Everything else, basically. Its a fairly long list, and you can check out in detail which activities the agencies are planning to halt in these contingency plans posted by each agency. Here are a few select examples: Health: The National Institutes of Health will stop accepting new patients for clinical research and stop answering hotline calls about medical questions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop its seasonal flu program and have a significantly reduced capacity to respond to outbreak investigations. Housing: The Department of Housing and Urban Development will not be able to provide local housing authorities with additional money for housing vouchers. The nations 3,300 public housing authorities will also stop receiving payments, although most of these agencies have enough cash on hand to provide rental assistance through the end of October. Immigration: The Department of Homeland Security will no longer operate its E-Verify program, which means that businesses will not be able to check on the legal immigration status of prospective employees during the shutdown. Law enforcement: Although agencies like the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency will continue their operations, the Justice Department will suspend many civil cases for as long as the government is shut down. Parks and museums: The National Park Service will close more than 400 national parks and museums, including Yosemite National Park in California, Alcatraz in San Francisco, and the Statue of Liberty in New York. The last time this happened during the 1995-96 shutdown, some 7 million visitors were turned away. (One big exception was the south rim of the Grand Canyon, which stayed open only because Arizona agreed to pick up the tab.) Regulatory agencies: The Environmental Protection Agency will close down almost entirely during a shutdown, save for operations around Superfund sites. Many of the Labor Departments regulatory offices will close, including the Wage and Hour Division and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (The Mine Safety and Health Administration will, however, stay open.) Financial regulators. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees the vast U.S. derivatives market, will largely shut down. A few financial regulators, however, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, will remain open. (Small parts of) Social Security: The Social Security Administration will retain enough staff to make sure the checks keep going out. But the agency wont have enough employees to do things like help recipients replace their benefit cards or schedule new hearings for disability cases. Visas and passports: The State Department says it will keep most passport agencies and consular operations open so long as it has the funds to do so, although some activities might be interrupted. (For instance, if a passport agency is located in a government building affected by a lapse in appropriations, the facility may become unsupported.) During the previous shutdown in 1995-96, around 20,000 to 30,000 applications from foreigners for visas went unprocessed each day. This time around, the State Department is planning to continue processing visas through the shutdown, since those operations are largely funded by fees collected. Veterans: Some key benefits will continue and the VA hospitals will remained open. But many services will be disrupted. The Veterans Benefits Administration will be unable to process education and rehabilitation benefits. The Board of Veterans Appeals will be unable to hold hearings. Whats more, if the shutdown lasts for more than two or three weeks, the Department of Veterans Affairs has said that it may not have enough money to pay disability claims and pension payments. That could affect some 3.6 million veterans. Women, Infants, and Children: The Department of Agriculture will cut off support for the Women, Infants and Children program, which helps pregnant women and new moms buy healthy food and provides nutritional information and health care referrals. The program reaches some 9 million Americans. The USDA estimates most states have funds to continue their programs for a week or so, but theyll likely be unable to sustain operations for a longer period -- emergency funds may run out by the end of October. Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) has a list of other possible effects of a shutdown. Funds to help states administer unemployment benefits could get disrupted, IRS tax-refund processing for certain returns would be suspended, farm loans and payments would stop, and Small Business Administration approval of business loan guarantees and direct loans would likely cease. Would the city of Washington D.C. be affected? D.C.s garbage collection stops during a shutdown. (The Washington Post) Only if the shutdown goes on longer than a few weeks. In theory, the District of Columbia is supposed to shut down all but its most essential services during a government shutdown. But Mayor Vincent Gray has said that he will label all city services essential and use a cash reserve fund to keep everything going for as long as possible. Some background: The District of Columbia is the only city barred from spending funds during a federal government shutdown, save for a few select services. During the 1995-96 shutdown, the city was only able to keep police, firefighters and EMS units on duty. Trash collection and street sweeping came to a stop until Congress finally intervened. This time, however, the District is taking a more defiant stance. Gray has recently said that he will