Federal Government Shutdown Threatens Uncertainty

Jan. 20--With a federal government shutdown, tens of millions of recipients are uncertain about a broad range of services, from home financing to the issuance of gun permits and passports.

Facing off against each other are President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans in Congress and Democrats who disagree on a stopgap funding measure. The legislation has drawn criticism for its temporary nature and the unrelated issue of immigration.

The impact of a federal government shutdown, which began Saturday after Congress and Trump failed to enact spending legislation, would be uneven. It would delay loans to small businesses and homeowners and halt the issuance of gun permits and passports. Certain federal emergency flood mitigation and insurance operations would be suspended.

However, mail delivery, the issuance of Social Security checks and Medicare reimbursements will remain intact.

The military is considered essential and would still report for duty, but it is possible that paychecks for troops, including those in combat, will be delayed.

Other essential services, such as air traffic control, passenger inspections at airports and food inspection, will continue to be funded. Security workers for the Transportation Security Agency at airports, including Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, "will still be reporting for duty," a TSA spokesman said.

The new budget year began Oct. 1 without agreement on appropriations bills. Lawmakers have since passed a series of stopgap measures to temporarily fund government operations. The most recent one extended the shutdown deadline to Friday.

House Republicans pushed through another measure to extend the deadline Thursday evening, but passage in the Senate is uncertain.

Several lawmakers oppose the temporary budgeting spearheaded by the Republican majority. Extending the spending measure to Feb. 19, as proposed by Republicans, changes nothing, critics say.

"I'm fighting for a full year of funding rather than kicking the can down the road," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, said he supported a temporary measure in September with assurances that Congress would work toward a bipartisan budget agreement before the end of 2017.

"Now here we are in January 2018 and it feels like Groundhog Day has come early as we vote once again on a stopgap spending measure punting the issue into next month. Where does this end?" he said.

Rep. John Larson, D-1st District, said the stopgap budget bill failed to take up the fate of immigrants who came to the U.S. as children or to address the opioid crisis and the "opportunity to adequately fund community health centers."

Sixteen community health centers in Connecticut would lose about $40 million, or about 70 percent of federal funding, by March or April. Congress has not included the money in the temporary budget measure.

"There's a larger political game in Washington and we're one of the pawns," said Mark Masselli, head of the Middletown-based Community Health Center Inc., which serves about 100,000 people a year.

Margaret Flinter, senior vice president and clinical director of the Community Health Center, said the failure to include federal funding is undermining community health services for 24 million people nationally. The shutdown occurred Friday night.

"Anything that disrupts business or anything that disrupts the predictability of revenue has an impact because what do we pay for in primary care? We pay for the people who deliver care and the essential services that they need to do it," she said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., criticized Democrats who are withholding support without extending the Dream Act for immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as youngsters. The legislation would provide them with a path to citizenship.

"The American people, the citizens who actually elected us, will be watching," McConnell said in a Senate speech. "They will see which senators make the patriotic decision, stand up for the American people and vote to continue government funding."

Blumenthal said Trump and administration officials will ultimately choose among programs that will be continued or halted.

"This decision is theirs," he said. "They can make it more or less painful."

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