If you’ve been watching the news at all lately, you probably saw the talking heads bemoaning Congress’ inability to fund the government and avoid a shutdown.
Sounds serious! 😱
But what exactly does it mean to have a “government shutdown,” and just how serious is it?
Here are Five Fast Facts on government shutdowns:
- ⌛ The History - There have been more than 20 shutdowns in the last fifty years, with an average length of 8 days. It’s a problem all by itself that it’s so common that it doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore.
- 🌲 What’s Affected? Non-essential services like national parks, IRS customer service, Federal Student Aid assistance, reporting departments, will be stopped (some immediately and some after a few weeks) because they have no money to function. Some assistance programs will stop right away, some will operate for a few more weeks before stopping, and some will keep going with limited functions.
- 👮 What’s Not Affected? Essential services (as designated by the White House) will continue. This means things like air traffic control, power grid maintenance, law enforcement and border protection, among others. It also includes Social Security, Medicare, and the military. Some non-essential functions in these essential services (like training or reporting) may be stopped temporarily. Some agencies (like the Post Office) have entirely separate funding, so they are unaffected.
- 💸 What About The Paychecks? Non-essential workers won’t get paid for their time off. Essential workers will work without pay during the shutdown, but when it ends they’ll get back pay to catch them up, so the good news is that while things might get tight for families of federal workers, they’ll be made whole once the shutdown is over. And that usually happens pretty quickly. BUT DON’T WORRY, CONGRESS WILL STILL BE PAID.
- 😣 Why, Oh Why? In recent years, government shutdowns have become something of a political power play. Both Republicans and Democrats have used the threat of a shutdown to get their way on particular issues. The current issue was Ukraine funding and border security. Most Americans hate this and just want Congress and the White House to do their jobs by looking out for We The People. But hey, since when do elected reps actually rep their people, right?
🔥Bottom line: This is different than the bickering over the debt ceiling we looked at a few months ago, and while a shutdown isn’t exactly a good thing (depending on who you ask), it’s not nearly the catastrophe that hitting the debt ceiling might be.
The current deal was signed just hours ahead of the deadline, but it simply kicked the issue down the road by 45 days rather than solving it. So, if you were wondering how you could get through this holiday season without arguing about a government shutdown…good news, you won’t have to!
To be fair, it’s tough to get a budget created and passed when you’re talking about a multi-trillion dollar monster spanning across millions of workers and functions. Anytime you deal with something this big (especially with such reckless and irresponsible growth) even when you have one party controlling both Congress and the White House, it’s tough to get everyone to agree. Not only do you get haggling over key functions like national security, you also get everyone’s favorite pet projects to deal with.
But wait, isn’t that the kind of thing that got us into this trouble in the first place? Hm… 🤔
What do you think about government shutdowns?
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