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发帖数: 4817 | 1 NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Washington has started getting ready for a possible
government shutdown.
Behind the scenes, federal agencies are working on their plans for shutting
down operations and deciding how many workers they need to perform essential
operations.
0Email Print Congress has one week -- until the end of March 4 -- to pass
another short-term bill to fund federal agencies. If they fail, agencies are
legally obligated to perform only essential activities necessary to protect
life and property.
In other words, agencies have to move at warp speed to quickly wind down
most operations. If they don't, they face legal ramifications for spending
money they're not allowed to.
Social Security is safe in a federal shutdown
The government would keep essential services -- like air traffic control and
the national security apparatus -- in full operating mode.
Each agency has its own shutdown plan. To prepare for next week, the
agencies are updating their plans and submitting them to the White House's
Office of Management and Budget.
Obama administration officials have declined to release those plans, which
include details like how many employees are needed to perform essential
functions, and how long it will take each agency to complete a shutdown.
The budget office maintains the agencies are prepared.
"OMB is prepared for any contingency as a matter of course -- and so are all
the agencies," Kenneth Baer, OMB communications director, said earlier this
week in a statement. "In fact, since 1980, all agencies have had to have a
plan in case of a government shutdown, and they routinely update them."
Both Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress have said they want to
avoid a shutdown.
But OMB is watching Congress. According to the guidance distributed to other
federal agencies, OMB says it will monitor the status of congressional
actions and notify agencies if shutdown plans are to be implemented.
The last time the federal government went dark was during the Clinton
administration: five days in November 1995 and another 21 days ending in
January 1996.
Washington's budget follies
At the time, Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked the Government Accountability
Office to prepare a report that detailed how many workers would be kept on
the job.
Relying on each agency's shutdown plan, the GAO found that some agencies,
like NASA, would furlough more than 90% of its employees. Meanwhile, the
Justice Department would retain 75% of its staff.
Of course, 15 years have passed since the GAO studied the issue, and plans
might look significantly different. And in practical terms, agencies are
allowed some wiggle room in who they keep on the job.
During the Clinton-era shutdown, new Social Security claims weren't being
processed because the Social Security Administration furloughed 61,415
employees. As the shutdown wore on, the agency adjusted its plan and
recalled workers to start processing new claims.
Still, a lot of services provided by the government would go dark.
In the last major shutdown, the government closed 368 National Park Service
sites, along with national museums and monuments, according to a
Congressional Research Service report.
In addition, 200,000 passport applications went unprocessed, and toxic waste
cleanup work at 609 sites stopped, according to the same report. The
National Institutes of Health stopped accepting new clinical research
patients, and services for veterans, including health care, were curtailed. |
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