With Just Hours to Go, No Deal in Sight to Avoid Government Shutdown

September 30th (Washington, D.C.) – {Updated with the latest details as of 9:07pm ET} Unless something drastic happens, we are a mere few hours away from the largest, and perhaps longest, government shutdown in United States history. The entire federal budget—all 12 appropriation bills—must be passed by midnight or every government program and service will come to a grinding halt, save for those that support critical infrastructure and security, are required by mandatory spending, or have some other way to temporarily continue to function. Nonetheless, even those essential workers who sustain these operations will only be showing up because they are compelled to do so by law; most will not be seeing a paycheck for their efforts. In order for them to be paid, not only does a budget need to be passed, but Congress must create separate legislation to compensate them for the time the government was shut down. Meanwhile, no elected or appointed official will be receiving their recompence, either, including the person at the center of this maelstrom: the President of the United States.

How Did It Come to This?

The President has made it abundantly clear—especially since the State of the Union seven months ago—that the administration is looking for a radical shift in Congress’s approach to the budget. Specifically, the President demanded that the entire budget be passed together in one omnibus package instead of in a piecemeal methodology through individual appropriations and continuing resolutions; that military expenditures be reduced by at least 25% this year alone; and that savings and revenues be found by expanding personal freedoms, most notably around the use of recreational drugs.

Since the President announced these requirements in February, the administration and members of Congress have met regularly to try to come to some type of understanding that could be passed by the majority of the legislature and get the President’s signature. However, leaks from these sessions have shown that they became highly contentious and had to be broken off for days and weeks at a time so as to let cooler heads prevail. Even the working group participants from both sides had to be switched out in order to try to mitigate the personality clashes that had become a hallmark of the negotiations.

Throughout this process, Congress had tested the Executive Branch’s resolve by first passing a continuing resolution for defense appropriations that would have maintained current spending levels through the end of the calendar year. As was promised by the President during the State of the Union, the resolution was vetoed without ever having been reviewed. Here, the President reminded the members of Congress that the administration would accept any continuing resolution, so long as it did not extend beyond September 30th. This almost led to a partial government shutdown at the end of April when the prior continuing resolution that funded the military was coming due, but at the last-minute Congress blinked during this dangerous game of chicken and approved a version that only extended funding through the end of the fiscal year.

Attempting a similar tactic, in June Congress tried to do the same with programs seemingly closer to the President’s heart, including ones related to healthcare, climate, and education. Again, the President elected to veto the legislation because it extended funding too far into the future, and once more Congress was forced to retreat. As such, every bit of discretionary funding is coming to an end on September 30th, leaving thousands of pages of programs to go through and somehow reach a consensus that could be agreed upon by all of the various contingents.

Some have asked why Congress was unable to override the President’s veto and pass these resolutions as they desired. After all, it would only take a ⅔rds majority in the House and Senate to avoid all of this. Well, this is where the President has been extremely successful in driving a wedge inside the Republican and Democratic Parties, not just between them as is normally seen.

Neither major Political Party holds enough seats in either chamber of Congress to pass any legislation based solely on affiliation. Even if both the House and Senate were controlled by a single Political Party—which they are not—they would have no luck using a “Budget Reconciliation” process. In the past, when the House, Senate, and the White House were in the hands of Democrats or Republicans, they used their power to make massive policy changes strictly along Party lines. In recent history, this has included such immense statutes as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the Tax Cuts and Job Act of 2017, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. In each of these situations, the core rule-change that allowed them to pass was removing the super-majority of 60 out of 100 votes needed in the Senate.

Using this methodology would only require a simple majority in each chamber in order to get any legislation to pass. In other words, just 218 out of 435 Representatives from the House and 51 Senators (or 50 Senators plus a tie-breaking vote by the Vice President) would be needed to reach an agreement. At various points, Congress has had those numbers. In truth, they essentially have even more than that right now. That said, it would still require 290 Representatives and 67 Senators to override the President, and for that they are sorely lacking.

That is because the administration has been very successful at peeling various sub-groups within the Political Parties off of their core assemblages. At a high level, there are pragmatists in the Republican and Democratic Parties that work together to keep things on an even keel. Each Party, though, has their own outliers of various kinds that they have to deal with. When one caucus or the other was in the majority, they often had to kowtow to these extremists in order to count on their votes. Unfortunately for them, in many situations those groups have later gotten burned when the promises made to them could not be kept. This has caused the people in those circles to become very distrustful of their own Parties, and thus they have become less inclined to offer their votes in return for some future mythical return that most likely will never come to pass.

