Predictably, there aren’t many legal experts who have built careers around the Antideficiency Act, but I managed to corral a few. The most important messages they offer are these: 1) It’s not just present federal work that’s affected by the shutdown, it’s future work, too; and 2) shutting down the federal government is terribly wasteful and expensive because of the re-start costs involved.
That’s the point made by the acclaimed dean of Antideficiency Act scholars, University of Baltimore Law Professor Charles Tiefer (“For obscure details,” he told me, “you’ve come to the right guy.”). It’s not just that many federal operations will shut down next week, Tiefer said, it’s that “all kinds of planning and preparation for federal activity in the months and weeks to come” will become “increasingly neglected and disjointed if the showdown lasts more than a couple of days.” Here’s a key passage from the statute:
An officer or employee of the United States Government or of the District of Columbia government may not accept voluntary services for either government or employ personal services exceeding that authorized by law except for emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property …
As used in this section, the term “emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property” does not include ongoing, regular functions of government the suspension of which would not imminently threaten the safety of human life or the protection of property.