America’s security crisis is not on border

For all his talk about a supposed national-security crisis on the border with Mexico, President Donald Trump is ignoring the potential crisis the federal shutdown is creating elsewhere in the country.

Trump has essentially taken nine federal departments and dozens of federal agencies hostage in an effort to coerce Congress into spending $5.7 billion on the bigger, longer border wall he promised on the campaign trail to build. Vital government services and responsibilities are being sacrificed in the political standoff, and there’s no end in sight as the shutdown is making communities less safe.

There’s already a shortage of air-traffic controllers across the aviation system, and the shutdown has suspended training of new ones. Controllers currently on the job are required to work without pay, adding another anxiety to an already stressful job of managing the nation’s airspace.

National parks are being trashed and trampled by visitors while park service employees are furloughed. Security lines at airports are getting longer as Transportation Security Administration workers, who are required to work without pay, have begun calling in sick in large numbers. And some low-income renters who rely on federal housing could face eviction after rental-assistance contracts expired on Jan. 1 because the Department of Housing and Urban Development can’t renew them until the government reopens.

These are basic functions of government — protecting residents and public assets. They should not be chips in a high-stakes political poker game.

There will surely be personal crises after more than 800,000 federal workers at shuttered agencies did not get paid Friday. That includes the workers who have been idled by furloughs and “essential” employees who have been required to work even though there’s no money to pay them. Also losing out are a slew of contractors that provide goods and services to federal agencies and the agencies’ customers.

Many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and federal workers are no exception. One missed paycheck — forgoing wages for half the month — can be devastating for families in financially precarious positions.

For some federal workers, financial troubles triggered by missed paychecks could imperil their careers. The union for Federal Bureau of Investigation agents warned Congress that agents undergo routine financial background checks to ensure they are financially stable and responsible. Missing a payment could slow or block an agent’s clearance.

Trump did pledge Thursday to sign a bill providing them back pay should the shutdown ever end.

“I’m sure that the people that are on the receiving end will make adjustments,” he said when asked if he could relate to workers who couldn’t pay their bills.

The longer the shutdown drags on, the more federal workers — and the people who rely on their services — will have to “make adjustments.” Federal employees will have to manage their own financial panic, while the broader public will watch as the national parks deteriorate, air travel slows, federal forests go unmaintained and the federal safety net for the nation’s most vulnerable frays.

All this for a wall that is rich in exclusionary symbolism but unlikely to have much effect on the problems Trump says he’s trying to solve, such as human trafficking and drug smuggling. There is most certainly a crisis underway. It’s a crisis of confidence in the presidency of the United States.