WASHINGTON – With an Oct. 1 deadline fast approaching, a government shutdown looks imminent as the House and Senate have not come to an agreement on the fiscal year spending.
A shutdown would affect major agencies, services, and the millions of Americans who are employed by the federal government. Maryland is home to about 150,000 federal employees.
Additionally, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in a memo issued on Wednesday, told agencies to consider reduction-in-force (RIF) notices – basically, firings – for all employees involved in programs or projects that, among other things, are “not consistent with the president’s priorities.”
That did not appear to ease the standoff between Democratic leaders in the Senate and their GOP counterparts who control the House and Senate.
“President Trump is engaged in mafia-style blackmail, with his threats ultimately harming the American people,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, said in a statement. “He is threatening to double down on the failed actions of Elon Musk and his chainsaw — going after patriotic civil servants that provide Americans with critical services — despite having to rehire many of these workers after Americans experienced the negative impact of those cuts.”
At issue is an extension of tax credits for Obamacare that are scheduled to expire at the end of the year. The Democrats are insisting that the tax credits be included in the government spending legislation. The Republicans have suggested the issue can wait, not used “as a hostage to keep the government open,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, said Wednesday on CNN.
Oct. 1 marks the start of the federal fiscal year, regardless of whether a budget has been decided on. Without a spending bill, many functions of the federal government stop and every federal employee who is not considered “essential” is barred from working and does not receive pay for however long it takes for the budget impasse to be resolved.
“All it takes is a handful of Democrats to join the Republicans in keeping the government open and funded, and to ensure we have a chance to get the appropriations process completed in the way it was intended,” Thune told the Associated Press.
Both the House and the Senate have been on a break this week for Rosh Hashanah. However, House GOP leaders have decided to extend their break past the Oct. 1 deadline, thereby putting pressure on the Senate to come to an agreement.
“Now that it’s clear that neither bill will get the 60 votes that the Senate needs, it’s time to negotiate,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, told CBS. “But Republicans have now left town with no sign they want to avoid a shutdown in a week. They left town.”
A budget meeting between Democratic leadership and President Donald Trump had been planned for earlier this week. But Trump cancelled it via a Truth Social post on Tuesday, saying: “After reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the Minority Radical Left Democrats in return for their Votes to keep our thriving Country open, I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive.”
“The Democrats’ requests are completely unhinged and unreasonable, and unserious and if they want to have a serious conversation, I’m sure the president would be happy to do that,” Thune said in a CNN interview when asked about the cancelled meeting.
“Democrats are ready to work to avoid a shutdown… Trump and Republicans are holding America hostage. Donald Trump will own the shutdown,” Schumer said in a statement.
Although federal employees would receive retroactive pay thanks to the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, a shutdown would still require those workers to make do until the government reopens.
Former Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, told Capital News Service in an interview that the state would feel a bigger impact than most states from a shutdown both because of the high percentage of federal workers because of the large number of local businesses that rely on the federal workforce.
“These federal workers maybe, for a period of time, are not going to get a paycheck, and therefore their impact (spending) on the local economy is going to be (reduced)… It’s not only a shutdown for the economy, but a shutdown mode for families and spending,” Cardin said.
The former lawmaker said that right now there is no communication between the Democrats and Republicans and with no bipartisan way of moving forward, a solution is unlikely before the October deadline.
“I think the risk is very high that we will have a government shutdown,” Cardin said.
Van Hollen said federal workers “have nothing to do with the ongoing political and policy disputes that have brought us to the brink of a shutdown.”
“These threats are not only an attack on Americans’ services and benefits, they’re also likely illegal. We’ll be fighting back with every tool we have,” the senator said.
There have been 21 federal government shutdowns since 1976. Three of them have occurred during the 2000s: a 17-day shutdown in 2013 under President Barack Obama; a three-day closure in 2018 during Trump’s first term, and a record 35-day shutdown from Dec. 22, 2018 until Jan. 25, 2019, also in Trump’s first term.