Ground stop at JFK due to staffing

My concern is that we will end up in a state of perpetual government "shutdown". The republicans, instead of reopening the entire government, will simply choose agencies to fund in order to keep the pain felt by the American people just low enough so they don't get fired (ala office space).

Once that happens, Congress has basically iced itself out. Oversight from unfriendly government agencies? No worries, they're shut down because they're unpaid. And clearly this demonstrates the executive needs more power, since Congress is completely frozen. Finally, the Supreme Court is no longer an issue either, since that's not funded either.

Someone tell me why this couldn't happen.

I suspect this shutdown will last a while, but I don’t think Republicans will have enough votes to open anything without Democrat buy-in. R needs 20% of the Ds to vote for R bills to get anything budget-changing passed (except the 1 Reconciliation per year that only requires a simple majority). Short of Dems feeling some insane pressure (eg. Military threats or somehow defunding of core government tasks like police, education, medical, Social Security), I don’t see that happening right now.

I've mentioned it elsewhere, but: Republicans have enough votes to get moving on whatever they choose (including stopgap measures) regardless of what a minority of democrats may think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option

> The nuclear option can be invoked by a senator raising a point of order that contravenes a standing rule. The presiding officer would then overrule the point of order based on Senate rules and precedents; this ruling would then be appealed and overturned by a simple majority vote (or a tie vote), establishing a new precedent. The nuclear option is made possible by the principle in Senate procedure that appeals from rulings of the chair on points of order relating to nondebatable questions are themselves nondebatable. The nuclear option is most often discussed in connection with the filibuster. Since cloture is a nondebatable question, an appeal in relation to cloture is decided without debate. This obviates the usual requirement for a two-thirds majority to invoke cloture on a resolution amending the Standing Rules.

The Republicans don't want to get rid of the filibuster because they're scared of setting the precedent, they're scared because if they continue to pass bills with zero Democrat votes then they have to own full responsibility for what happens. Recession/depression is quickly approaching...