To date, in order to appease as many Congresspeople as possible, various versions of the budget have been attempted. There have been all Democratic ones that bowed to massive unsustainable increases in social spending; and there have been all Republican ones that have gutted community programs in their entirety and dropped tax rates in a way that would result in uncontrollable debt. The overindulgences seen in these drafts were required to get everyone in their own Parties on board and were intended to be starting points with the other Party in order to just get enough people over to their side by walking individual line-items backwards.

But that did not work because as soon as they attempted to compromise in one area to get the other Party’s vote, they would then lose the same number of votes from a faction within their own group. Eventually, this led to the more moderate members of both major Parties coming together in order to formulate their own plan. While this amalgamation had been able to successfully collaborate and pass several versions of the Budget themselves, each one has been vetoed by the President. Despite perhaps being the most compromise-filled appropriations bill in several generations, it is not enough to satisfy the White House, and Congress still lacks the votes to override that veto in both chambers. Once again, whenever they have tried to change something to get another bloc of votes on board, it would also result in the working group losing supporters, even among the so-called centralists.

All of that has led to this moment when the majority of both chambers of Congress have a budget that they agree to, one that starts on September 30th and runs through the entire fiscal year, and one that is a noticeably different take on the federal government than seen in decades. Yet, they lack the ⅔rds super-majority necessary to override the President’s veto, and consequently we are stuck and heading towards a shutdown.

What is the Holdup?

So why is the President continuing to veto each one of these versions of the budget despite the widespread bipartisan agreement in Congress? For what reason does the President persist in turning down a clean bill that acknowledges many of the administration’s key concerns and ideals? It all comes down to one thing: military spending. While the Legislative Branch has actually been quite good about working through the various components of revenue and spending it has oversight for, as well as meeting various desires of the administration, there are definitely areas where the two are far apart. That said, sources within the White House have confirmed that the President is willing to let many specific details slide for the time being in order to get over the hump.

However, the one issue where there is seemingly no potential for compromise is with spending related to the armed services. The earliest versions of the Budget kept expenses at prior-year levels and the most recent edition has gone so far as to find savings close to 10%. The President has made clear, though, that this is not nearly enough, and it must be increased to around 25%. Getting Republicans to agree to any reduction was nearly impossible, but a number of budget tricks were employed to keep enough of them on board for this round. Any further cuts will most definitely result in getting the entire Party to drop out of negotiations.

Meanwhile, even Democrats are reticent to make any additional cuts. While there certainly are radical members of the Party that would happily reduce military expenditures by 80% this year, others that live in more competitive districts are concerned about looking weak on defense. This makes them comparatively conservative when it comes to armed forces spending. Voting patterns in Congress over the decades have shown that military and defense spending has increased and deceased almost equally between the Political Parties, with neither one being the true “defense hawk” or “harbinger of peace”. If anything, each is equally in the pocket of the military-industrial complex.

Considering all of these factors, then, the only thing that is holding up the Budget at this point is the President of the United States. Congress has a version they could pass which would be at the Commander-in-Chief’s desk in the next hour, but it would be of no use. The President appears quite content to let the entire Federal Government shut down in order to enforce the administration’s stance.

Interestingly enough, the very first override of a Presidential veto was also related to a military appropriations bill. In 1845, then-President John Tyler objected to a bill associated with what we would now call the Coast Guard, but Congress overwhelming chose to disregard President Tyler’s veto. That said, it took two months for Congress to undertake that action, and the bill was not one that would have caused a shutdown should it not have passed.

Throughout history and including the current President, the chief executive has used the veto power nearly 3,000 times. Of those, Congress has only successfully overridden that veto on about 5% of occasions. However, when looking just at appropriations bills like we are currently dealing with, prior to this standoff there were less than 90 times that the President vetoed the legislation. Congress, in turn, reversed that decision nearly 15% of time, three times higher than the average statute. Still, that means that 85% of the time Congress has not been able to supersede the President, and this occurrence looks no different.

