Milfag here. Something occurred to me thinking about this whole shutdown thing. Trump very well could shutdown the government now, or he could take the "deal" for less money for the wall and keep the government open.

The way I'm seeing it is that regardless if the government gets funded now or later, the funding is only good until the end of the fiscal year, ie Sept 2019. When I was active duty, I remember coming to end of July/August and being told that we still had pockets of money left over and we needed to spend it all before Sept 30 or we would lose whatever we didn't spend in the next budget. We couldn't transfer unused funds from one fiscal year to the next by law, so it was spend of lose.

This brings me to the current spending bill. Regardless if Trump signs it or not, funding within a certain fiscal year cannot go past the end of that fiscal year. So, what if the real target date is Sept 30, 2019 for Trump to say "NOPE! Not signing this bill if I don't get more money for the wall (or whatever)." causing the government to shut down then. That should meet the definition of a planned shutdown, allowing for the RIF to take hold.

Thoughts?