11. President Jimmy Carter Holds Another Government Shutdown Record
During the late 1970s, funding for abortion in Congress became a hot topic. At the time, Jimmy Carter was president and the Democrats controlled the majority of the House and Senate. The government officially shut down when an agreement couldn’t be reached on the funding for abortion through Medicaid on September 30, 1977. For the next twelve days as Congress not only debated the abortion topic but also how to handle the government shutdown as, once again, there were millions of people who had no idea when their next paycheck was coming.
For months before the shutdown, Congress debated whether or not funding for abortions should include rape and incest victims. While it did not at the time, the Democrats of the Senate felt it should but the House thought that it was not necessary. However, the biggest problem that caused the shutdown was the funding eventually made its way into the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare along with the Department of Labor. On October 13, 1977, the shutdown ended when they put a temporary bill in place that allowed funding to continue.