Shutdown would hit military cities hard
SAN ANTONIO — A federal government shutdown, a real possibility in these polarized times, would devastate the economies of military-dependent cities across the country — including the one that calls itself “Military City USA.”
Congress on Thursday approved legislation to keep the government funded until Dec. 3, providing a temporary reprieve. The funding issue is intertwined with a partisan divide over how to raise the government’s borrowing limit by Oct. 18 so the United States does not default on its debt for the first time in its modern history.
If negotiations founder and a government shutdown materializes — and lasts more than two weeks — some 75,800 military and civilian workers in San Antonio would miss paychecks.
That, in turn, would jeopardize payments for rent, home mortgages, cars, credit cards and more.
“It’s a real shame, and any American taxpayer should be livid at the partisan gridlock that is threatening a government shutdown while we are working feverishly to sustain safety nets for a nation that has seen the devastating impacts of a global pandemic. I mean, it’s inexcusable,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said before Congress approved the stopgap funding measure.
“It’s political brinksmanship with the collateral damage being the American public.”
The military remains the No. 1 economic driver of the San Antonio area, with an impact of $41 billion, well ahead of the local health care and biosciences industry, which is conservatively measured at $32.6 billion, said Richard Perez, president and CEO of the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.
“Unfortunately, we’ve been down this road before. And, you know, we’re talking about people’s lives here,” Perez said.
“And I think that while the military has contingency plans, I really think it’s the civilians that are working in military jobs that will take the hit,” he added. “These are not the best-paid people in the world, right? And with the COVID that we’ve been dealing with, you talk about the worst timing in the world.”
Joint Base San Antonio — comprising Fort Sam Houston, Randolph and Lackland AFBs and the Camp Bullis training range — is the largest joint base of 21 across the nation. San Antonio also is home to nearly 103,000 military retirees and 200,000 veterans.
All combat medics are trained in San Antonio. So are Air Force recruits, instructor pilots and those who fly remotely piloted aircraft and the C-5M Super Galaxy, a strategic transport plane. That training would go on no matter what.
But military paychecks would not. A shutdown would dry up not just soldiers’ bank accounts but “all that economic activity that’s generated by the government: the social services, the construction and infrastructure,” said Steve Nivin, associate professor of economics at St. Mary’s University. “The economy’s recovering from the economic effects of the pandemic, but there’s still a good ways to go.”
Proportionately, a shutdown would affect some Texas cities even more heavily than it would San Antonio. Fort Hood, home to 42,347 soldiers, airmen and civilians, is the No. 1 employer in Killeen. The Red River Army Depot is Texarkana’s biggest employer, with 3,500 civilian workers.
Texas has 15 major military installations in all, including Fort Bliss in El Paso, Laughlin AFB in Del Rio, Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo, the Corpus Christi Army Depot, and naval air stations in Corpus Christi and Kingsville.
All the bases play major roles in their local economies. Laughlin AFB and Naval Air Station Kingsville are the top employers in their counties.
“It would be catastrophic to the community if the payroll didn’t come in,” former Killeen Mayor Dan Corbin said.
As the crisis loomed, the Pentagon warned of a possible pay cutoff in a Sept. 24 letter to service members from Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks.
The letter did not say whether basic housing allowances, which troops use to pay rent and mortgages, would be interrupted or whether military retiree checks would be imperiled as well. The Pentagon did not respond to those questions.
Hicks’ letter said “a list of current military operations deemed necessary for national security will be supplied” by the Pentagon.
“These activities will be ‘excepted’ from the effects of a lapse in appropriations and will continue to be carried out: all other activities — including, with few exceptions, temporary duty travel — would need to be shut down in an orderly and deliberate fashion,” she wrote.
Civilian employees not needed to support the troops would be furloughed. Those deemed necessary would continue to work even if they are not paid.
Army and Air Force national guard units would suspend drill weekends and would not be paid until they could make up the drills later. Nevertheless, the guard would continue critical missions that include homeland defense, deployment readiness and helping civilian health care institutions deal with COVID, a National Guard Bureau spokesman said.
A shutdown wouldn’t be a first for military personnel. In 2019, as 800,000 federal workers were idled, 42,000 active-duty Coast Guard members missed paychecks.
Because government shutdowns, like hurricanes, have become a part of their lives, Erin Picou and her husband, a chief petty officer in the Coast Guard, have managed to save enough money to keep paying the mortgage on their home in Texas City if a shutdown happens this year. Both are real estate agents, with older kids.
But the saved money will only go so far.
“We can’t just do it forever,” said Picou, 39.
In 2013, half the Pentagon’s civilian workforce — more than 400,000 employees — were sent home. In San Antonio, about 23,000 civilians were furloughed for 16 days and were paid later. That shutdown happened after U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, persuaded GOP congressional leaders to make defunding the Affordable Care Act a condition of keeping the government running.