declare all city services essential and keep them running. And the city has $144 million in funds to carry out services like trash collection and street sweeping for two weeks. If the shutdown drags on longer, however, its unclear what will happen... How many federal employees would be affected by a government shutdown? Half of you go home. (Jeffrey MacMillan/For The Washington Post) The government estimates that roughly 800,000 federal workers will get sent home if the government shuts down. That leaves about 1.3 million essential federal workers, 1.4 million active-duty military members, 500,000 Postal Service workers, and other employees in independently-funded agencies who will continue working. Can you give me an agency-by-agency breakdown of the impacts? Yes. Weve been compiling a detailed list here at the Post, but heres a brief overview, showing how many employees are furloughed, and examples of who stays and who goes: Department of Commerce: 87 percent of the agencys 46,420 employees would be sent home. (The Weather Service would keep running, for instance, but the Census Bureau would close down.) Department of Defense: 50 percent of the 800,000 civilian employees would be sent home while all 1.4 million active-duty military members would stay on. (Environmental engineers, for instance, would get furloughed, and the agency could not sign any new defense contracts.) Department of Energy: Thanks to multi-year funding, parts of the agency can actually operate for a short period of time after Sept. 30. But eventually 69 percent of the agencys 13,814 employees will be sent home. (Those in charge of nuclear materials and power grids stay. Those conducting energy research go home.) Environmental Protection Agency: 94 percent of the 16,205 employees will be sent home. (Those protecting toxic Superfund sites stay. Pollution and pesticide regulators get sent home.) Federal Reserve: Everyone would stay, since the central bank has an independent source of funding. Department of Health and Human Services: 52 percent of 78,198 employees would be sent home. (Those running the Suicide Prevention Lifeline would stay, those in charge of investigating Medicare fraud would go home.) Department of Homeland Security: 14 percent of the 231,117 employees would go home. (Border Patrol would stay. Operations of E-Verify would cease. The department will also suspend disaster-preparedness grants to states and localities.) Department of Housing and Urban Development: 95 percent of the 8,709 employees would go home. (Those in charge of guaranteeing mortgages at Ginnie Mae would stay, as would those in charge of homelessness programs. Almost everything else would come to a halt.) Department of Interior: 81 percent of the 72,562 employees would be sent home. (Wildlife law enforcement officers would stay, while the national parks would close.) Department of Justice: 15 percent of the 114,486 employees would go home. (FBI agents, drug enforcement agents, and federal prison employees would stay. The department would continue running background checks for gun sales. Some attorneys would go home.) Department of Labor: 82 percent of the 16,304 employees would be sent home. (Mine-safety inspectors will stay. Wage and occupational safety regulators will go home. Employees compiling economic data for the Bureau of Labor Statistics will also get furloughed.) NASA: 97 percent of the 18,134 employees would be sent home. (Scientists working on the International Space Station will stay. Many engineers will go home.) U.S. Postal Service: Everyone would stay, since the Postal Service is self-funded. Social Security Administration: 29 percent of the 62,343 employees would be sent home. (Claims representatives would stay; actuaries would go home.) Supreme Court and federal courts. Federal courts, will continue to operate for approximately two weeks with reserve funds. After that, only essential employees would continue to work, as determined by the chief judge, with the rest furloughed. (The Supreme Court will continue to operate when it opens Oct. 7, as it did in previous shutdowns.) Department of Treasury: 80 percent of the 112,461 employees will be sent home. (Those sending out Social Security checks would stay; IRS employees overseeing audits would go home.) Department of Transportation: 33 percent of the 55,468 employees will get sent home. (Air-traffic controllers will stay on; most airport inspections will cease.) Department of Veterans Affairs: 4 percent of the 332,025 employees would go home. (Hospital workers will stay; some workers in charge of processing benefits will go home.) A much, much more detailed list can be found in the agency contingency plans prepared here. Do non-essential employees who get sent home ever get paid? The big question. (AP) Thats unclear, as my colleague Lisa Rein has reported. On the first day of the shutdown, these employees do have to come to their offices to secure their files, set up auto-reply messages, and make preparations necessary to halt their programs. The last time this happened, Congress later agreed to pay these employees retroactively when the government reopened. But thats completely up to Congress. Update: It looks like the 800,000 non-essential employees will get paid after all. The House unanimously passed a bill on Oct. 5 granting retroactive pay for these workers during the shutdown. The Senate and White House are likely to approve the legislation. Is the government even prepared for a shutdown?
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 09:49:50 +0000
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