This shutdown is affecting the U.S., and us
Photo via Reuters
LUCAS HAYDEN: Tomorrow marks the second week since the wheels of the United States government ceased spinning—congresspeople are mostly dug into their respective partisan trenches as Democrats unflinchingly push for extension of health insurance tax credits and a reversal to Medicaid cuts, while Republicans refuse to grant any leeway to the minority party. It is fairly well known that government shutdowns roll a large amount of federal workers into unpaid leaves (roughly 40%), while the remainder continues work without pay, but there are a number of other key details pertaining to this shutdown in particular that should serve as flashing warning lights across the country.
As students attending school in Washington DC, the easiest first step in examining the effects of the shutdown is to look around the city. Shutdowns are often destructive to DCs economy, since many District residents are federal workers. As most government workers temporarily forgo their paychecks during shutdowns, and since workers without pay are much less likely to purchase goods and services, many shops in the area suffer from decreased sales and customer activity.
New to this shutdown is the controversy over back pay, a once universally agreed-upon policy passed in 2019 under the first Trump administration that guaranteed that every federal worker, upon reopening of the government, would receive their pay for work over the duration of the shutdown period. In a stunning reversal of the first Trump administration’s policy, the White House has tested the waters around proposing that back pay not be provided to every federal employee, announcing that some federal employees “don’t deserve to be taken care of.” As a result, the uncertainty swirling around who will be paid will cause an even greater nosedive of spending in Washington, despite President Trump’s assurances last week that “the law is the law” and that all employees entitled to back pay will receive it.
Crucially for tourists and DC residents, all Smithsonian institutions have been shuttered until the shutdown ends, meaning students won’t be able to access any museums, research institutions, or even the National Zoo until Congress reaches a funding agreement. Nor will travelers and frequent fliers be immune from the shutdown’s effects as well, as the lack of working air traffic controllers and TSA agents, who do not get paid during the shutdown, has caused significant flight delays at airports across the country. Many students who left campus for the long weekend likely noticed this, which compounded with severe weather on the East Coast over the weekend to cause significant trouble for airlines.
Once the shutdown ends things aren’t going to simply snap back to normal. Many departments, throughout every corner of the government, are experiencing significant change as the shutdown continues, and will continue withering the longer they go without funding.
Seeing an opportunity to boost its leverage and advance its agenda of drastically cutting the size of the federal government, the Trump administration is using the shutdown as an excuse to fire federal workers en masse, with over 4,000 workers already receiving notices of their firings and more to come according to the White House. Vice President Vance has made clear that the longer the shutdown drags on for, the deeper the cuts to the workforce will be, with President Trump promising to target workers aligned with the Democratic Party in particular.
This overtly political threat highlights the risk in the White House’s calculation, as future talent, including many students at Georgetown, will probably be less likely to enter the federal workforce due to the removal of career civil servants for partisan reasons. Very few people will want to hop onto the US government’s bus for the long haul if they run the risk of being fired every time a new President comes to power. People will, understandably, go elsewhere, further damaging the quality of the government. Therefore, the longer this shutdown runs, the more harm will be incurred on the government, in both the immediate and distant future.
The sum of all of these effects is proving to be disastrous. In a country already extremely distrustful of the government, with Americans trusting the government to “do the right thing” consistently polling around 22%, the last thing the government needs for its image is polarization-induced paralysis, drastically impacting many of the systems Americans rely on. The Trump administration’s targeting of political opposition within the government is a dangerous precedent and cause for intense worry, but the same can be said for the stubbornness of lawmakers in Congress in both parties who refuse to compromise an inch, prioritizing political victories over saving the government from burning to shreds. America needs to find a way to overcome its political fractures and come together to fund the government—before any more livelihoods are hurt.
Lucas Hayden is a freshman from St. Louis majoring in International Politics at the School of Foreign Service.