WASHINGTON
The US finds itself yet again on the verge of a federal government shutdown amid persistent Republican infighting that has left the House of Representatives so far unable to pass a critical spending bill needed to avert catastrophe.
There are just four days remaining for lawmakers to act. Should the House be unable to pass at least a short-term spending bill known as a continuing resolution that can also clear the Democratic-controlled Senate, much of the federal government will grind to a halt.
Many of the federal government’s roughly 4 million workers will be furloughed, or forced to remain home without a paycheck, while others who are deemed to be essential will work without pay.
That includes the nation’s roughly 1.3 million active-duty service members as well as federal law enforcement and air traffic controllers.
The effects of a full government shutdown would be far-ranging and would be felt across many parts of daily American life. Beyond paychecks for the federal workers who live across the 50 US states, many critical government services would also come to a halt, including passport services, mortgage and farm loan processing, and firearms permitting.
The effects in those sectors would compound the longer the shutdown drags on, and a backlog would need to be cleared when the government reopens.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Monday that a federal program to provide food assistance for low-income housing would continue at least through October, but if the shutdown continued beyond that, “there would be some serious consequences” to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The roughly 7 million mothers and children who rely on the program’s Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) component would see the benefits run dry on day one of the shutdown, however.
"If we have a shutdown, WIC shuts down. And that means the nutrition assistance to those moms and young children shuts down," said Vilsack. "There are real consequences to real people in a real way when there is a shutdown, especially one that ought not to happen."
National parks, meanwhile, would be shuttered and businesses that typically rely on them would take a significant financial blow. Contractors who work with the federal government would also suffer the fallout.
September is the last month in the US government’s fiscal year, and on Sunday all previously appropriated funding will expire.
Many now see a shutdown as a foregone conclusion with little time left for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to rein in his unruly right flank who are demanding sweeping funding cuts that are sure to be rejected by the Senate.
Former US President Donald Trump is encouraging the hardliners not to waiver as the deadline rapidly approaches, and cajoled his allies in Congress to torpedo an earlier agreement with the White House to set discretionary spending levels at $1.59 trillion for the 2024 fiscal year.
Absent a deal with the far right, McCarthy's options are limited. In order to pass a bill in his chamber without support from the fringe Republicans, the House leader will have to make the difficult decision to broker an agreement with Democrats to gain their support for a spending bill, but that could further imperil his speakership.
Republican hardliners have threatened to force a floor vote on removing him from office if they do not get the spending cuts they are demanding, and have specifically warned against reaching across the aisle to push a bill through the chamber.
But whatever passes in the House of Representatives will also need to be able to clear the Senate where Democrats hold the majority. Any bill would need to clear Congress by Saturday at midnight for a shutdown to be avoided.
The Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the federal workforce, instructed employees on Friday to prepare for a shutdown as time ticked down for the closure to take hold and as McCarthy adjourned the House for the weekend with no sign of progress toward a deal.
The last government shutdown occurred in late 2018 and ran into 2019 as Trump sought to force concessions from lawmakers to fund his divisive wall along the US-Mexican border. The deadlock, which lasted for 34 days, culminated in a short-term deal that lacked the funding he sought.
That shutdown has the unenviable distinction of being the longest in US history.
It is unclear how long a shutdown would last if it comes to pass at 12.01 a.m. Sunday morning, but unlike past closures, the matter is not a simple partisan spat.
It is instead complicated by the intra-party feud within the Republican House caucus that has repeatedly led to high-stakes brinkmanship, including the lengthy process to elect McCarthy earlier this year. This time around, the Republican divide could result in real-world economic damage.
Credit rating agency Moody’s warned Monday that a shutdown would negatively impact the US’s AAA credit rating.
“It would demonstrate the significant constraints that intensifying political polarization put on fiscal policymaking at a time of declining fiscal strength, driven by widening fiscal deficits and deteriorating debt affordability,” it said.
Moody’s is the last of the three major credit ratings agencies to maintain the US’s AAA rating. Fitch, and Standard and Poor’s have previously downgraded the rating.
Lawmakers reconvened Tuesday with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer focused on brokering a deal with the chamber’s Republicans on their own bill with tumult defining the events in the House.
Any effort to clear the Senate bill is likely to include days of work, and it is unclear if McCarthy would even allow it to come to the House floor for a full vote. But Senators voted 77-19 to begin debate on their bipartisan short-term spending package, which would fund the government through Nov. 17 to allow more time to negotiate a larger spending bill.
The White House has endorsed the plan.
The House separately voted Tuesday evening to begin debate on individual spending bills to fund select parts of the government, but that would not necessarily result in averting a shutdown due to opposition from insurgent Republicans who are demanding steeper budget cuts.
It is unclear if any of the four bills would garner enough support from Republican detractors to ensure they clear the chamber, and they are unlikely to have any support from Democrats. Even if they do pass, they only fund part of the government, so a partial shutdown would still take hold.
Meanwhile, time is quickly running out.
