The US averted a costly government shutdown after the Congress passed an 11th-hour funding bill on Saturday to keep federal agencies running for another 45 days.
A last-minute agreement was passed by the House and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. The package drops aid to Ukraine, a White House priority opposed by a growing number of GOP lawmakers, but increases federal disaster assistance by $16 billion, meeting Biden’s full request.
The outcome ends, for now, the threat of a shutdown, but the reprieve may be short-lived. The Congress has until November 17 to resolve their differences and avoid another shutdown, but it’s not clear they will.
WHAT IS A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN?
Many federal government agencies in the US rely on annual funding, which is approved by the Congress. Lawmakers are supposed to pass 12 different spending bills to fund agencies across the government, but the process is time-consuming.
Every year, the requests, submitted by the agencies, is passed by the Congress and the president has to sign the budget legislation for the next fiscal year.
If the agreement is not reached by the start of the fiscal year on 1 October, then there is a shutdown, which means that all non-essential discretionary functions stop. Although employees essential to public safety like the air traffic controllers and law enforcement officers have to report to work, other federal employees are suspended from work.
Shutdowns can be disruptive, leading to delays in processing of passports, business loans, government benefits, shuttered visitor centres and other such inconveniences.
WHEN DOES A SHUTDOWN BEGIN AND HOW LONG IT LASTS?
The government funding expires October 1, the start of the federal budget year. A shutdown was scheduled to begin at 12:01 am if the Congress didn’t pass a funding plan that the president could sign into law.
The House and Senate averted this by approving a temporary funding bill keeping federal agencies function until November 17.
Shutdowns are quite common in the US. There were three shutdowns when Donald Trump was president, which included the longest in history at 36 days which ended in January 2019, which happened because of disagreements over funding a wall on the Mexico border.
During the government shutdown in 2018-19, an estimated 420,000 federal employees worked without pay and another 380,000 were furloughed, according to CNN.
WHO ARE AFFECTED AND WHICH ACTIVITIES ARE UNAFFECTED
During a shutdown, all government employees under non-essential categories are put temporarily on unpaid leave called a furlough.
The American Federation of Government Employees union estimates a full shutdown would mean almost 1.8 million federal workers would not be paid for the duration.
The shutdown affects the food assistance programme, federally funded preschool, issuing of student loans etc. It also affects tax refunds and related administrative activities such as income and social security numbers. However, more than 1.3 million active-duty members of the military and thousands of air traffic controllers will have to work without pay.
Services including essential services and related to public safety, border protection, hospital care, air traffic control, law enforcement and power grid maintenance continue to operate. However, the workers are required to work without pay.
DOES SHUTDOWNS AFFECT THE WHITE HOUSE?
The President of the US has a guaranteed income and therefore he is not affected by shutdown. The Congress is also not affected as their funding bill is already approved.
However, the US Department of Justice is affected as many lawyers and judges don’t work during a shutdown. Criminal investigations continue, but all the federal civil cases and immigration court cases are affected, according to BBC.
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