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what is affected in a government shutdown

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what agenices are affected by government shutdown

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Here's What Would Happen to U.S. Health Care If the Government Shuts Down

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An impending government shutdown would affect healthcare in many ways, hitting agencies like the CDC, the FDA, and others.

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Government to furlough 41,000 healthcare workers because of the shutdown

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Government to furlough 41,000 healthcare workers because of the shutdown

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2018/01/19/government-shutdown-may-furlough-41000-u-s-health-workers/#2dd71d29652b

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Senator Joe Donnelly is now speaking out about the push to end the government shutdown.

He says a group of 12 senators accomplished a lot during the three days the government was closed down.

The Senate is expected to vote on DACA by February 8.

Border security will also be part of the discussion..

Donnelly says the discussion will continue to be how to keep DACA children in the country while providing strong borders.

"Everybody has to play their role and I can work really hard in the Senate to get to a conclusion where we have stronger, safer borders and where our DACA kids have a chance to remain in the United States at the same time at that," Donnelly said. "The House has to work as well."

Protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will end on March 5.

WSBT had the chance to ask Donnelly about his stance on the immigration debate.

Donnelly says his goal is to come to an agreement before then.

Donnelly says they were also able to move forward on other issues, such as children's health centers and opioid challenges.

The deal to re-open the government also included a two-year delay on a new medical device tax.

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draft:human rights violations in daca termination

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DACA? Sen. Donnelly talks shutdown and immigration reform

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Senator Joe Donnelly is now speaking out about the push to end the government shutdown.He says a group of 12 senators accomplished a lot during the three days the government was closed down.The Senate is expected to vote on DACA by February 8.Border securi

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As Congress searches for a deal to protect so-called Dreamers from deportation, there are parallels to 2013, when immigration legislation won widespread support in the Senate only to be roundly ignored in the more conservative, Republican-led House.

But for all the similarities to that undertaking, there are also stark differences this time around in the politics, players and public opinion, which bring a new dynamic as lawmakers once again try to tackle immigration.

As part of the agreement to end the federal shutdown this week, Congress gave itself less than three weeks to resolve the issue before the next shutdown threat, Feb. 8, when temporary funding to run the government expires.

At the time, the bipartisan Gang of Eight helped pass a bill that, after weeks of hearings and debate, collapsed without consideration in the House under the weight of Republican opposition to President Obama and any hint of "amnesty" for those here illegally.

Then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost a primary election to an unknown newcomer, Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), in part over Cantor's willingness to consider help for the very youngest Dreamers, those in kindergarten. Then-House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) quickly abandoned the immigration bill, but he, too, was later pushed to resign by his party's conservative flank.

Unlike 2013, Republicans now have majority control of the House and the Senate, and a president from the same party in the White House.

The president has given mixed views on immigration, but has said he wants to do something "nice" for Dreamers, despite his harsh rhetoric and actions toward immigrants and his promise to build a wall on the border with Mexico.

Confused senators jokingly speak about the "Tuesday president" and the "Thursday president" - referring to the week when Trump welcomed lawmakers to the White House for a well-received televised immigration meeting in which he embraced a bipartisan "bill of love," only to follow that up two days later by rejecting a compromise and making vulgar comments about excluding immigrants from poorer countries.

After the cameras clicked off at that Tuesday meeting, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), another member of the 2013 gang, said he appealed to the president's place in history.

"I said to him, 'Nixon went to China. He was the ultimate anti-communist and he could do that. Ronald Reagan was against all taxes and ended up raising taxes to meet the nation's needs,'" Menendez said in an interview.

"I said, 'You have the political capital to actually do something, and do something big," Menendez said.

The outlines of a potential agreement are within reach for Congress, but would require both sides to accept politically painful compromises that they, as of yet, are not willing to make publicly.

An agreement would center on protections for the Dreamers in exchange for border security, including money for Trump's border wall, and changes to family and diversity visas.

A bipartisan group led by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), also members of the 2013 gang, proposed such a bill, but it was roundly rejected by Trump. The White House dismissed it Tuesday.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) sweetened the offer ahead of the shutdown by putting Trump's $20-billion border wall request on the table, a concession that drew outrage from liberal Democrats, even though the White House disputes it was ever made.

But Trump walked away from that deal, and Schumer said Tuesday that negotiations were starting anew. "The wall offer is off the table," he said.

The contours of what is under discussion now are more modest than in 2013.

At that time, the Senate agreed to offer some 11 million immigrants here illegally a path to citizenship, which would take 13 years for most, though Dreamers could qualify in less time. In exchange, the Senate approved a $46-billion border surge - with 24-hour drones, fencing and 20,000 new border patrol officers - all funded not by current citizens, but from the fines and fees the immigrants would have to pay on their path to legal status.

Trump has indicated he has interest in a big deal like that - one that could go beyond the Dreamer issue and make more comprehensive fixes to immigration law.

Lawmakers are game, but also mindful of first steps.

"Dreamers are like the motherhood and apple pie of immigration," Menendez said. "If you can't do Dreamers, forget about a bigger deal."

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Congress will try again on immigration reform - but will this time be different?

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As Congress searches for a deal to protect so-called Dreamers from deportation, there are parallels to 2013, when immigration legislation won widespread support in the Senate only to be roundly ignored in the more conservative, Republican-led House.

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The National Institutes of Health can’t enroll new patients in clinical trials or take action on grant applications.

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The government shutdown isn't over Obamacare this time. But depending on how long it lasts, there will be ripple effects on health care as the Department of Health and Human Services sees half its workers furloughed.
Happy third day of the shutdown. The impasse on Capitol Hill continues, as Democrats refuse to budge on their demands for legal protections for young immigrants and Republicans seem unwilling to move in their direction, my tireless colleagues Robert Costa, Erica Werner, Mike DeBonis and Sean Sullivan report. After a bipartisan group of moderate senators failed to produce a compromise yesterday, buy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to hold a vote at about noon anyway. There was some hope building yesterday for a deal to fund the government for three weeks with a guarantee by McConnell to consider immigration legislation after that if there has been no agreement before then. But it doesn't look like we're there yet.

The effects of the shutdown were relatively limited over the weekend, but now that the workweek is starting, hundreds of thousands of workers will stay home and key federal agencies will be affected. "Federal contractors will see payments delayed, and the Internal Revenue Service will slow its preparations for the coming tax season," my colleagues writes.

