Costly Government Shutdown

A US government shutdown has a real cost to the government, the economy, and millions of Americans.

In just 7 days the federal government could be shutdown due to a failure to pass a budget. While it is easy to blame both sides of the aisle and all of Congress, far right Republicans are not only holding out for extreme policy goals, they are actively pushing for a shutdown. 

MAGA politicians see the economy, and the American people, as pawns in their quest for power. Just as with the debt ceiling debates, they don’t care how many people are hurt if it means they can get a win. 

Their new spin is the claim that only non-essential aspects of the government will be affected by a shutdown.

800,000 Americans and history exposes this claim as the lie it is.

US Government shutdowns were not a thing prior to the 1980s. A new appropriations process established in the late 1970s combined with a new interpretation of the 1884 Antideficiency Act brought about the era of government shutdowns.

These types of shutdowns are unheard of in other countries, the same way that other nations do not have debt ceiling negotiations and shutdowns. 

Despite bipartisan efforts over the years to get rid of these flawed approaches to government, there are always holdouts. This is because these situations allow minority parties, or even minority extremist groups within a party, leverage to force their positions onto the majority.

Prior to 1995, shutdowns occurred from mixed control of Congress including times that Democrats controlled the House, but these were shutdowns of less than a day, sometimes as short as 4 hours, and were more due to the new strict interpretation of the Antideficiency Act which mandated a shutdown if an agreement wasn’t solidified in time.

Since then, government shutdowns have become a go to for Republicans as a tactic to force through unpopular cuts and legislation.

From 1995, all government shutdowns have been when Republicans controlled the House, and in all but one of the five shutdowns, Republicans also held control of the Senate. These shutdowns were much longer than in the past including a 21 day shutdown in ‘95-’96, a 16 day shutdown in 2013, and a 35 day shutdown in ‘18-’19.

For Republicans to suggest that a shutdown will actually save the government money or that the shutdown will simply affect nonessential operations is a full fledged lie to attempt to keep the support of their base while actively working against their own constituents.

Thanks to a 2019 law, the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, federal employees are now guaranteed to get back pay for the time that the government is in shutdown. There are no savings there, only delayed payments.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), released a report after the last shutdown which showed that the shutdown cost the government $18 billion, and while much of that was recouped after the government was reopened, the government still suffered a permanent $3 billion loss.

Even worse is the fact that the same Republicans who try to attack President Biden by pointing out that ~60% of Americans report living paycheck to paycheck are the same politicians now willing to take weekly paychecks away from over 800,000 government employees who would be furloughed during a shutdown. And if the shutdown is as long as the last one, that could be 5 weeks without a paycheck. A devastating situation for someone currently living paycheck to paycheck.

Who doesn’t lose their paycheck during this shutdown? The very members of Congress who caused it. They will get paid their $174,000 salary plus incredible benefits while America suffers.

Beyond furloughed employees and government losses:

• Social Security checks would be delayed, hurting more people who are struggling to get by already.

• Food inspections would be slowed which could in turn cause an additional increase to food prices on top of the inflation related price increases Americans already have to deal with.

• Passports will be further delayed when the system is already weeks behind

• Flights will be canceled making it harder to travel and adding another potential increase to prices.

• ~10,000 children from the federal Head Start program would lose access to preschool.

• The National Labor Relations Board wouldn’t be able to mediate labor disputes at a time when major strikes such as the autoworkers are happening since almost all of the NLRB workers would be furloughed.

• FEMA would be at risk of running out of funds at a time where the US has been hit by multiple major disasters such as the wildfires in Hawaii and recent hurricane and flood damage.

• Securities and Exchange Commission would be unable to respond to emergencies due to furloughed workers. This is the organization that investigates and deals with bank failures and wall street malfeasance.

• The National Institutes of Health would cease research while we continue to deal with Covid and potential future diseases and pandemics

• The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration would stop operations. They track hurricanes and deliver severe storm warnings as part of their work.

• The US credit rating could take another hit. Fitch already lowered its rating for the US based on how debt ceiling negotiations went and how poorly budget talks were going. Other agencies could follow suit.

Then there is the US economy which is already dealing with the effects of global inflation, major strikes, high gas prices, and student loan repayments starting up again. A government shutdown could be the tipping point that takes an improving economy and turns it into a worsening one.

America’s economy relies heavily on consumer spending. When consumers are uncertain about the future, or have their paychecks stopped due to a shutdown, or lose out on much needed government services, they stop spending.

Analysts are already expecting a 1% hit to America’s GDP in the final months of the year due to the combination of these events and Goldman Sachs estimates that each week of a government shutdown will take 0.2% off of the GDP.

So when politicians try to spin a US government shutdown as a good thing, or as only affecting non essential aspects of our country, it is important to call them out for their lies.

It is also important to hold extremist members of Congress accountable for continuing to put our nation in these risky situations simply because they want to push through far right agendas that the majority of our country does not support.

They can blame government spending all they want for our national debt, but they are the ones that took away the revenue with tax cuts and write offs for corporations and the ultra wealthy.

They would rather hurt everyday Americans by cutting the programs Americans rely on and by having government shutdowns than to simply tax the corporations, who are making record-setting profits, their fair share.

Remember this moment when you cast your ballot in 2024.