- A government shutdown is looking more likely by the day as Republicans face disarray.
- GOPers can't agree on a defense-spending bill, much less a compromise on funding the government.
It's looking more and more likely Americans will face a government shutdown. The stakes are high — and the odds of a resolution are getting slimmer.
On September 30, the government is set to run out of funding. It means the government may shut down for the first time since 2018. For everyday Americans, that could mean losing out on paychecks or childcare spots, and it could even worsen flight delays.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has yet to find a solution that would earn enough votes from his party. While conservatives on the House Freedom Caucus and Main Street Caucus proposed a short-term resolution that would keep the government funded through October 31, some GOP holdouts said they would not vote for the bill.
McCarthy is now eyeing a different route that would include deep spending cuts alongside an immigration package, Punchbowl News reported. But he would likely need Democratic support to get the legislation signed into law, going against some conservative lawmakers' wishes, and therefore imperiling any plan to avoid a government shutdown.
"I've told all of Congress you're not going to go home. We're going to continue to work through this," McCarthy told reporters Monday. "Things that are tough sometimes are worth it."
But if McCarthy can't work through it over the course of the next week, Americans should brace for a federal government shutdown that could jeopardize programs and benefits they rely on daily. Here's what's at stake.
A shutdown could mean no parks, furloughs in Social Security, and flight delays
Every federal agency is required to submit contingency plans to the Office of Management and Budget outlining how they would run their agency operations in a time of limited appropriations. They're expected to begin implementing their plans within a half day following a shutdown. At the outset, thousands of federal employees would find themselves temporarily out of work.
The Social Security Administration, for instance, anticipates about 8,500 employees would be furloughed in a shutdown. While the office said it would prioritize getting benefits out in a timely manner and ensuring Americans still get Social Security cards, recipients wouldn't be able to verify their benefits — which could bar them from applying for things such as loans and assisted housing.
The nonpartisan think tank Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found in an analysis that over 10,000 Medicare applicants were turned away each day in the 1995 shutdown. However, it anticipates that's unlikely this time because the Department of Health and Human Services' contingency plan for the fiscal year 2023 said that Medicare would continue even if appropriations lapsed.
Of course, the longer the shutdown, the more severe the impact on Americans. The progressive think tank Center for American Progress wrote in a brief on the effects of a government shutdown that as contingency funds and grants run out, states and local governments won't be able to fund joint federal-state programs.
The brief cited other programs and benefits at stake:
Environmental Protection Agency inspections of drinking water and hazardous-waste sites.
Food and Drug Administration routine inspections of low-risk foods such as cookies and crackers.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration workplace safety inspections.
The Small Business Administration's processing of loan applications.
US Department of Agriculture farmer loans.
NASA research.
Historically, shutdowns have meant national parks are shuttered or have no one to staff them. It's unclear what would happen this time around, though at least one Republican has urged Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland to keep parks open.
Travel plans might be further disrupted as Transportation Security Administration workers and air-traffic controllers go without pay, the White House said. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said that during the last shutdown, airport lines ballooned and security checkpoints closed. Staffing shortages at East Coast airports led to flights being rerouted and delayed during the last shutdown.
The White House has repeatedly said Republicans are bringing Americans this close to another government shutdown.
"Here's what's clear: if extreme House Republicans fail to ram through their radical agenda, they plan to take their frustration out on the American people by forcing a government shutdown that would undermine our economy and national security, create needless uncertainty for families and businesses, and have damaging consequences across the country," the Biden administration said in a recent memo.
Meanwhile, Republicans are still unable to agree on their defense-spending bill, failing another vote to move it forward. But the right doesn't want the blame for what might happen next.
"We always get the blame," Rep. Mike Simpson, a Republican appropriator from Idaho, told Politico. "Name one time that we've shut the government down and we haven't got the blame."
But at least one Democrat is offering a symbolic concession: Sen. John Fetterman, the rabble-rousing Democrat from Pennsylvania, said that if "those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down, and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week."