Trump, who to his aides relief it seems, has remained relatively quiet during the shutdown so far. Nonetheless, the president took to Twitter this morning to blame Democrats:

The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens. Not good!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018

Democrats have shut down our government in the interests of their far left base. They don't want to do it but are powerless!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018

But the effects of a shutdown -- especially if it continues -- on the federal workforce, and Americans by extension, are real.

Granted, because so much of what HHS does is considered "essential," a smaller proportion of its workers are furloughed during a shutdown compared to other agencies. About 41,000 of HHS' 82,148 employees will still come to work today, according to these helpful visuals from The Post's Darla Cameron and Lisa Rein. There are five other federal agencies - Justice, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Defense and Transportation - where at least half of employees are similarly considered essential.

On Friday, HHS updated its last shutdown contingency plan - issued in the fall of 2013 when the government shut down for more than two weeks as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) demanded to defund the Affordable Care Act - with a new version. Per that document, here are five top things the agency keeps doing while the government is shuttered - and five services it halts.
Services that continue:
1. States keep getting their Medicaid payments. Federal funding for the health insurance program for the low-income population is secure through the end of June, according to the contingency plan. And because states oversee enrollment, Americans should be able to continue signing up for the program without hiccups.

2. Seniors can keep seeing the doctor. As with Medicaid, Medicare has funding sources that don't depend on Congress passing annual spending bills. Beneficiaries shouldn't much feel the effects of a shutdown, unless it is prolonged. Medicare will continue to reimburse medical providers, so coverage should continue without interruption.

3. Premium subsidies continue for Obamacare enrollees, and the marketplaces remain open for those qualifying to sign up off-season. Like Medicare and Medicaid benefits, marketplace subsidies are considered mandatory spending. And the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services can use leftover fees paid by health insurers to keep verifying eligibility so enrollments can continue.

4. The Food and Drug Administration continues drug reviews. That's because these reviews are paid for by fees from the pharmaceutical industry. Staffers who analyze and review medicines entering the United States would also be considered essential, according to HHS.

5. The nation's 1,400 community health centers stay open. These clinics - which provide preventive care and dental services to about 27 million low-income Americans - also enjoy mandatory spending status. But they're threatened by an underlying problem: The program has needed reauthorization by Congress since last fall, and it's unclear whether lawmakers will include that in a spending bill reopening the government.
Services that stop or slow:
1. The FDA's food-safety inspection program hits pause. "FDA will be unable to support the majority of its food safety, nutrition and cosmetics activities," the HHS contingency plan says. The exception is meat and poultry inspections carried out by the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

2. The National Institutes of Health can't enroll new patients in clinical trials or take action on grant applications. During the last shutdown, NIH turned away about 200 patients each week from its clinical research center since nearly three-fourths of its staff was furloughed. The center can only admit new patients with cases NIH Director Francis Collins deems "medically necessary."

3. No new mental health or social services grant awards and less monitoring of existing grants. The HHS departments most involved in issuing grants to health-care providers around the country would be particularly affected by the shutdown because more of their employees are furloughed. This includes the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Administration for Children and Families.

4. Payments for senior nutrition programs stop. The shutdown would halt funding for federal senior nutrition programs funded through the Administration for Community Living, and would delay federal reimbursements to privately run programs such as Meals on Wheels (which services more than 2.4 million seniors across the country). But the severity of the impact on such programs depends on how long the shutdown lasts.

5. Response to this year's deadly flu outbreak could be slowed. The CDC says its "immediate response to urgent disease outbreaks, including seasonal influenza" will continue. This includes collecting data reported by states, hospitals and others. But a CDC representative told BuzzFeed News the reports could be issued at a slower rate than usual. Former CDC director Tom Frieden, who led the agency during the 2013 shutdown, told NPR the shutdown means a slower response to changes in the flu virus and less preparation among doctors to provide rapid treatment.
AHH, OOF and OUCH
AHH: A government shutdown comes at an especially inopportune time for flu season, which is particularly deadly this year per the latest data released Friday, The Post's Lena H. Sun reports. During the second week of January, more people sought care for flulike illnesses than at any comparable period in nearly a decade and 10 children died, bringing the total number of pediatric deaths this flu season to 30. More than 8,900 people have been hospitalized since the season started Oct. 1.

"The flu activity indicators are notable for the sheer volume and intensity of flu that is taking place in most of the country at the same time," Lena writes. "A federal government shutdown could complicate CDC's ability to know, in real time, whether flu cases are continuing to increase."

About 63 percent of CDC employees are furloughed, according to HHS's contingency plan. While state labs will continue to operate and monitor flu activity, test specimens and send that information to the federal agency, there may not be enough CDC epidemiologists to monitor the data and compile it, Lena reports. Additionally, there are spot shortages of prescription antiviral drugs and it's unclear whether the agency personnel working on that will be able to stay on duty during a shutdown.

OOF: In the state President Trump called a "drug-infested den" - New Hampshire - the opioid crisis is something of an obsession, the New York Times's Katharine Q. Seelye reports. New Hampshire is tied with Ohio for the state with the second-highest rate of drug overdose deaths per capita (West Virginia is first), and 53 percent of adults there say drugs are the biggest problem.

It's surprising when you consider New Hampshire's demographics. "Unlike West Virginia, New Hampshire is relatively prosperous, which makes an opioid crisis here seem all the more jarring," Katharine writes. "This state has the highest median household income in the country, ranks low in unemployment and crime, and often lands at or near the top of lists of the best states in which to live."

So why is the state's opioid problem so bad? Researchers say one big reason is the proximity to an abundant drug supply in neighboring Massachusetts and its drug distribution networks; another is the state's limited spending on addiction services. In addition, doctors in New Hampshire have long prescribed opioids at almost twice the national rate.

"This is a kind of perfect storm," Lisa Marsch, a professor of psychiatry and health policy at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, told the Times. "We have highly available, highly potent opioids in New Hampshire. And highly limited resources to reduce the risk."

OUCH: And over in neighboring Massachusetts, there's a spirited debate over the idea of "supervised injection sites" as another way to reduce overdose deaths, the AP reports. These sites are safe spaces where drug users can shoot up under the supervision of trained staff. While the Massachusetts Medical Society and the Massachusetts Hospital Association back the idea, Gov. Charlie Baker (R) is among the skeptics who don't see such sites as leading to treatment.

"As far as the data I've seen is concerned, it has not demonstrated any legitimate success in creating a pathway to treatment," Baker said at a public hearing last week. "The harm reduction argument I think is a much better one, but I'm kind of a hard sell on that one."

