How a government shutdown would affect Austin,
If the federal government shuts down this weekend, many local services would not be affected immediately. But you might find it more difficult to get financing to buy a house or apply for retirement benefits.
In Austin, “core city services” wouldn’t be affected by a shutdown, but officials haven’t conducted a thorough review, spokesman David Green said. Officials also didn’t know Thursday what the implications of a long-term shutdown would mean for the city. The last shutdown, in 2013, lasted 16 days.
Congress must approve a spending bill by midnight Friday to keep the government operating. The House passed it late Thursday, but Senate Democrats are likely to block it.
During a shutdown, only federal employees considered “essential,” meaning they perform work that protects human life or property, would be allowed back to work, said Hugh Brady, a University of Texas law professor. Law enforcement and military officials would be considered “essential,” he said.
If a shutdown occurs, the LBJ Presidential Library at the University of Texas would close. “If the government shuts down, we shut down,” LBJ Library spokeswoman Anne Wheeler said.
As for the university, students, too, could feel the impact of a shutdown.
“UT receives federal funds for student financial aid and loans, student veteran services, and research grants,” spokeswoman Shilpa Bakre said in a statement. “They could potentially be impacted by delays in federal services and we are watching developments in Washington closely to determine what that impact might be.”
But post offices also would remain open, U.S. Postal ServicespokesmanSamBolensaid.
Federal services for veterans also wouldn’t halt because of a shutdown, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs press secretary Curt Cashour said.
The picture isn’t as clear for the Texas Workforce Commission, which is mostly funded through federal sources. The agency provides job-matching and recruiting services, and administers unemployment benefits.
“TWC is monitoring the events in Washington D.C. regarding a possible federal government shutdown, and should this occur, we will do everything we can with available resources to ensure that we maintain services to the job seekers and employers of Texas,” spokeswoman Lisa Givens said in a statement.
Americans don’t realize how essential the federal government is in their daily lives, Brady said. Some may not know, for example, that people who need their income to be verified by the Internal Revenue Service to get financing for a new home would hit a snag because those services wouldn’t be considered essential, Brady said. Also, people planning to retire would see a delay in applications being processed for Social Security and Medicare, he added.
The 2013 government shutdown caused $2 billion in lost productivity nationwide and as many as 850,000 federal employees were furloughed, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Also, small business loans from the federal government were put on hold and “travel and tourism was disrupted at national parks and monuments across the country, hurting the surroundinglocaleconomies,”the agency said in a report issued a month after the shutdown.
The Council of Economic Advisers also reported that surveys at the time found “consumer and business confidence was badly damaged,” by the last shutdown.