What happens now that a government shutdown is underway

WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington is bracing for what could beryllium a prolonged national shutdown aft lawmakers deadlocked and missed the deadline for backing the government.

Republicans supported a short-term measurement to money the authorities mostly astatine existent levels done Nov. 21, but Democrats blocked it, insisting the measurement code their concerns connected wellness care. They privation to reverse the Medicaid cuts successful President Donald Trump’s mega-bill passed this summertime and widen taxation credits that marque wellness security premiums much affordable for millions of radical who acquisition done the marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act.

Republicans called the Democratic connection a nonstarter that would outgo taxpayers much than $1 trillion.

Neither broadside shows immoderate signs of budging.

Here’s what to cognize astir the shutdown that began Wednesday:

What happens successful the shutdown?

Now that a lapse successful backing has occurred, the instrumentality requires agencies to furlough their “non-excepted” employees. Excepted employees, which see those who enactment to support beingness and property, enactment connected the occupation but don’t get paid until aft the shutdown ends.

The White House Office of Management and Budget begins the process with instructions to agencies that a lapse successful appropriations has occurred and they should initiate orderly shutdown activities. That memo went retired Tuesday evening.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that astir 750,000 national employees could beryllium furloughed each time of the shutdown, with the full regular outgo of their compensation astatine astir $400 million.

What authorities enactment continues during a shutdown?

A large deal, actually.

FBI investigators, CIA officers, aerial postulation controllers and agents operating airdrome checkpoints support working. So bash members of the Armed Forces.

Those programs that trust connected mandatory spending mostly proceed during a shutdown. Social Security payments inactive spell out. Seniors relying connected Medicare sum tin inactive spot their doctors and wellness attraction providers tin beryllium reimbursed.

Veteran wellness attraction besides continues during a shutdown. Veterans Affairs aesculapian centers and outpatient clinics volition beryllium open, and VA benefits volition proceed to beryllium processed and delivered. Burials volition proceed astatine VA nationalist cemeteries.

Will furloughed national workers get paid?

Yes. In 2019, Congress passed a measure enshrining into instrumentality the request that furloughed employees get retroactive wage erstwhile operations resume.

While they’ll yet get paid, the furloughed workers and those who stay connected the occupation whitethorn person to spell without 1 oregon much of their regular paychecks, depending upon however agelong the shutdown lasts, creating fiscal accent for galore families.

Service members would besides person backmost wage for immoderate missed paychecks erstwhile national backing resumes.

Will I inactive get mail?

Yes. The U.S. Postal Service is unaffected by a authorities shutdown. It’s an autarkic entity funded done the merchantability of its products and services, not by taxation dollars.

What closes during a shutdown?

All administrations get immoderate leeway to take which services to frost and which to support successful a shutdown.

The archetypal Trump medication worked to blunt the interaction of what became the country’s longest partial shutdown successful 2018 and 2019. But connected Tuesday, Trump threatened the anticipation of expanding the symptom that comes with a shutdown.

“We tin bash things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are atrocious for them and irreversible by them,” Trump said of Democrats. “Like cutting immense numbers of radical out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”

Each national bureau develops its ain shutdown plan. The plans outline which workers would enactment connected the occupation during a shutdown and which would beryllium furloughed.

In a provocative move, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget has threatened the wide firing of national workers successful a shutdown. An OMB memo said those programs that didn’t get backing done Trump’s mega-bill this summertime would carnivore the brunt of a shutdown.

Agencies should see issuing reduction-in-force notices for those programs whose backing expires, that don’t person alternate backing sources and are “not accordant with the President’s priorities,” the memo said.

That would beryllium a overmuch much assertive measurement than successful erstwhile shutdowns, erstwhile furloughed national workers returned to their jobs erstwhile the shutdown was over. A simplification successful unit would not lone laic disconnected employees but destruct their positions, which would trigger different monolithic upheaval successful a national workforce that’s already faced large rounds of cuts owed to efforts from the Department of Government Efficiency and elsewhere successful Trump’s Republican administration.

What agencies are planning

— Health and Human Services volition furlough astir 41% of its unit retired of astir 80,000 employees, according to a contingency program posted connected its website.

As portion of that plan, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would proceed to show illness outbreaks, portion activities that volition halt see probe into wellness risks and ways to forestall illness.

Meanwhile, probe and diligent attraction astatine the National Institutes of Health would beryllium upended. Patients presently enrolled successful studies astatine the research-only infirmary nicknamed the House of Hope volition proceed to person care. Additional sick patients hoping for entree to experimental therapies can’t enroll but successful peculiar circumstances, and nary caller studies volition begin.

At the Food and Drug Administration, its “ability to support and beforehand nationalist wellness and information would beryllium importantly impacted, with galore activities delayed oregon paused.” For example, the bureau would not judge caller cause applications oregon aesculapian instrumentality submissions that necessitate outgo of a idiosyncratic fee.

— The National Park Service plans to furlough astir two-thirds of its employees portion keeping parks mostly unfastened to visitors during the national shutdown, according to a contingency program released Tuesday night. The program says “park roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials volition mostly stay accessible to visitors.”

The program besides allows parks to participate into agreements with states, tribes oregon section governments consenting to marque donations to support nationalist parkland sites open. The parkland work has much than 400 sites, including ample nationalist parks specified arsenic Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, nationalist battlefields and historical sites.

Sites could adjacent if harm is being done to parkland resources oregon garbage is gathering up.

Many nationalist parks including Yellowstone and Yosemite stayed unfastened during a 35-day shutdown during Trump’s archetypal term. Limited staffing led to vandalism, gates being pried unfastened and different problems including an off-roader mowing down 1 of the namesake trees astatine Joshua Tree National Park successful California.

— Smithsonian Institution: Museums, probe centers and the National Zoo volition stay unfastened done astatine slightest Monday.

Impact connected the economy

Phillip Swagel, manager of the Congressional Budget Office, said a abbreviated shutdown doesn’t person a immense interaction connected the economy, particularly since national workers, by law, are paid retroactively. But “if a shutdown continues, past that tin springiness emergence to uncertainties astir what is the relation of authorities successful our society, and what’s the fiscal interaction connected each the programs that the authorities funds.”

“The interaction is not immediate, but implicit time, determination is simply a antagonistic interaction of a shutdown connected the economy,” helium added.

Markets haven’t reacted powerfully to past shutdowns, according to Goldman Sachs Research. At the adjacent of the 3 prolonged shutdowns since the aboriginal 1990s, equity markets finished level oregon up adjacent aft dipping initially.

A governmentwide shutdown would straight trim maturation by astir 0.15 percent points for each week it lasted, oregon astir 0.2 percent points per week erstwhile private-sector effects were included, and maturation would emergence by the aforesaid cumulative magnitude successful the 4th pursuing reopening, writes Alec Phillips, main U.S. governmental economist astatine Goldman Sachs.

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Associated Press writer Ali Swenson, Fatima Hussein, Matthew Brown and Annie Ma contributed to this report.