The Government Shutdown


(NOTE: Published January 18, 2019 on LinkedIn)

This piece from NPR (https://www.npr.org/2019/01/18/685829213/attempts-to-make-shutdown-painless-may-stretch-limits-of-federal-law) notes that attempts to ease the pain of the shutdown might be illegal. Or not. At any rate, there is disagreement among legal experts regarding how the federal Anti-deficiency Act should be interpreted. Can the administration order essential employees (those required for safety and security) to work indefinitely? Further, can the administration order others to work, like employees of the IRS, because they have important jobs to do, like process income tax returns?

Whatever the answer, it is becoming increasingly clear that this shutdown will be bad for business. We no longer live in the "dual federal" republic where the national government has some jobs, the states and localities have others, and never shall these meet. Many programs are not only jointly funded (think of Medicaid) but jointly administered. USDA programs are embedded with counties and universities. Funding from the federal government for some positions in states and localities may suffer, with states picking up the tabs. Emergency management is, by design, a multi-jurisdictional and multi-level model.

More to the point of business, the mortgage business might start to bog down as FHA and VA guaranteed loan processing grinds to a halt. Of course, this has a downstream effect on real estate sales and possibly new home construction. We are hearing reports of restaurants losing traffic in the Washington, D.C. area. Not a fan of the beltway? What about the towns and businesses making money outside the gates of National Parks? And whatever your view of SNAP (formerly food stamps), the indisputable fact is that this program is beneficial for retail grocery businesses.

And lest we forget, some of the federal government's most important public health and safety workers are still working. They are just working without pay. This list includes air traffic controllers, FAA aircraft inspectors, TSA security personnel, employees of the National Weather Service, border patrol officers, federal police and fire employees, and the U.S. Coast Guard. On the weekend of the Super Bowl, people with the means to do so will converge on Atlanta (one of the busiest airports in the world), while the people making sure their trip is safe will work without pay. Also of note, the Coast Guard is the one military branch working without pay. Currently, Coast Guard members intercept drug smugglers in international waters in the Western Hemisphere and have a deployed contingent stationed in Bahrain and patrolling the Arabian Sea. So yes, we have deployed military members with spouses and children waiting at home, but not getting their normal pay.

No matter your view of the disagreement between the President and Congress, it seems increasingly obvious that a government shutdown is not the way to handle the disagreement. No private sector employer, including those who post jobs on LinkedIn, would operate this way. Imagine, LinkedIn alerts you to the availability of a job that fits your qualifications, and encourages you to apply. Of course, the job has one drawback--you will not get a paycheck. It is nice to thank TSA agents for their service. It is nice to buy a Coast Guardsman a cup of coffee in the airport. But they are working not only because they are patriotic, they are working because they have jobs. Public service motivation does not put food on the table, nor does it pay the rent. An employment model like this cannot be sustained. It is already affecting the lives of real humans, and will increasingly affect businesses. Perhaps then it will get our attention.

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