The last time an appropriations veto was countermanded was under then-President Ronald Reagan in 1982, but that only extended funding for some specific agencies for a few weeks, hardly the potential level of damage we are dealing with now. To find a government shutdown that ended by overriding a Presidential veto, one must go back to 1976 under Gerald Ford. Just as with this standoff, the entire fiscal budget ended on September 30th without the President’s signature. In spite of this, then-President Ford elected to only veto some of the appropriations, not the entire package as the current President has done. Congress also annulled the President’s decision just a day later, but it took over a week for the funding to catch up. Despite this turn of events, prior to a 1981 opinion by then-Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti, a “funding gap” did not necessarily equate to the government partially or fully shutting down. In the real world, this “shutdown” had no practical effect as the agencies continued operating as if nothing had happened at all. Since that time, though, things have obviously been quite different.

What will happen in a Total Government Shutdown?

Should the clock strike midnight without an agreement and the President’s signature, due to that 1981 opinion and subsequent court case confirmations, there are many parts of the federal government that will either be severely curtailed or closed in their entirety. Other parts will see no impact whatsoever, and a lot of that depends on how each specific agency and program is funded.

What is being discussed here is the “discretionary” part of the budget, the areas where Congress can make changes on an annual basis. Nonetheless, there is “mandatory” spending that in the past Congress put into law that must be funded no matter what. At the top of this list are payments for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. As such, no person on retirement, disability, or a needs-based system will have to worry about not receiving checks from most of the social safety net programs that exist. Conversely, these departments will not be able to process new applications for any of their services. That means that not only can no one start receiving Social Security who does not already currently do so, but also that no one can even get a replacement Social Security card should they need one.

And not all social safety net programs are part of the mandatory funding tree. For instance, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—colloquially known as “food stamps”—falls under the discretionary spending of the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Without funding, those who depend upon government-issued EBT cards to buy food will not have their account refilled next month. In preparation for this potential shutdown, the USDA has already added October’s payment to the cards and charged it to the current fiscal year while they still have access to the money, a tactic the agency used in prior shutdowns. However, if no agreement is reached, there will be no release of funds on November 1st.

It should also be noted that per the President’s non-binding reorganization of the Executive Branch, the USDA, and thus SNAP, is now part of the responsibilities of Science, Technology, and Environment and not People and Society. The President had previously expressed a desire to officially move the SNAP program out of the USDA and into an agency that would fall under People and Society, but no drafts of the budget to date nor any other legislation have made it so.

Meanwhile, though Veterans Affairs (VA) also falls under the discretionary bucket, all medical services and facilities are expected to remain open. The main service disruption will be much like with Social Security, where new enrollees will not be able to have their applications processed. Further, purported non-critical programs like vocational training will be suspended indefinitely.

Beyond these human-centric areas, there is also other mandatory spending that is not programmatically related. For instance, interest continues to accrue on the trillions of dollars of debt the United States government has accumulated. By law, that interest must continue to be paid and the United States cannot go into default. While not often thought of by the average citizen, should the country fail to service its debt and consequently go into default, the United States dollar would lose almost all of its value and a worldwide recession would ensue. There are very few people in the government who want this type of situation to happen, not even the liability-adverse President who in the past has indicated a willingness to raise the debt ceiling should the need arise.

When it comes to the financial situation, there are a number of concerns that must be addressed. First off, the banking agencies like the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Company (FDIC), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and other similarly situated organizations are self-funded and therefore are in no danger of shutting down. All financial markets should continue normally, however the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will be shut down and will not be able to pursue investigations and cases. Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will have emergency personnel to monitor markets and accept filings, but otherwise will also be similarly hamstrung. If anything, the shutdown will give those in the financial market more leeway with less government oversight than expected. Some may see this as an opportunity to pursue opportunities in a less-regulated environment.

Of note, the stock market has continued its overall consistent downward trajectory since the President was installed. In general, Wall Street does not like volatility, and this administration has certainly contributed significantly to that. The market losses, more difficult working conditions with international partners, the jitteriness of CEOs the country over, and signs of price inflation have all potentially led to a general economic downturn that may already be in progress. Thus, although the shutdown will not directly impact businesses, money flow, the markets, or any other economic area, its fallout could trigger a full recession. Some are claiming that we are already in a recession based upon the President’s actions and that the leader of the free world must be held accountable for “intentionally destroying the greatest economy of the world.”