"In a report released last year, the medical society found supervised injection sites can reduce overdose mortality and increase access to drug treatment. Much of the research is based on two sites in Canada and Australia," Steve Leblanc writes. "The report called for the creation of a pilot supervised injection facility program in Massachusetts. The group said the state should seek an exemption from federal drug laws to pursue the pilot program and consider partnering with other states."
TRUMP TEMPERATURE
- The Trump administration may be no more willing to put more restrictions on food stamps than was the Obama administration. Although momentum is building for a ban on the purchase of candy and soda with food stamps, the Agriculture Department last week denied a request from Maine that would have placed such restrictions on its food stamp program, The Post's Caitlin Dewey reports. Now, supporters of such bans are trying to parse the meaning of the rejection.

"In its application to USDA, Maine said it would evaluate the ban's impact on soda and candy purchases but did not propose any specific monitoring of health effects," Caitlin writes. "It is not clear if USDA rejected the request because of this kind of omission or because the administration more generally opposes junk food bans."

"When considering waiver requests, USDA focuses on moving people into self-sufficient lives, protecting the integrity of the program, and improving customer service," the agency said in a statement. "We don't want to be in the business of picking winners and losers among food products in the marketplace, or in passing judgment about the relative benefits of individual food products."

--About that 24-year-old in a top Trump administration role: Taylor Weyeneth, who was appointed to a top position in the White House's drug policy office at age 23, was previously dismissed from a job at a law firm for repeatedly missing work, The Post's Robert O'Harrow Jr. reports. Weyeneth worked as a legal assistant at the New York firm O'Dwyer & Bernstien while in college, but he was "discharged" in August 2015 for being a no-show.

Brian O'Dwyer, a partner at the firm, said he hired Weyeneth in part because both men were involved in the same fraternity. He told Robert the team was "very disappointed in what happened" and that Weyeneth "just didn't show."

"In a résumé initially submitted to the government, Weyeneth said he worked at the firm until April 2016," Robert writes. "When an FBI official called as part of a background check in January 2017, the firm said Weyeneth had left eight months earlier than the résumé indicated...an administration official previously said that Weyeneth revised his résumé to correct 'errors.'" In a revised résumé, Weyeneth said he worked at the law firm from November 2014 to August 2015.

Since Robert first reported on the young appointee's rapid ascent to a top White House post, several Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern about Weyeneth and about other unfilled drug policy roles in the administration. The concern comes as Trump, who has pledged to allocate government resources toward the opioid crisis, still has not named a permanent director for his drug policy office.

"You have claimed that the opioid epidemic is a top priority for your administration, but the personnel you have staffing these key agencies - and the lack of nominees to head them - is cause for deep concern," ten lawmakers, including Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), recently wrote to the president.
AGENCY ALERT
- Our colleague Tory Newmyer, who writes The Finance 202, is staking out the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland this week. We noticed FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is among the top Trump appointees who are on the guest list. The president is also expected to attend. Sign up to receive updates from Davos in The Finance 202 here.
HEALTH ON THE HILL
--Top Senate Finance Committee Democrat Ron Wyden (Ore.) wants an investigation into whether Seema Verma, who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, violated ethics rules in handling Medicaid waiver requests from states she used to work with privately. Verma formerly consulted for Kentucky, Arkansas, Iowa and other states seeking permission from the federal government to enact changes to their Medicaid programs.

Wyden asked HHS's general counsel, in a letter last week, to open an ethics investigation into the matter, questioning whether she had recused herself (as she'd promised) from being involved in waiver requests with states with whom she formerly contracted.

"Administrator Verma's commitment to recuse herself from work with former clients appears to have fallen short of the mark thus far, which is extremely concerning given that many of her former clients have sought, or plan to seek, waivers to impose unprecedented work requirements in state Medicaid programs," he wrote.
--A few more good reads from The Post and beyond: MEDICAL MISSIVES INDUSTRY RX STATE SCAN OPIOID OPTICS REPRODUCTIVE WARS DAYBOOK Today

The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, hold the "National Drug and Alcohol Chat Day" web chat event.

The Alliance of Community Health Plans holds a briefing on "The Value of Medicare Advantage."

The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, and the American Public Human Services Association host a webinar.

Coming Up

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on "Facing 21st Century Public Health Threats: Our Nation's Preparedness and Response Capabilities, Part 2" on Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Sickle Cell Disease Advisory Committee for presentations and discussion of programs on Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Institute of Nursing Research to discuss program policies and issues on Tuesday.

The Advisory Board holds a web conference on BPCI Advanced on Tuesday.

The Families USA Health Action Conference begins on Wednesday.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is scheduled to hold a hearing on combatting the opioid crisis on Thursday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Advisory Mental Health Council on Thursday.

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission holds its January meeting starting on Thursday.

SUGAR RUSH
House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the military would be paid during the government shutdown:

Activists protest around the globe during the a second annual Women's March:

Saturday Night Live takes on White House doctor Navy Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson's report on President Trump's health:

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Trump's first year as president:

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Analysis | The Health 202: How the government shutdown could affect your health care (or not)

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The government shutdown isn't over Obamacare this time. But depending on how long it lasts, there will be ripple effects on health care as the Department of Health and Human Services sees half its workers furloughed. Happy third day of the shutdown.

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Graham-Durbin Bipartisan Government Funding Bill

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Graham-Durbin Bipartisan Government Funding Bill

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(Tawfeeq Shaik)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-18/seven-gop-senators-back-bipartisan-immigration-bill-graham-says

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Creates more debt (via taxes) .... imagine how this is increases costs in healthcare for American taxpayers

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Creates more debt (via taxes) .... imagine how this is increases costs in healthcare for American taxpayers

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/01/23/the-shutdown-was-a-31-billion-gift-to-the-health-care-industry/?utm_term=.725f152fd908.

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government shutdown in the united states

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What Is a Government Shutdown? Here's What Happens If Congress Can't Make a Deal

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Lawmakers are scrambling and headlines are screaming Friday as the U.S. government heads towards a shutdown. But what does that mean?

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The NIH can't enroll nepatients in clinical trials or take action on grant applications.

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Agencies affected by the shutdown-Collin Smith

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Agencies affected by the shutdown-Collin Smith

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Updated at 8:10 a.m. ET
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees will either be sent home or have been told to not show up to work at all on Monday, as furloughs due to the government shutdown that began Friday night start to affect workers around the country.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., gave a foreboding warning from the Senate floor on Sunday.

