Everything from national parks to mortgage applications could be affected if lawmakers can’t strike a deal by Friday.
Americans, including hundreds of thousands of federal employees, could soon feel the impact of a U.S. government shutdown. If lawmakers don’t reach an agreement by the end of Thursday — the last day of the fiscal year — the federal government will officially close as of 12:01 a.m. on Friday. Congress is one step closer to a shutdown after to fund the government at current levels and suspend the debt ceiling. Most Americans would notice the disruption in one way or another. Many national parks would likely shut down, while mortgage and other loan applications could be delayed because the IRS could stop verifying income and Social Security numbers, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a nonprofit group that focuses on fiscal issues. Government services that are deemed essential — typically tasks important to safety and national security, such as border protection and air traffic control — would continue despite a shutdown. But the disruption would come at a sensitive time, with many Americans people struggling to regain their footing amid the ongoing pandemic and the economy grappling with the effects of the COVID-19 Delta variant. « Every shutdown is different — there is a lot of discretion in the agencies about what they can continue to do, » said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the CRFB. « Everything that’s not essential has to stop, but there are different definitions of essential work. » For instance, there are questions whether work on COVID-19 vaccines at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Protection would be considered essential. Pfizer on Tuesday said it had sent data to the FDA on its clinical trials for the vaccine in children from 5 to 12 years old. The biggest impact may be felt by the hundreds of thousands of federal workers who are likely to be furloughed if a shutdown occurs, experts say. « You have 2 million civilian employees that are working hard across the country, » Max Stier, president of the nonpartisan think tank Partnership for Public Service, told CBSN. « You have told all of them that there may be a shutdown — that means that they have to actually stop working on things like the [Montana] train crash or dealing with the economic calamity caused by the pandemic. » The showdown in Congress comes as lawmakers are also debating a hike in the nation’s borrowing limit, or « debt ceiling, » adding to the potential political twists and turns. Here’s what you should know if the government shuts down this week. This would be a full shutdown since Congress hasn’t yet passed any funding bills.
