“Always a bad idea,” former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said of shutdowns in 2024. “I don’t think shutdowns benefit anybody, least of all the American people,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said last week. Democrats had won the House majority in the 2018 election and took power in the middle of the partial shutdown. Bipartisan negotiations in the Senate finally ended the shutdown, and Republicans did not win any major concessions on health care. 1970s and 1980sUnder Presidents Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and Ronald Reagan, a Republican, there were short shutdowns almost every year.