"The shutdown is going to get a lot worse tomorrow," he warned. "A lot worse."

Republicans are insisting the shutdown is less "weaponized" than the last time this happened, in 2013 under then-President Barack Obama, but it's still sure to have a broad effect across the country and get worse the longer it goes.

"Essential services" will continue, and essential workers will remain on the job, albeit without pay.

But there will be a lot of federal workers - thousands - who will see a change.

Every federal agency has a specific contingency plan, in the case of a loss of funding, and you can look through them all here. In 2013, about 800,000 of the 2.1 million civilian federal employees were furloughed in 2013, according to The Washington Post.

In the Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency, for example, which employed 10,944 people as of last September, just 62 people are considered completely exempt from furlough.

The agency's plan then lays out a schedule for an additional tapering of labor: All employees are called to work for the first half of the first day of a shutdown, and then over the next 20 days, the plan dwindles the workforce down to 120 by the second half of the first day, and all the way down to seven people by day 20.

Here's how the shutdown will affect some key aspects of the government:
Military
Guidance from the Defense Department issued on Friday said military personnel will continue working, and military operations in places like Afghanistan would continue.

"There would be no gap in their pay unless the shutdown lasted past Feb. 1, and otherwise they would continue on the job without getting paid until the shutdown ended or until Congress and the president agreed to cover their costs before it ended," according to The Washington Post fact checker, who debunked President Trump's numerous claims that the military would be hit the hardest in the event of a government shutdown.
Veterans Affairs
Of the VA's 377,000 employees, more than 335,000 are expected to continue working. After a scare about veterans not getting the care they needed during the last shutdown, the Veterans Health Administration has been getting its funding appropriated in advance.
Social Security
Social Security checks will continue to go out, and most of the Social Security Administration's staff are exempt from the furloughs.
Postal Service
Postal delivery will be unaffected by the shutdown as the Postal Service operates on its own revenue stream. Post offices will also remain open.
The Justice Department
The Justice Department says criminal litigation will go on without interruption. The office of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential ties to the Trump campaign, will also be unimpeded.
Education
In the Department of Education, the contingency plan calls for more than 90 percent of its total 3,912 person staff to be furloughed during the first week of a shutdown, and a total of "not more than 6 percent of the total staff to be called back to work during a longer interruption."
Housing and Urban Development
The Department of Housing and Urban Development employs about 7,800 people. About 300 of them are considered exempt from furloughs, according to its contingency plan. It will continue to provide essential services like housing the homeless and providing emergency services to people with AIDS.

National Parks
One of the most visible symbols of that 2013 shutdown was gated off national parks. That won't be happening this year.

Most national parks, recreation areas, and monuments are staying open during the shutdown, but as NPR's Nathan Rott reported over the weekend, many rangers and staffers won't be on duty.

"There's absolutely a frustration [among park rangers]," Rott said on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. "By keeping the parks open, the Department of Interior is basically saying that we can do this whole national park thing without you guys. And in reality, they don't think that's going to work."

Most landmarks, such as Independence Hall, which houses the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, will be closed.

But one of America's most famous monuments, the Statue of Liberty, will reopen Monday after the state of New York agreed to temporarily pick up the tab for operating the park.

New York State will reopen the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tomorrow. We will not stand by as this symbol of freedom and opportunity goes dark. pic.twitter.com/8g6dnsZmU7
- Archive: Governor Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 22, 2018

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has vowed to keep the Grand Canyon open as well. "The Grand Canyon will not close on our watch. Period," said Ducey said in a statement. "If Washington, D.C. won't function, Arizona will."
EPA
The environmental Protection Agency has enough funding on hand to remain open through the coming week, according to a memo from administrator Scott Pruitt. All EPA employees are expected to come to work on Monday.
Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security says nearly 90 percent of its personnel are considered essential staff and will continue to perform their duties.

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The Thorny Logistics Of A Government Shutdown

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The partial federal shutdown that went into effect at midnight on Friday has a broad impact, from closing Independence Hall to furloughs at the Department of Education.

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things that were open and closed during the shut down 

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things that were open and closed during the shut down 

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Updated at 8:10 a.m. ET
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees will either be sent home or have been told to not show up to work at all on Monday, as furloughs due to the government shutdown that began Friday night start to affect workers around the country.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., gave a foreboding warning from the Senate floor on Sunday.

"The shutdown is going to get a lot worse tomorrow," he warned. "A lot worse."

Republicans are insisting the shutdown is less "weaponized" than the last time this happened, in 2013 under then-President Barack Obama, but it's still sure to have a broad effect across the country and get worse the longer it goes.

"Essential services" will continue, and essential workers will remain on the job, albeit without pay.

But there will be a lot of federal workers - thousands - who will see a change.

Every federal agency has a specific contingency plan, in the case of a loss of funding, and you can look through them all here. In 2013, about 800,000 of the 2.1 million civilian federal employees were furloughed in 2013, according to The Washington Post.

In the Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency, for example, which employed 10,944 people as of last September, just 62 people are considered completely exempt from furlough.

The agency's plan then lays out a schedule for an additional tapering of labor: All employees are called to work for the first half of the first day of a shutdown, and then over the next 20 days, the plan dwindles the workforce down to 120 by the second half of the first day, and all the way down to seven people by day 20.

Here's how the shutdown will affect some key aspects of the government:
Military
Guidance from the Defense Department issued on Friday said military personnel will continue working, and military operations in places like Afghanistan would continue.

"There would be no gap in their pay unless the shutdown lasted past Feb. 1, and otherwise they would continue on the job without getting paid until the shutdown ended or until Congress and the president agreed to cover their costs before it ended," according to The Washington Post fact checker, who debunked President Trump's numerous claims that the military would be hit the hardest in the event of a government shutdown.
Veterans Affairs
Of the VA's 377,000 employees, more than 335,000 are expected to continue working. After a scare about veterans not getting the care they needed during the last shutdown, the Veterans Health Administration has been getting its funding appropriated in advance.
Social Security
Social Security checks will continue to go out, and most of the Social Security Administration's staff are exempt from the furloughs.
Postal Service
Postal delivery will be unaffected by the shutdown as the Postal Service operates on its own revenue stream. Post offices will also remain open.
The Justice Department
The Justice Department says criminal litigation will go on without interruption. The office of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential ties to the Trump campaign, will also be unimpeded.
Education
In the Department of Education, the contingency plan calls for more than 90 percent of its total 3,912 person staff to be furloughed during the first week of a shutdown, and a total of "not more than 6 percent of the total staff to be called back to work during a longer interruption."
Housing and Urban Development
The Department of Housing and Urban Development employs about 7,800 people. About 300 of them are considered exempt from furloughs, according to its contingency plan. It will continue to provide essential services like housing the homeless and providing emergency services to people with AIDS.

