The U.S. Constitution requires all spending of federal funds be authorized by Congress, with final approval of the President of the United States.
Every Sept. 30, when the federal government is running smoothly, Congress appropriates funds for the next fiscal year. If it’s not running smoothly, continuous funding resolutions are necessary; and, when these resolutions aren’t agreed upon, it forces a shutdown.
While President Obama had one shutdown in eight years, we are currently in the middle of the third government shutdown of the Trump administration, and it’s only two years since his inauguration. Also worth noting, this is the longest shutdown in history.
Some of the negative effects of a shutdown include the closing of national parks and museums, a skeleton crew at the IRS, diminished state department services, and decreased environmental and food inspections.
In addition, air travel, which is already difficult, is seeing increased wait times at TSA checkpoints, as many TSA workers are not showing up because they aren’t getting paid. If the shutdown continues, by the end of February, food stamps may stop being issued, and new applicants for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will face a longer wait.
In total, 800,000 Federal employees are now working without pay. There are also roughly 4.1 million federal contractors, and nobody knows for sure how many of them are being affected.
Even when the shutdown is over, some federal contractors may not receive back pay. It’s clear, there are a growing number of Americans negatively impacted by this shutdown.
In May 2018, several business journals reported 40 percent of Americans would be unable to cover a $400 emergency expense.
In other words, because of the shutdown, several hundred thousand federal employees and contractors are having trouble feeding their families, and are likely in jeopardy of losing their homes.
Our leadership must offer a solution to this Trump-made crisis of our time. To that end, here’s one: pay everyone. Congress should quickly pass legislation giving all federal employees and contractors, loans equivalent to their loss of pay at zero percent interest. These loans would immediately convert to income when the shutdown is over, ensuring everyone would remain whole.
Regarding the wall, here are several options:
Meet in the middle: In negotiation, whenever there is a stalemate, it’s common to meet in the middle to find what’s called an indifference point.
President Trump wants $5.7 billion to fund the wall, yet the Democrats want to give him nothing. Financially, they could agree to meet in the middle at $2.85 billion.
In return, Democrats could accept permanent residence with a path to citizenship for half of the 300,000 recipients of the Temporary Protected Status program and children known as Dreamers (those affected by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival, DACA).
Fully fund the wall: in exchange for a path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants and refugees. Federal tax revenue would go up as the underground cash economy serving non-citizens would diminish.
Declare a national emergency: The President could call a national emergency to build the wall and lift the shutdown.
This would end in a long legal battle because he would be subverting the legislative branch and acting on his own to get what he wants without giving anything up in negotiation. It would also set precedence for a dangerous abuse of power in declaring a national emergency in the future.
In any case, the President needs to show leadership by lifting the shutdown with a promise to negotiate in good faith on all points. Also, any scenario should include billions in disaster relief for Puerto Rico, who is still struggling.
If the shutdown continues, it will further drag down our economy and the deficit will continue to spiral upwards at an alarming rate. If the federal government does not reopen soon, the number of people who are negatively affected will increase dramatically, and, as is typical in government, there will be a more expensive reactive solution instead of a less expensive proactive one, that would have avoided all this nonsense in the first place.