One particular area where there might be an impact on people and businesses is in relation to loans. With the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Small Business Administration (SBA), and other agencies either completely or partially shuttered, getting loans processed may be slowed down or stopped entirely. Most new housing mortgages should see no impact aside from a longer wait time to be approved, but every other specialized program might not be able to function at all or will be on an exceedingly delayed schedule. This could cause free capital to be severely curtailed, lead to transaction interruptions, and contribute to a worsening macro-economic situation.

On the same subject, it is worth noting here that while the government is shut down it will be unable to collect fees and other charges. Coupling this with the overall economic impact will amount to billions of dollars lost each day. Then, when you add in lost productivity, the expected backpay for all employees when the government eventually reopens, and the funds necessary to catch up on all that was lost or postponed, then any closure will end up being far more expensive than what may be saved while the government is unavailable, and perhaps even more than the President is hoping to save in total if things go on for too long a time.

Outside of financial systems, there are a number of self-funded and quasi-government agencies that should continue to operate without any interruption. This includes the Post Office, so mail and packages will come on time (or as close as the Post Office has been able to muster in recent years). Similarly, Amtrak trains will be maintaining a normal schedule, although some specific track repairs may be delayed because they are financed with federal dollars.

Interestingly, train travel might be the better option as going by plane may become more precarious. Officially, air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents are deemed essential and will be compelled to show up to work. Regrettably, during the 2018-2019 shutdown under then-President Donald Trump, after not being paid for a couple of weeks some of these people just stopped clocking in. This resulted in colossally long security lines around the country and even a temporary stoppage at LaGuardia Airport in New York.

Some places that people might travel to will be shut down, but it will hardly be noticeable. The National Parks Service (NPS)—using a model also developed during the 2018-2019 shutdown—will be leaving all outdoor parks and monuments open and available, but will not be providing any services. This means no bathrooms, concessions, or trash pickup, which all led to damages during the aforementioned forced closure. Indoor spaces like the Smithsonian Museums will be completely shuttered. In a statement to the media, the NPS asked us to remind patrons to be respectful of national landmarks and protected spaces, to take out everything they bring in with them, and to continue to report anything suspicious or untoward to a local police officer.

The idea of refuse, damage, and other issues creeping up brings forth the question of what type of support services will be available? The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will continue providing assistance in ongoing missions, but it remains unclear what would happen if a new one were needed, such as another hurricane making landfall. Seemingly, the President could use existing emergency declaration authority to empower FEMA to respond, but once again there would be no money to pay employees. Other agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would cease their inspections and other activities, adding a level of risk to consumables, drinking water, the soil, and waste services. The National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) would also suspend most of their programs, creating a massive hazard right at the beginning of the Influenza/Coronavirus season where the government will not be able to effectively respond.

Ironically, the United States military would actually function rather ordinarily, even continuing to pay soldiers and civilians. Because of how much money Congress has outlaid in the past, the military is sitting on billions of dollars in cash and can continue to fund themselves through February of next year, and perhaps longer if they curtail certain activities. As such, military readiness is feasibly the least at risk of all federal government programs and services.

Is There Anything Else Congress Could Do to Stop This?

Given that Congress is seemingly unable to find the votes necessary to override the President’s veto and the latter is disinclined to even sign a one-day extension to continue negotiations, a shutdown now seems inevitable. Yet, there is one area in Congress where there is broad support: disdain for the President. Could getting rid of the President be the solution this country needs?

As the first independent leader of the nation, the President lacks any support from the Democrats and Republicans who make up almost all of the membership in Congress, as well as among the Party-loyal voters at large. It is fair to note that even prior to taking the Oath of Office, the President lacked a clear mandate from the people. The Constitutional Amendments that eliminated the Electoral College and created the direct universal voting system that mixed ranked and negative selections—a scheme inspired by the seminal books New & Improved: The United States of America and Always Divided, Never United—allowed this comparable political outsider to rise to power.