National Parks
One of the most visible symbols of that 2013 shutdown was gated off national parks. That won't be happening this year.

Most national parks, recreation areas, and monuments are staying open during the shutdown, but as NPR's Nathan Rott reported over the weekend, many rangers and staffers won't be on duty.

"There's absolutely a frustration [among park rangers]," Rott said on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. "By keeping the parks open, the Department of Interior is basically saying that we can do this whole national park thing without you guys. And in reality, they don't think that's going to work."

Most landmarks, such as Independence Hall, which houses the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, will be closed.

But one of America's most famous monuments, the Statue of Liberty, will reopen Monday after the state of New York agreed to temporarily pick up the tab for operating the park.

New York State will reopen the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tomorrow. We will not stand by as this symbol of freedom and opportunity goes dark. pic.twitter.com/8g6dnsZmU7
- Archive: Governor Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 22, 2018

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has vowed to keep the Grand Canyon open as well. "The Grand Canyon will not close on our watch. Period," said Ducey said in a statement. "If Washington, D.C. won't function, Arizona will."
EPA
The environmental Protection Agency has enough funding on hand to remain open through the coming week, according to a memo from administrator Scott Pruitt. All EPA employees are expected to come to work on Monday.
Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security says nearly 90 percent of its personnel are considered essential staff and will continue to perform their duties.

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The Thorny Logistics Of A Government Shutdown

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The partial federal shutdown that went into effect at midnight on Friday has a broad impact, from closing Independence Hall to furloughs at the Department of Education.

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CLOSE

WASHINGTON - Congress tiptoed up to the brink of a federal government shutdown Friday night - and then fell over the edge.

The Senate failed to pass a short-term spending bill by midnight, meaning federal agencies are now operating without a budget.

Congress convened a rare Saturday session to try to hammer out a deal on a short-term spending bill to reopen the government, but those talks showed no signs of progress.

The shutdown initially has a limited impact because it is the weekend, and most government agencies aren't open anyway. But if the shutdown drags on, it could have a significant influence both on employees and people seeking government services.

Federal workers deemed "essential" have to stay on the job and key government functions - such as national security operations and law enforcement work - remain up and running. But anyone who is not essential has to stay home.

And federal contractors usually come first in a shutdown, so people working on government contracts may quickly find themselves sidelined.

Federal agencies have some leeway in deciding how to carry out a shutdown, but based on previous spending stalemates and statements from various agencies over the past few days, here's what you can expect:

Will troops get paid?

President Trump said in a tweet Tuesday the "biggest loser" in a government shutdown would be the military. It's a talking point used by many congressional Republicans hoping to put Democrats on the spot by saying a shutdown would mean the troops don't get paid.

But the military gets paid on the 1st and 15th of every month. So the troops just received a paycheck, and they wouldn't be due for another one until Feb. 1.

That means military personnel would not suffer a lapse in pay unless a government shutdown lasted until the end of the month - or longer.

While active duty military personnel will continue going to work, most civilian Department of Defense employees not deemed essential would be furloughed, said Christopher Sherwood, a Pentagon spokesman.

Will I still get my Social Security benefits?

Yes. Social Security is a mandatory program that will continue even if Congress fails to pass a spending bill.

Will lawmakers close their offices?

It depends. In the past, individual members of Congress have reacted differently, with some closing their district offices and others leaving them open. During previous shutdowns, lawmakers were advised that they did not have to furlough aides they needed to write laws, help them vote, or communicate with their constituents. That gives members of Congress quite a bit of leeway.

Will I still be able to get a passport?

The State Department's passport services are funded partly by fees, which means it is not completely dependent on Congress for money and may be able to continue to issue passports for at least a short time. But if the stalemate drags on, your application could be delayed.

Will National Parks, monuments and Smithsonian museums be open?

You may still be able to visit your favorite national park or memorial, even if the government shutdown continues. The National Park Service said Thursday that war memorials and open air parks in the nation's capital would remain open.

Additionally, many national parks, refuges and other public lands will have limited access wherever possible. Services that require staffing and maintenance, such as campgrounds, full service restrooms and concessions that require some park staff or assistance will not be operating.

The Smithsonian said Saturday that it has some left over money lying around from last year and it will use that to keep museums and the National Zoo open as long as it can.

Will travel be affected?

Probably not. Airports would remain open and air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration officials would remain on the job. However, there could be some delays as "non-essential" employees are furloughed. You should also still be able to travel by train. Even though Amtrak depends on federal subsidies, it also gets revenue from ticket sales and has managed to stay open during past shutdowns.

How else could a shutdown impact me?

If you're buying a home, you could face delays in closing. The Federal Housing Administration would halt new mortgage approvals if the government shutdown continues. Homebuyers could face other delays because lenders often ask the Internal Revenue Service to verify a potential buyer's tax information before approving a new mortgage. Fifty-six percent of IRS workers are expected to be furloughed.

If you're doing your taxes, you also could be affected by the IRS shutdown. The tax filing season opens in just a few days, yet many employers and taxpayers are still trying to understand the changes Congress made to the tax code late last year - the largest overhaul in three decades. But anyone with tax questions would not be able to get answers from the IRS. The agency's helpline is expected to be closed.

The impact of a shutdown also will get worse the longer it lasts.

Secretary of education Betsy DeVos wrote in a shutdown planning memo that "A protracted delay in Department obligations and payments beyond one week would severely curtail the cash flow to school districts, colleges and universities and vocational rehabilitation agencies that depend on the Department's funds to support their services."

So, somewhere some grade school kids are hoping for a really long shutdown and their parents are praying for a fast resolution.

More: White House: This shutdown won't be like previous shutdowns

More: The Ghost of Shutdowns Past haunts latest talks to keep the federal government open

Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2EWU57U

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Open or closed? Here's how a government shutdown could impact you

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CLOSE WASHINGTON - Congress tiptoed up to the brink of a federal government shutdown Friday night - and then fell over the edge. The Senate failed to pass a short-term spending bill by midnight, meaning federal agencies are now operating without a budget.

