Alcohol, tobacco and firearms applications were affected, as were border patrol and law enforcement recruitment, delinquent child support case management and all of the national monuments in Washington DC.
Social security cheques were posted, but administrators were unable to handle queries about address changes, lost cheques, new enrolees and the like. If a shutdown happens now, government workers are likely to have to shut off their Blackberries.
Answering work emails is in contravention of the act which prohibits the government from receiving free labour. Mostly a government shutdown works by furloughing non-essential government workers. They are usually suspended without pay and later given back pay, even though they had not worked during that period.
That helps contribute to the irony: shutting down the government is expensive. Fines and fees aren't collected, the tourism industry suffers from the closure of national parks and employees are ultimately paid for not doing any work.
The flow-on effects in the economy are hard to quantify. US Congress backs stop-gap budget. Congress delays US budget impasse. Judges, key court staff and probation officers would not be furloughed, although each court would determine its own staffing needs.
Supreme Court justices and other critical federal judges would be paid while other essential staff would not, CRS said. Still, thousands of bankruptcy and delinquent child support cases were delayed. Treasury, such as borrowing and tax collection, are also deemed critical and likely to be exempted, according to federal guidelines.
Hundreds of National Park Service sites could close temporarily along with national monuments and museums, losing millions of visitors. Such closures can also impact neighboring communities and businesses that depend on tourism. In the last shutdown, the National Institutes of Health stopped enrolling new patients into clinical trials and shut down disease hotlines, CRS said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which monitors foodborne illnesses and other outbreaks, also halted surveillance, it added.
That shutdown furloughed some , federal workers; delayed processing of visas, passports, and other government applications; suspended cleanup at toxic waste sites; and closed national museums and monuments as well as national park sites — a loss to some 9 million visitors and the airline and tourist industries that service them.
Americans blamed the Republican House more than Mr. Clinton for provoking the shutdown, by a margin greater than 2 to 1. Why must the government shut down? According to the Antideficiency Act of , federal agencies and programs must cease operations if Congress and the president fail to enact funding, except in cases of emergency.
The US government shut down six times between fiscal year and FY , over periods ranging from eight to 17 days, according to the Congressional Research Service. From FY to FY , there were nine shutdowns lasting as long as three days. Funding for the fiscal year that began Oct.
Is government prepared for a shutdown? Are members of Congress exempt from a shutdown? Yes, as is the president. That's because their compensation is financed by a resource other than annual appropriations, in this case, the US Constitution. Other exempted employees are those deemed to perform emergency work involving saving lives or protecting property, including military service, law enforcement, or direct provision of medical care, according to the most recent OMB directives, released in A continuing resolution temporarily funds the government in the absence of full appropriations bills, often by continuing funding levels from the prior year.
Traditionally, CRs have been used to give lawmakers a short period of time to complete their work on remaining appropriations bills while keeping the government open.
CRs sometimes apply to only a few categories of spending, but they can also be used to fund all discretionary functions and can be used for an entire year. Even when overall funding levels have differed, lawmakers have often simply scaled up all accounts by a percent change in spending rather than making individual decisions on spending accounts. Congress frequently passes CRs when lawmakers are unable to agree on appropriations before a deadline, and occasionally multiple CRs are necessary to fund the government for an entire fiscal year.
Congress also sometimes relies on CRs during presidential transition years. In FY , for example, a series of intense congressional negotiations leading up to the election led to a series of 10 one-day CRs.
In total, Congress funded the first three months of that fiscal year with 21 continuing resolutions. In fiscal years , , , , , and , CRs were used to fund the government for roughly a quarter of each year. FY funding negotiations necessitated three CRs before the passage of an omnibus appropriations bill in May , and FY negotiations required five CRs before the passage of an omnibus in March In FY , a CR was used for seven of the 12 appropriations bills for more than one-third of the year before the enactment of an omnibus in February , while the remaining five appropriations bills were funded before the fiscal year began.
The most recent year when a full-year appropriations bill passed before the fiscal year began and no CRs were necessary was FY Finally, the use of continuing resolutions disrupts activities within agencies, makes it difficult to plan or start future projects, and costs staff time to revise work plans every time the budget changes. Although Congress has not yet enacted any appropriations bills as of mid-September, the House has passed nine out of 12 appropriations bills.
The full Senate has not yet taken any action on appropriations for FY , despite the Senate Appropriations Committee reporting out three of its bills. The House and Senate would have to agree on and pass the same versions of the bills before they are presented to the President for his signature. Congress is expected to consider a continuing resolution that would extend funding, largely at current levels, to allow more time to complete appropriations.
In a shutdown, the federal government temporarily stops paying employees and contractors who perform government services, whereas in a default the list of parties not paid is much broader. In a default, the government exceeds the statutory debt limit and is unable to pay some of its creditors or other obligations.
While a government shutdown would be disruptive, a government default could be disastrous. A government shutdown closes down non-essential government operations due to a lack of funding, whereas a sequester or sequestration is shorthand for the reductions in discretionary spending caps that were in place up until the most recent fiscal year that constrained the total amount of funding for annually appropriated programs.
The most recent version of sequestration, a product of the Budget Control Act BCA of , resolved the debt ceiling negotiations. The failure of the Super Committee triggered sequestration, causing discretionary spending caps to be automatically lowered for both defense and non-defense. Congress has never allowed the full sequester to take effect, passing partial sequester relief in and , and more than fully reversing the sequester in and If appropriations bills violated the increased spending caps, then across-the-board cuts would have been triggered.
What is a government shutdown?
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