In U.S. politics, a government shutdown is a situation in which the government stops providing all but "essential" services. Typically, services that continue despite a shutdown include police, fire fighting, postal service, armed forces, utilities, air traffic management, and corrections (the penal system).
Read more about Government Shutdown: Causes, Effects, Examples
Famous quotes containing the word government:
“[F]rom Saratoga [N.Y.] till we got back to Northampton [Mass.], was then mostly desert. Now it is what 34. years of free and good government have made it. It shews how soon the labor of man would make a paradise of the whole earth, were it not for misgovernment, and a diversion of all his energies from their proper object, the happiness of man, to the selfish interests of kings, nobles and priests.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)