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how the government shutting down affects science

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how the government shutting down affects science

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As Congress scrambles to reach a budget deal, the federal government is still shut down. That means hundreds of thousands of federal employees will not be returning to work this week - including employees for the national agencies that deal with science, like the National Institutes of Health or the Environmental Protection Agency.

Since we don't know how long the shutdown will last, it's impossible to say how far-ranging its effects will be. But we can look to the agencies' contingency plans and the aftermath of the 2013 federal shutdown, which lasted 16 days, for clues.

Here is what the government shutdown will mean for these science agencies:

Patients currently enrolled in NIH studies - for instance, patients in hospitals right now - will still be taken care of, but the institute will not bring on any new patients. During the 2013 shutdown, the agency had to turn away 200 patients each week, including 30 children. Patients applying for NIH studies are often extremely sick, because they're willing to take a risk on an experimental treatment.

Headed into lab now to prepare for government shutdown. I'll have to reroute fly food delivery to my house. We'll be allowed in on Monday for 4 hours and then all labs must close until further notice. In 2013, labs were closed for 17 days.
- Nasser Rusan (@RusanLab) January 20, 2018

The NIH will also stop processing grants and put employees on leave. In 2013, 80 percent of its employees were put on leave, and the institute rescheduled the review of nearly 14,000 grant applications. Dr. Antony Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The Associated Press last week that scientists were in a "scramble" and concerned about their experiments. "From a practical standpoint, when you're dealing with science you have experiments that have been going on for months, if not years, and all of a sudden you have to stop," he said. Some scientists have reported needing to reroute fly food delivery to their homes. Additionally, PubMed, an academic database primarily of life science papers, is no longer up to date.

The CDC will place about 60 percent of its staff on leave, according to The Washington Post. Thankfully, flu tracking will continue, as it has been deemed "essential" by the Department of Health and Human Services. ( This year's flu season has been particularly bad, and the flu-tracking system was shut down in 2013.) The staff will continue supporting the hurricane response efforts, according to a HHS contingency plan. But most of its disease prevention and treatment programs would lapse, and it will take longer to track outbreaks.

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has said that the agency will operate normally this week even if the government shuts down. "At this time EPA has sufficient resources to remain open for a limited amount of time in the event of a government shutdown," he wrote in an email. It is unclear how long the agency can continue operating if the shutdown continues, but an administration official told The Washington Post that it's possible the agency could tap into cash reserves. The EPA does have a contingency plan, but EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox told The Hill that the plan is outdated and doesn't necessarily reflect its plans.

"There's all kinds of additional stress on the forecasters at this time."

About 54 percent of NOAA's 11,400 employees are being asked to stay home during the government shutdown, interrupting the operation of research vessels, for instance. Most of the "excepted" employees are those working for the National Weather Service, which makes weather forecasts needed for air travel, military operations, and to protect the public. But the reduced staffing puts a strain on the workforce that's still required to go to work without pay. And if equipment like weather instruments or the computers that spit out forecasts break, it could take longer to repair them. "There's all kinds of additional stress on the forecasters at this time," Bill Hooke, director of American Meteorological Society Policy Program, tells The Verge.

Essential personnel that operate satellites and keep astronauts safe on the International Space Station keep working during a government shutdown. But longer-term projects, like preparations on the James Webb Space Telescope, may come to halt, according to Nature. Commercial spaceflight companies are also being affected by the shutdown: SpaceX, for instance, won't be able to test fire its new Falcon Heavy rocket, because it needs support from the US Air Force, which oversees launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. That creates further delays for SpaceX, which was planning to launch the Falcon Heavy for the first time at the end of January.

At the FDA, 45 percent of employees will go on leave. The agency will end most of its safety activities, covering areas such as food safety, cosmetics safety inspections, and compliance.

After the closure of national parks and monuments caused public outrage during the 2013 shutdown, the Trump administration decided to keep national parks largely open this time. The parks, however, will have limited staffing, and that means visitor centers, campgrounds, and full-service bathrooms will be closed, according to The Washington Post. The decision to keep parks open has been criticized: because many park rangers won't be on the job, visitors will have to visit the parks at their own risk. "The capacity for rescue if a visitor gets into an accident is going to be limited," Bill Wade, who worked for the NPS for more than 30 years, told The New Republic. "There might be some EMTs and law enforcement around, but if there's a problem that needs more people, those people aren't going to be available."

The decision to keep parks open has been criticized

Nearly 90 percent of all personnel in the department are considered "essential" and will continue to work during the shutdown, a spokesperson for the DHS wrote in an email to The Verge. At FEMA specifically, the one-call response employees, whose salaries are funded from the Disaster Relief Fund and not the government budget, will work their regular schedules, according to a FEMA official. The US Army Corps of Engineers will continue emergency response work to protect life and property, and will still operate its hydropower plants and other flood control projects.

The Department of Energy is least affected by the shutdown, in part because 16 of its 17 laboratories are run by independent contractors and not government employees. All employees are returning to work this week as usual, and labs will stay open until the Department of Energy spends its cash reserve. "Bottom line: the Department of Energy will be open for business on Monday," spokesperson Shaylyn Hynes told Nature. There is no information on how long these reserves might last, however.

The problem with government shutdowns is not just the temporary closure of government labs and the huge waste of money. ( In 2013, the shutdown cost the US economy $24 billion.) In the long run, it could hurt the government's ability to attract smart and ambitious researchers. "My guess is that over time, the best and brightest simply will not consider government service as highly as they would have," Dave Titley, director of the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at Penn State, tells The Verge. Titley was talking about NWS employees specifically, but the same risk applies across all government agencies. "This is a sort of longer term-impact."

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Patients turned away, SpaceX delays: here's how the government shutdown hits science

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As Congress scrambles to reach a budget deal, the federal government is still shut down. That means hundreds of thousands of federal employees will not be returning to work this week - including employees for the national agencies that deal with science, like the National Institutes of Health or the Environmental Protection Agency.

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The US Department of Agriculture announced that the funding for Food Stamps and support for the poor children to get free lunches at school will end by early February if the government does not reopen.

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Updated at 8:10 a.m. ET
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees will either be sent home or have been told to not show up to work at all on Monday, as furloughs due to the government shutdown that began Friday night start to affect workers around the country.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., gave a foreboding warning from the Senate floor on Sunday.

"The shutdown is going to get a lot worse tomorrow," he warned. "A lot worse."

