Government Shutdown: James Madison Planned it this Way!

James Madison, a future President of the United States, was the prime drafter of the United States Constitution. After it was adopted by the Constitutional Congress he wrote Federalist 58 in support of it's adoption by the individual  States. On the Power of the House of Representatives.


James Madison, in Federalist 58, assumed that the House's "power of the purse" would control

The House of Representatives cannot only refuse, but they alone can propose, the supplies requisite for the support of government. They, in a word, hold the purse that powerful instrument by which we behold, in the history of the British Constitution, an infant and humble representation of the people gradually enlarging the sphere of its activity and importance, and finally reducing, as far as it seems to have wished, all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government. This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.