By Stephanie Nguyen
By definition, a government shutdown in the US is when nonessential services and agencies cease operation due to a lack of authorized funding. Every fiscal year, which is a period of twelve months used for financial planning, the House of Representatives and Senate pass a budget bill that needs to be approved by the president by Sept. 30th. If a bill couldn’t be passed, then a temporary measure could also be approved to buy some time.
In the case of the recent shutdown that occurred on the first of this month however, the temporary measure expired without any legislation that would effectively replace it. CBS News reported that a temporary measure proposed by the Republicans passed the house on Sept. 19, which approves keeping the budget the same as it was last year until new legislation follows. The Democrats in the Senate, on the other hand, proposed a new measure that would give Congress until Oct. 31. The proposal also sought to prolong the life of the tax credits given to Americans as an incentive to buy affordable healthcare, and to reverse budget cuts to Medicaid.
Both of these bipartisan measures failed to receive 60 votes in the Senate, the majority required for either of them to move forward in the next step of the lawmaking process, causing a shutdown a minute after midnight on Oct 1. Currently, an estimated four million federal workers have been furloughed, or told not to show up for work. Essential services and agencies, such as air traffic control, the military and airport checkpoint checks will continue to keep running, but other departments lost more than half of their personnel.
While it is uncertain how damaging it could be to the nation’s economy, the shutdown can potentially slow down processing times for passports approval/renewal, applications for federal aid (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) and security checks at airports. It has not affected the United States Postal Service, ICE, visa programs and any other department, agency or service that gets its funding from non-federal sources.
It’s also uncertain how long it would last. On Oct. 6, the BBC reported that the Senate failed to pass a budget bill for the fifth time, and on Oct. 8, they failed to do so for the sixth. It appears that both political parties are taking the opportunity to put the other side in a negative light, trading accusations and blame for prolonging the shutdown, but the Senate Democrats are especially holding their ground in hopes of winning a compromise. Whether or not the gamble would pay off is up to debate among voters.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect a better estimate of the number of furloughed workers, which was closer to 750,000 than 4 million, as written earlier.