Republicans are insisting the shutdown is less "weaponized" than the last time this happened, in 2013 under then-President Barack Obama, but it's still sure to have a broad effect across the country and get worse the longer it goes.

"Essential services" will continue, and essential workers will remain on the job, albeit without pay.

But there will be a lot of federal workers - thousands - who will see a change.

Every federal agency has a specific contingency plan, in the case of a loss of funding, and you can look through them all here. In 2013, about 800,000 of the 2.1 million civilian federal employees were furloughed in 2013, according to The Washington Post.

In the Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency, for example, which employed 10,944 people as of last September, just 62 people are considered completely exempt from furlough.

The agency's plan then lays out a schedule for an additional tapering of labor: All employees are called to work for the first half of the first day of a shutdown, and then over the next 20 days, the plan dwindles the workforce down to 120 by the second half of the first day, and all the way down to seven people by day 20.

Here's how the shutdown will affect some key aspects of the government:
Military
Guidance from the Defense Department issued on Friday said military personnel will continue working, and military operations in places like Afghanistan would continue.

"There would be no gap in their pay unless the shutdown lasted past Feb. 1, and otherwise they would continue on the job without getting paid until the shutdown ended or until Congress and the president agreed to cover their costs before it ended," according to The Washington Post fact checker, who debunked President Trump's numerous claims that the military would be hit the hardest in the event of a government shutdown.
Veterans Affairs
Of the VA's 377,000 employees, more than 335,000 are expected to continue working. After a scare about veterans not getting the care they needed during the last shutdown, the Veterans Health Administration has been getting its funding appropriated in advance.
Social Security
Social Security checks will continue to go out, and most of the Social Security Administration's staff are exempt from the furloughs.
Postal Service
Postal delivery will be unaffected by the shutdown as the Postal Service operates on its own revenue stream. Post offices will also remain open.
The Justice Department
The Justice Department says criminal litigation will go on without interruption. The office of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential ties to the Trump campaign, will also be unimpeded.
Education
In the Department of Education, the contingency plan calls for more than 90 percent of its total 3,912 person staff to be furloughed during the first week of a shutdown, and a total of "not more than 6 percent of the total staff to be called back to work during a longer interruption."
Housing and Urban Development
The Department of Housing and Urban Development employs about 7,800 people. About 300 of them are considered exempt from furloughs, according to its contingency plan. It will continue to provide essential services like housing the homeless and providing emergency services to people with AIDS.

National Parks
One of the most visible symbols of that 2013 shutdown was gated off national parks. That won't be happening this year.

Most national parks, recreation areas, and monuments are staying open during the shutdown, but as NPR's Nathan Rott reported over the weekend, many rangers and staffers won't be on duty.

"There's absolutely a frustration [among park rangers]," Rott said on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. "By keeping the parks open, the Department of Interior is basically saying that we can do this whole national park thing without you guys. And in reality, they don't think that's going to work."

Most landmarks, such as Independence Hall, which houses the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, will be closed.

But one of America's most famous monuments, the Statue of Liberty, will reopen Monday after the state of New York agreed to temporarily pick up the tab for operating the park.

New York State will reopen the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tomorrow. We will not stand by as this symbol of freedom and opportunity goes dark. pic.twitter.com/8g6dnsZmU7
- Archive: Governor Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 22, 2018

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has vowed to keep the Grand Canyon open as well. "The Grand Canyon will not close on our watch. Period," said Ducey said in a statement. "If Washington, D.C. won't function, Arizona will."
EPA
The environmental Protection Agency has enough funding on hand to remain open through the coming week, according to a memo from administrator Scott Pruitt. All EPA employees are expected to come to work on Monday.
Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security says nearly 90 percent of its personnel are considered essential staff and will continue to perform their duties.

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The Thorny Logistics Of A Government Shutdown

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The partial federal shutdown that went into effect at midnight on Friday has a broad impact, from closing Independence Hall to furloughs at the Department of Education.

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How the government shutdown ended up being a $31 billion gift to the health care industry

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How the government shutdown ended up being a $31 billion gift to the health care industry

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Venla Kuvaja

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The popular Children's Health Insurance Program became the well-publicized football in the political blame game over the shutdown. The continuing resolution provides federal funding for another six years. But the deal to end the shutdown also delivered a win to the health care industry, to the tune of $31 billion as it suspends or delays three taxes imposed by the Affordable Care Act: a tax on medical devices, the "Cadillac tax" on generous employer-sponsored health plans and a tax on health insurance companies.

The medical device tax is a 2.3 percent excise tax that has long been fought by the industry, which has argued that the tax hinders medical innovation and stifles job growth. The tax has been temporarily suspended for the past two years, but that reprieve was set to expire starting Jan. 1. The spending bill provides another two-year moratorium, but the industry is preparing to push for longer delays and a full repeal.

"Congress' action - just days before medical technology innovators were set to start cutting checks to the IRS - means funds will not be diverted from current investments in jobs, capital improvements and research into new treatments and cures," Scott Whitaker, president of the Advanced Medical Technology Association said in a statement. "We look forward to continuing to work with . . . (Capitol) Hill on a bipartisan basis to drive towards permanent relief."

The spending deal also includes a two-year delay for the Cadillac tax, an Affordable Care Act tax on generous health plans offered by employers. The Cadillac tax is intended to discourage employers from compensating workers through generous health insurance plans that can lead to overuse of the health system. It has support from economists, but has been vigorously opposed by employers and unions. Now, Congress has kicked the can down the road - it won't go into effect until 2022.

Brian Marcotte, president of the National Business Group on Health, called it a "win-win for both employers and employees."

Industry also won a one-year suspension of a tax on health insurers, beginning next year. Health insurance companies have pushed back hard against this tax, arguing that it will cause some families to see their premiums to go up $7,000, on top of typical inflation, over a decade.

"These are the kind of solutions that will improve the affordability, availability and value of health insurance coverage for millions of Americans," Kristine Grow, a spokeswoman for America's Health Insurance Plans, said in an e-mail, referring to the tax suspensions and delays.

What's the downside? For companies and industry groups, these are temporary relief, not full repeal - which will remain the goal. But they also represent a sizable chunk of revenue to the government. The Joint Committee on Taxation found that the suspension of the medical device tax would mean lost revenue of $3.8 billion. The Cadillac tax delay would leave another $14.8 billion foregone. And the one-year suspension of the health insurer tax would mean $12.7 billion.

