While Congress continues to clash over health care, we’re now on day four of the government shutdown with no end in sight. The immediate impact is far-reaching, from not being able to rely on some of our favorite government websites, to furloughed employees, from shuttered parks and museums to a discontinuation of critical services across the country. In considering the impact of the shutdown on children and families, the most direct hit is likely experienced by those 800,000 non-exempted federal employees across the country. The families of these employees, many of whom have children to support, will not see a new paycheck until an agreement is reached. Their livelihood depends on Congress’ ability to cooperate—not a comforting thought.
Many of the essential federal departments will remain active during the shutdown, like air traffic operations and the national military; however, several necessary programs deemed non-essential will be halted. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), funded through the USDA, will soon run out of money, threatening services to 8.9 million mothers and their children. WIC provides services like breastfeeding support, infant formula, and health food vouchers to moms. Like most states, Texas has enough money to continue operating for the next week or so, but if the shutdown continues much longer there will likely be a lapse in service. Other federally funded organizations affected are the National Institutes of Health, which is no longer accepting new patients for clinical trials, affecting about 200 people per week. Roughly 15% of those people are children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will also be severely limited in spotting or investigating disease outbreaks like the flu.
Texas has the nation’s third-highest concentration of federal employees, according to UT Austin’s Politics Project, and those 140,000 Texas workers could go without a paycheck. In Houston, 97% percent of the work force at NASA was sent home, since every department except mission control is considered non-essential. Many other agencies affected aren’t directly part of the federal government, but they rely primarily on federal government support. For example the Houston Housing Authority, which gives housing vouchers to roughly 60,000 families, is scrambling to fill budget holes in the absence of that federal assistance.
Despite the hardships that many families are now facing, the government shutdown is, for the time being, partial, and it takes time for something as large as the federal government to grind to a halt. Programs with enough money to avoid immediate repercussions will eventually run out if the shutdown goes on too long. Ohio Head Start, for example, is stable at the moment, but will have to close if the conflict in Congress lasts longer than two weeks. It’s worth noting that not too long ago Ohio Head Start was forced to cut 3,000 kids due to sequestration, and Texas Head Start has been forced to cut 4,410.
It’s hard to know yet how this shutdown will compare to the one that occurred seventeen years ago under the Clinton Administration, which lasted twenty-one days, but if we’re to expect similar length, that means problems for many anxious programs.
Regardless of who is to blame for this shutdown, the fact of the matter is that Americans are not happy. Families are afraid, and citizens are tired of Congress’ inability to work together. Members of Congress were elected to run this government efficiently, not into the ground, and so far, all they’ve managed to do is lose the trust of disappointed families across the country.