DemDaily: Day 24. Where It Hurts

January 14, 2019

Day 24 of the Goverment Shutdown.

While business inside the US Capitol resumes at a heady pace this week, the rest of Washington, DC is eerily quiet.

The Smithsonian museums that line the National Mall and the National Zoo are closed. Void of thousands of government workers and operations, hotels, restaurants and taxis are empty, and trash is piling up at some of our country's most treasured monuments.

The impact of the President's federal shutdown, however, extends far beyond the visual impact to the capital city as Trump continues to hold the nation hostage over his demand for $5.7 billion for a wall at the US-Mexico border.

In the longest government shutdown in history, 800,000 federal employees have been forced to go on unpaid leave or work without pay since December 22nd.

The shutdown has affected delivery of Government programs, funding and services to nine departments and other agencies, including those critical to working families, national security, health and environmental safety.

Some of the Services that are cut or reduced while the government is shut down include:

Agriculture
*  Furlough of 66.5% of employees
*  New rural development loans for housing, community facilities, utilities and businesses
*  Fraud Investigation of packers and stockyards
*  Plant and animal pest control
*  New timber sales and forest fuel reduction projects
*  All recreation sites under National Forest System
*  Statistics, reports and projections, research facilities, including annual January report used by farmers nationwide to determine what to plant
*  Cut by 2/3 the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the nation's largest food aid program
*  95% of staff and, by the end of January, funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for (7+ million) Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)

Commerce
*  Furlough of 86% of employees
*  Publication of the Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census data, including data on personal income, inflation, gross domestic product, new-home sales, housing construction, trade and more.
*  Data used by traders and businesses to plan investments, and information used by the Federal Reserve to make decisions about the country's interest rate.

"We just really want to remind people that when the federal government shuts down, it's not just affecting Washington." -- Sarah Watterson, President, AFGE Local 907, Kansas

Environmental Protection Agency
*  Environmental oversight and monitoring of air quality, water and streams
*  Superfund site cleanup
*  Permitting for air and water, grants and contracts with community groups and universities
*  Scientific research

Food and Drug Administration
*  A majority of domestic food safety inspections and all food-processing facility inspections
*  Foreign food inspections will continue, as will monitoring and response, with anticipated delays, to outbreaks of food poisoning, the flu, food and medical product recalls.

Homeland Security
*  Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which defends critical national infrastructure from current and ongoing threats.
*  Automated Indicator Sharing (AIS) program, which allows private industry and government agencies to share threat intelligence.
*  National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), responsible for giving all government departments necessary and up-to-date security advice.
*  Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) testing, used to grant devices and new technologies security certifications to run on government networks.

*  Paychecks for Transportation Security Agency (TSA) agents, required to continue working. Number of agents calling in sick in protest are causing long lines and closing of security checkpoints.
*  Paychecks for 92% of Customs and Border protection agents, required to work

*  Paychecks for 80% of US Customs and Immigration Enforcement, required to work
*  Paychecks for 42,000 active duty Coast Guard

Housing and Urban Development
*  Furlough of 95% of employees
*  Renewal of 1,150 HUD federal rental assistance contracts with property owners. Another 500 agreements will expire at the end of January.
*  More than 1.2 million low income families and elderly housed in the HUD-subsidized, multifamily properties are in danger of losing homes and/or being evicted.

In a January 8-11, 2019  Washington Post-ABC News poll, when asked, "Who do you think is mainly responsible for this situation?" 53% of Americans blamed Trump and congressional Republicans, 29% blamed Democrats, 13% said both sides were equally responsible and 4% had no opinion.

Interior
* National Parks, museums, research centers and the National Zoo closed
*  Climate Adaptation Science Centers, which work across the country to collect and implement climate research, closed.
*  Furlough of 99% of US Geological Survey employees
*  Furlough of 84% of US Fish and Wildlife Service employees
*  Furlough of 50%+ of Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement employees

Justice
*  Paychecks for 84% of federal employees still working, including FBI, US Marshals Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Bureau of Prisons, and the National Security Division that prosecutes espionage cases.*  Delay of almost all federal civil cases, including discrimination cases, whistleblower cases, disciplinary cases, retaliation actions taken against federal employees.
*  Delay of thousands of immigration court cases
*  The FBI Agents Association has called for an end to the government shutdown, asserting that the bureau's diminished resources put national security and investigative operations at risk.

NASA
*  Furlough of 95% of employees
*  Research projects and observatories
*  Repairs to Hubble Space Telescope
*  NASA Town Halls, televised access to NASA operations and programming and NASA Web site

State Department
Furlough of 42% of US employees and 26% percent of overseas employees, including 1/3 of those charged with defeating ISIS.

Transportation
*  Investigations into vehicle, plane and rail incidents
*  Grants to transit agencies
*  Furlough of 90% of Federal Transit Administration employees

*  Furlough of Federal Aviation Administration inspectors
*  Paychecks for 10,000 working Air Traffic Controllers

Treasury
*  Furlough of 83.3% of employees
* Some IRS employees are being recalled to distribute tax refund checks and mortgage lenders programs.
*  The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which collects taxes and enforces regulations on alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and ammunition, is closed.
*  Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) will not be working on regulatory guidance or rulemaking.

Status
President Trump declared he would "be proud to shutdown the government," over the border wall issue, said he will veto individual appropriations bills for opening the government that House Democrats plan to pass this week.

In the interim, a lawsuit that claims Trump violated the emoluments clause with his Trump International Hotel in Washington has been put on hold indefinitely amid the shutdown.

DemList will keep you informed.

Related
DemDaily: When a Government Shuts Down 12/18/19

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Sources: NPR, CNN, USAToday, CNBC, MSNBC, ChicagoTribune, WashingtonPost, Vox, NewYorkTimes, Space News, TechCrunch.com, ClearanceJobs.com, DailyNews, Reuters, MassTransitMag, Department and Agency websites