While the President indisputably received the highest number of “net points”, that is not the same as being the “first choice”. In that category, the Democratic candidate received 41%, the Republican candidate 38%, the current President 13%, and the remaining 8% was spread among a plethora of other candidates. It was the take-home combination of second plus third choice and negative votes for the Democratic and Republican candidates that allowed this relative unknown to assume the highest seat in the land. That made many people, especially the Party-faithful already in Congress, bristle at the idea of being dictated to by someone who was clearly not the top choice of most Americans.

The Commander-in-Chief has not been helpful in negating this impression since the onset. Even before assuming office, the President had taken an aggressive stand in almost all dealings with Congress. Coming in hot like this—including threatening to arrest members of Congress if they got out of line—has not made the administration any friends, allies, or even a partner who could help work as an intermediary. In reality, the actions of the White House have created quite a few enemies, not the least of which are the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate.

Since the Ten Pronouncements on Inauguration Day when the President went completely rogue with Executive Orders that put American people and interests around the globe at risk, there have been calls to remove the leader of the free world. At first, Congress seemed disinclined to entertain these ideas, and the cries for such radical action only came from the outermost reaches of each of the major Political Parties. Nonetheless, as time has gone on, the President has failed to gain favor with Congress and has only pushed the envelope further and further outward. A recent interaction with protesters outside the White House that ended in violence and arrests has created a lot of chatter about the fitness of the President to continue leading the nation, even among the more rank-and-file members of Congress.

Combing through public and off-the-record comments, it would appear that there is more than enough sentiment in the House of Representatives to impeach the President. The question is, is there an appetite to go through such a tumultuous trial while the government is shut down? And if there is, would the Senate actually convict?

Although former President Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump in 2019 and 2021, none of them were convicted by the Senate, which requires a ⅔rds (67%) majority in order to remove them from office. The closest any case has ever gotten was with Donald Trump’s second impeachment in which 57% voted guilty; and in Articles 2, 3, and 9 of Andrew Johnson’s trial that tapped out at 65%. Getting over that threshold is an intentionally high bar. Of the 21 national-level impeachments that have happened in all of United States history, only eight ended with conviction, and all of those were against federal judges.

More so, what legitimate reason would the House of Representatives give to initiate proceedings? The only acceptable options from the Constitution are “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Has the President committed any of these?

Treason is the sole crime defined in the Constitution, but it is rather specifically “levying war against” the United States or providing “Aid and Comfort” to its enemies. Since the President literally defined a list of enemy nations, it would be nearly impossible to say the President was providing them anything remotely close to “Aid and Comfort”. And although many of the President’s actions have been questionable, uncomfortable, downright hazardous to Americans, and even perhaps against the will of the people, because they are what the White House believes is in the best interests of the nation, they would be considered part of the normal course of governing and would definitely not be seen the same as “levying war”. No one could seriously argue this approach.

Similarly, bribery does not seem to be on the table as there have been no accusations against the President related to accepting money or gifts from anyone, much less to get something in return. As a matter of fact, the President has actively ramped up enforcement in mechanisms like the Hatch Act that tries to keep federal officers and employees from using their position and resources for political activities. If anything, the President seems intent on removing as much impropriety—whether real or perceived—from the government as possible.

That leaves “high Crimes and Misdemeanors”, a term that has never been fully defined or tested. Former Libertarian Party candidate Jon Roland of the self-styled Constitution Society claimed the origin of the phrase relates to the office of the person, not the acts committed. In other words, if the egregious action could only be committed by the person because of their position, then it would fall into this definition. This is hardly a universally agreed upon understanding, but it is not without precedent. In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton likened the phrase to “the abuse or violation of some public trust.”

Most importantly, it is a question of if the President has violated the Oath of Office. Unlike every other similar affirmation, the President’s is specifically written into the Constitution, and thus carries a significant weight. It states in part that the President swears (or affirms) to:

... faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Thus, the question simply becomes: has the President in the past eight months done something that violates this oath? Remember that by the proposed understanding, an infringement does not have to be related to an actual criminal law but must just fall within the confines of breaking the above statement. During the drafting of the Constitution, George Mason was the person most responsible for the aforementioned specific phrase being inserted into the impeachment clause expressly because it would allow a review of the chief executive on all other grounds, especially in relation to a poorly run administration. Founding Fathers from James Madison to Benjamin Franklin also agreed with these assessments and gave many examples in which in an impeachment may be necessary, and others where it would not apply.

