At the start of the fiscal year, on Oct. 1, the federal government shut down after congress failed to reach an agreement on the federal budget, sending a ripple across federal governments throughout the country. As the shutdown lingers, thousands of federal workers are forced to go home without a paycheck.
Every year, Congress must pass annual funding measures known as appropriations, which cover the costs of the day-to-day operations of the federal government. These appropriations include programs such as Social Security and Medicare, known as mandatory spending.
This also covers discretionary spending: money the government uses for departments and agencies such as the military, national parks, U.S. Postal Service and other services the government needs to function.
To pass these spending bills, the Senate needs 60 members to agree to the appropriation, a higher threshold than the current 51-49 split. Even if one party holds a narrow majority, they still need bipartisan cooperation from the other side to get spending bills passed.
Gary Johnson, a Weber State University political science professor, said shutdowns like these stem from political polarization, sparking a series of finger-pointing at the early stages of a shutdown.
“I want to make it clear that one of the big problems here is a legislative versus executive argument about what the next year’s federal budget will be,” Johnson said. “And in our increased stage of partisanship and polarization, that typically is the two parties arguing as well.”
When Congress can’t reach an agreement, the effects ripple beyond Washington.
When a shutdown occurs, federal employees are furloughed, meaning they are temporarily sent home without pay. Essential or “excepted” workers continue to work during the shutdown. This includes Transportation Security Administration agents, air-traffic controllers, postal workers, military personnel and more.
These sweeping effects can also be felt by other public lands or national services, such as National Parks, that generate their own revenue but still depend on federal oversight.
“In some cases, national parks or lots of federal employees, they’re just sitting at home. And then when they come back to work, they got paid for sitting at home,” Johnson said. “And some workers had to work that whole time, and not just do their jobs but somebody else in their office’s job as well. So you can see how it’s terrible for morale for civil servants.”
Andrew Keinsley, a Weber State economics professor, said these impacts not only affect federal employees, but anyone working under government contracts as well. This can affect private contractors like Northrop Grumman near Hill Air Force Base, as well as local stores and restaurants, where federal employees stream revenue into local businesses.
“So that’s missing business, probably from your 25th Street, restaurants, things like that,” Keinsley said. “Usually, the impacts are pretty minute. They’re pretty small, and they’re not long lasting.”
Keinsley said a government shutdown on its own is not a concern, rather it is about how long a shutdown lasts.
“Unless this goes past the two week, three week mark, you’re probably not going to see much of an impact because you’re not going to see a lot of paychecks missed,” he added. “Once you’ve really started making people skip a paycheck, then it just depends on how much some of these families have saved up. Again, these have been happening more often, so you think that a lot of these families would be planning for that possibility, but you never know.”
In the last 45 years, the U.S. has seen 11 shutdowns, the longest lasting 35 days under President Trump’s first term. Two weeks after the shutdown, Trump signed The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, an act that requires all federal employees, furloughed or working without pay, to receive full back pay once a shutdown ends.
Since the most recent shutdown, Trump has commented on changing this decision, saying some federal workers do not deserve compensation. “But for the most part, we’re going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of and we’ll take care of them in a different way,” Trump said to reporters at the White House.
Johnson said Congress often relies on short-term measures called “continuing resolutions” to keep the government funded.
“Congress is in charge of the budget and they ought to be able to run the day-to-day operations of the government,” Johnson said. “There are over 90,000 governments in the United States. Only the federal government is in debt, and it’s $35 trillion in debt. Every other city, and county and state has to balance its budget, but Congress can’t seem to do that.”
Johnson added to this statement saying shutdowns like these undermine the integrity and legitimacy of the federal government, leading to upset voters.
“Voters don’t like it because most of us know someone who works for the federal government. If you’re Southern Utah, your business suffers if the national parks are shut down,” Johnson said. “They also managed to have government shutdowns that aren’t quite complete shutdowns because certain segments of the electorate and the population simply depend upon those checks for their own living, right? They’re not going to eat if they don’t get their Social Security check.”
As the shutdown awaits a solution, many agencies continue operating without pay, leaving workers and citizens waiting for Congress to find common ground.
