority won't risk a shutdown over whatever the matter is that they are negotiating over. Sometimes they are mistaken.
In the current crisis the Democrats are using the issue of legalizing the status of the so-called Dreamers, beneficiaries of DACA as a negotiating tool. President Trump is using the wall that he promised in his campaign for the same purpose. Republicans threw in a 30 day re-authorization of CHIP to try to make it difficult for the Democrats to vote against a continuing resolution. Trump and the Republicans are painting the Democrats as prioritizing illegal immigration over our military (armed forces would not receive paychecks during a shutdown, but would continue to serve; the Border Patrol and other immigration control agencies have the same status.
Here's how I see it. Out of nowhere, President Trump cancelled the DACA program, giving it an expiration date of March of this year. There seems to be support in both parties to permanently legalize the DACA program and give the Dreamers a path to citizenship. Currently DACA exists because of President Obama's executive action, not legislation. Democrats, rightly in my opinion, do not want to wait until March to enshrine DACA in law, suspecting that Trump will pull the rug out from under them if they wait; they see this shutdown as an opportunity to negotiate for what they want when the other side, for once, needs their votes.
There has been bipartisan negotiating and several bipartisan compromises, even one that funded Trump's Wall, but they have been shot down each time by the President and Congressional leadership. The Democrats are absolutely correct to take this opportunity to take care of the people who, while not technically Americans, are in every meaningful sense of the word, constructive, contributing members of their communities...they know no other country...they're Americans.
Trump has been tweeting hard, even giving up his usual three-day golf weekend to berate the Democrats for putting the nation in danger and not caring about the military. He's trying to shame the Democrats by trotting his faux concern for "the troops". Meanwhile every compromise is shot down, including a stand-alone bill to pay the military during the shutdown.
Hopefully the Democrats will stand firm.
Update:
Apparently the Democrats aren't standing firm. Enough Senate Democrats agreed to vote to extend funding the government through February 8 if McConnell pledged to bring DACA to a vote before then. I disagree with this for several reasons: we don't know if the House of Representatives leadership will agree to the same thing and we don't know if McConnell will keep his word and Trump is so unpredictable on anything regarding immigration that we don't know if he'll sign anything regarding DACA. So, we'll be going through this again in a few weeks.
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