Based upon recorded statements, political opinions were not something Congress could impeach the President over; but personal misconduct, neglect, failure to perform duties, usurpation, abuse of power, or otherwise “obnoxiously” using the office all fit the criteria. So that brings us back to today. Was shutting down Guantanamo Bay against the will of Congress an “usurpation”? Would unilaterally depleting the country’s nuclear arsenal and deployment of troops around the world be a “failure to perform duties”? Was exposing the goings on at Area 51 without so much as warning Congress “neglectful”? Was dangling appropriated funding and terrorist designations over the heads of foreign leaders and nations an “abuse of power”? Could an interaction with protestors that resulted in violence be considered “personal misconduct”? And most of all, is refusing to accept Congress’s power of the purse and fighting with them for your entire tenure just plain “obnoxious”?

Any of these and more are possibilities. The President has not left the well dry on all of the potential ways Congress could turn words and actions against the White House. When asked in the past about the potential of an impeachment, the President seemed not only unperturbed, but actually quite interested. Whether this was a tactic to defuse Congress from pursuing such a path or not remains an open question, but as stated by the President:

I would actually welcome it. I don’t know why impeachment is such a rare thing. Most employees get reviewed on a regular basis, so shouldn’t I get a performance evaluation from time to time? Maybe not an impeachment, but at least having a regular inquiry before Congress could be a good thing for me and the nation.

Even if the votes are there, the only thing removing the President from office will do is put the Vice President into the Oval Office. While the Vice President is not a political outsider like the President and is seen as more reasonable, that does not mean it will result in a better outcome. The Vice President is a full-throttled supporter of the boss’s agenda, and has made it clear that the current situation would be unfurling exactly the same should their roles be reversed. It would seem, then, that there would be no benefit at all if things remained as-is.

Given that, would Congress remove the President and Vice President simultaneously just to get their own way? By the existing law detailing the Presidential line of succession, the Speaker of the House of Representatives would be next up, followed by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate. Although the two are currently from different Political Parties, perhaps Republicans and Democrats would be more comfortable with one or the other in charge compared to the independents presently occupying the White House. Although they do not care for each other, there is at least a familiarity and respect for the nominal bureaucratic process.

Reservations about this possibility go back as far as the 2003 Continuity of Government Commission, which highlighted that a new Speaker of the House could be elected who in turn might then remove the President and make themselves the head-of-state at any time, thus perpetuating a continual cycle of commandeering the position. Studies done in 2009 and 2017 found similar issues and more, noting many other holes in the process.

It is actually unclear and completely untested what would happen if the President and Vice President became unavailable at once, or whether the leaders of each chamber of Congress even qualify to be the President since they do not originate from the Executive Branch. There have been a handful of occasions in the past where the Vice Presidency was vacant and thus the next person in line was technically set for succession if needed, but it has never come to pass where it was necessary to test the theory.

Perhaps, though, this experiment of eliminating the Electoral College and creating this radically new Presidential election system was just too much, too fast for this Congress, especially one dominated by the lifetime partisans of the Democratic and Republican Parties. Certainly, when they first passed these Amendments before sending them out to the States for ratification, they thought it would solidify their own positions; they simply did not foresee this potential situation. Perchance, it would have been better to make changes that affected the makeup of Congress first—as also detailed in the previously noted manuscripts—so that the Legislative Branch would not be so polarized against such an unassociated leader. Of course, asking Congress to do something that would be detrimental to themselves would be a tall order, to say the very least.

Still, because the Amendments did pass, this is the government, system, and reality we now live in now. Barring another set of Constitutional Amendments that are more palatable to Congress and Party-insiders, this methodology is how things will be going forward. With that in mind, impeachment and the removal of the President and Vice President after just 254 days in office may be a valid and logical response in order to create a stability in the federal government that so many people, most especially the average voter, truly crave.

The above piece is an excerpt from the speculative fiction novel 254 Days to Impeachment: The Future History of the First Independent President by J.P. Prag, available at booksellers worldwide.

Learn more about author J.P. Prag at www.jpprag.com.

254 Days to Impeachment is a work of mixed fiction and nonfiction elements. With the fiction elements, any names, characters, places, events, and incidents that bear any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental. For the nonfiction elements, no names have been changed, no characters invented, no events fabricated except for hypothetical situations.