Would shutdown hit hard?
It depends: Park closures likely to hurt nearby communities
The federal government has shut down more than a dozen times in the last four decades and the next could begin Friday at 9 p.m. California time if lawmakers hung up on immigration differences cannot reach an agreement on a spending plan.
What will that mean? No, Uncle Sam doesn’t close up shop completely in a shutdown. Social Security and Medicare payments continue, food stamps still get distributed, and activities related to national security, such as the military and
air traffic control, go on. However, although soldiers are expected to show up for duty, their pay could be interrupted and Congress would have to approve paying them retroactively, as it did the last time the government shut down.
The ax tends to fall on federal functions deemed nonessential, even if they are high profile. National parks such as Yosemite close, putting a crimp not only on vacationers’ plans but on local businesses dependent on the tourism they generate. The Smithsonian museums go dark. And passport processing grinds to a halt.
“It is a concern,” said Dane Carlson, chief executive officer of the 300-member Mariposa County Chamber of Commerce, where many businesses count on Yosemite’s 2.5 million annual visitors, and are particularly vulnerable during the winter offseason. “We have a lot of independent business people who are negatively impacted when there are impediments to visiting Yosemite.”
Officials from both parties were meeting Tuesday in an effort to rekindle budget talks, setting up a Wednesday meeting of congressional leaders. If they cannot agree, the government would shut down Friday at midnight Eastern time for the first time in almost five years.
State officials don’t anticipate disruption of state programs, even those tied to federal support such as social programs, from a temporary federal shutdown, said H.D. Palmer, deputy director for external affairs at the California Department of Finance.
“The only effect people would see is if national parks are closed down or if they planned a school trip to Washington and couldn’t go to the Smithsonian,” Palmer said.
California’s state government has avoided the periodic shutdown drama that has plagued the nation’s capital thanks in large part to recent ballot measures that lowered the approval threshold in the Legislature for budgets and that docked lawmakers’ pay for failing to approve them on time.
“One could make the argument it provides incentive,” Palmer said.
The federal government’s current budgeting process dates to the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. While it set out a formal framework for developing and enforcing budget resolutions, according
to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, it hasn’t always worked as envisioned.
The federal government has experienced 18 funding gaps, as they are known on Capitol Hill, where the process broke down, from a 10-day stretch in 1976 under President Gerald Ford to the most recent, a 16-day shutdown under President Barack Obama in 2013.
Four of them lasted just a day, while the longest stretched 21 days in December 1995 and January 1996, a dispute over long-term spending and deficit reduction between President Bill Clinton and congressional Republicans led by Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole.
The five funding gaps under President Jimmy Carter came even with his fellow Democrats controlling Congress, much like the current situation with President Donald Trump whose Republican Party now controls Congress. That’s because Senate tradition toward consensus with the minority party requires 60 votes to avoid a filibuster, said Brian Riedl, senior fellow Manhattan Institute and federal budget policy expert.
But the public scarcely noticed funding gaps in the 1970s. It wasn’t until the early 1980s that opinions by the attorney general held that a failure to pass new spending bills required the government to shut down operations, at least in part.
The current spending impasse revolves around partisan differences over immigration and domestic spending. Democrats want any spending plan to include protection for young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children and known as “Dreamers,” including the hundreds of thousands who received work permits under Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
Trump moved to cancel DACA, though a court has stayed that for now, and sought a legislative deal on immigration that would protect the Dreamers but also include provisions
to tighten border security and enforcement.
Democrats also want to match increased military spending that Republicans are seeking with non-military spending. House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, said his party doesn’t want a fourth short-term bill that continues existing spending levels without an agreement for a broader two-year funding deal and a solution for immigrant youths.
Trump aired his frustrations Tuesday on Twitter: “The Democrats want to shut down the Government over Amnesty for all and Border Security. The biggest loser will be our rapidly rebuilding Military, at a time we need it more than ever. We need a merit based system of immigration, and we need it now! No more dangerous Lottery.”
But Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-New York, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told the Washington Post: “If they need Democratic votes, the overall legislation needs to meet certain Democratic criteria and be reflective of the values of the Democratic caucus and what we believe are the values of the American people.”
Riedl said the federal budget process originally included passage of a dozen appropriations bills funding different parts of the government, so disputes over one wouldn’t shut the whole government down. But that became unworkable.
Lowering the approval threshold has been broached, Riedl added, but a more likely fix would be moving to a two-year process where half the government funding is decided in one year and the other half the next. The current situation, however, puts Republicans in a bind given they occupy the White House and majorities in Congress, he said.
“The Democrats have the power to shut down the government,” Riedl said, “and the Republicans will likely get the blame.”