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How the government shutdown ended up being a $31 billion gift...

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The popular Children's Health Insurance Program became the well-publicized football in the political blame game over the shutdown. The continuing resolution provides federal funding for another six years.

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The real victims of the government shutting down

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The real victims of the government shutting down

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CDC non-critical research has been shut down as a result of the government shutdown. The shutdown itself forced the CDC to fund its own research from budget surplus which was put into studies for the Flu during the shutdown.

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how the goverment shut down bean and ended 

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how the goverment shut down bean and ended 

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So the government shut down at 12:01 a.m. EST on Saturday after lawmakers unsuccessfully brokered a plan to continue government funding into next week.

But how will various branches and agencies of the federal government respond? Below, a primer of what to expect:

Some history

There have been 12 shutdowns since 1981, ranging in duration from a single day to 21 days, according to the Congressional Research Service. The last shutdown happened in 2013 and lasted 16 days.

Nearly 800,000 federal employees were out of work without pay. In addition, more than a million other working employees had their paychecks delayed. On day five of the shutdown, Congress voted to give the furloughed government employees retroactive pay.

Meanwhile, some members of Congress kept collecting their paychecks, while others voluntarily gave up their checks. According to estimates by the financial services company Standards & Poor's, the last government shutdown cost America $24 billion, or $1.5 billion a day.

Congress still gets paid

It's the ultimate paradox. Salaries for members of the House and Senate are written into permanent law. That's why politicians get paid even in the event that congress can't agree on a bill to fund the government.

"Due to their constitutional responsibilities and a permanent appropriation for congressional pay, Members of Congress are not subject to furlough. Additionally, Article I, Section 6, of the Constitution states that Members of Congress 'shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States,' and the 27th Amendment states, 'No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.'"

What happens to the military?

Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan issued guidance to top Department of Defense heads, including service secretaries, under secretaries of defense, and commanders of combatant commands, on Friday that outlines how the department functions in the absence of government funds.

The department lists "excepted" activities that it considers essential services during a government shutdown. At the top of that list is national security.

U.S. military options around the world continue unaffected, including the war in Afghanistan and ongoing operations in Iraq and Syria. All active duty (and reserve components on federal active duty) continue to work during a shutdown. Civilian personnel with the Department of the Defense who are deemed essential to "excepted" activities will also continue to work. However, both groups would not be paid until after the shutdown ends.

Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP

Non-essential Department of Defense civilian employees will be furloughed. During the 2013 shutdown, 400,000 of the department's 800,000 civilian workers were furloughed without pay, though they were later repaid after the shutdown.

Government contracts that were fully funded prior to the shutdown will continue, but new contracts (including renewals or extensions) will be halted.

Additionally, families will not receive the $100,000 death benefit provided for fallen service members. That money can cover funeral costs and family travel. It also helps to bridge the sudden halt of once-regular paychecks that the deceased was receiving -- paychecks that end immediately after the individual is killed.

During the 2013 shutdown, Congress worked to mitigate the shutdown's effects on the Department of Defense by passing a bill allowing for the death benefits to continue. Another bill allowed service members and "essential" Department of Defense civilian personnel to be exempt from the pay freeze.

Out of 114,647 employees, 95,102 are excepted from furlough, representing 83 percent of DOJ employees. Most of these exempt employees, 72,242, are necessary to protect life and property.

Criminal litigation will continue without interruption, but civil litigation will be curtailed or postponed as long as safety of human life or protection of property are not impacted. Administrative services will curtailed and maintained only to the extent needed to support operations. Training will largely be cancelled.

What happens to the special counsel's Russia investigation?

The Special Counsel's work will continue, as it is funded through a permanent indefinite appropriation. The Special Counsel's Office is funded with a permanent indefinite appropriation and all direct employees are excepted positions because their funding is not dependent upon an appropriations that require renewal.

The U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, would have roughly three weeks of budgetary pad, meaning they can keep the lights on and doors open.

What happens at the State Department? Passport services?

The State Department provided guidance to its employees on Friday in advance of a potential shutdown.

Starting Monday, the agency will furlough non-essential personnel and require them not to work or even use their government-issued laptops or cell phones - although they could come in for four hours to finish any required work and prepare for when the shutdown ends.

Because some U.S. missions overseas are open Sunday to Thursday, those missions would move into restricted operations starting Sunday.

State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said Thursday that the agency will do its best to "minimize the impact on the American people," including passport and visa services. According to the agency's internal guidance, "Consular operations domestically and abroad will remain 100% operational as long as there are sufficient fees to support operations" and except if housed in a different government building that is forced to close.

It's the secretary's office that reviews the available options and will make a decision, but they have no numbers yet on possible furloughs or anything.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

"We're not going to get all excited about what may or may not happen. We will have contingency plans that we put in place and we will adhere to those," she said. But one area that won't be touched: "We will not pull back on areas of national security or staff security."

Tillerson is scheduled to travel to Europe next week, and the agency is still working to determine whether or not he would go, with one State Department official saying they were still awaiting guidance from Office of Management and Budget. Nauert said Thursday that Tillerson will follow all the necessary regulations very carefully, but won't make any decisions until necessary.

The Under Secretary of State for Management normally handles the contingency plans for a shutdown, but because that role is still vacant under the Trump administration, William Todd, the acting Director of Human Resources, sent out the agency's guidance instead.

Tillerson himself was asked about a shutdown during a photo-op with the Jordanian Foreign Minister and said the agency is ready, but hoping there isn't a shutdown.

"We're ready if that's what happens. We hope not. We hope not, but we're ready."

What happens to the Supreme Court?

In the event of a lapse of appropriations, the Supreme Court will continue to conduct its normal operations, and the Court building will be open to the public during its usual hours. The Court will rely on non-appropriated funds, as it has in the past, to maintain operations through the duration of short-term lapses of appropriations.

What happens at other agencies?

Staffing at most agencies will be cut to just a fraction of normal levels across federal government agencies.

Consumer Product Safety Commission: The number of employees goes from 550 to 22. Investigations generally come to a halt. It continues to implement the most critical of recalls.

National Transportation Safety Board: Employees go from 405 to 22. Most investigations cannot be launched or continued during shutdown. However, if a major transportation accident occurs, it will be investigated.

Department of Education: Employees go from 4,000 to 250, more than 150 of those are from the student financial aid office... so already-awarded grants and loans can continue as normal.

Department of Homeland Security: Staffing would go down from 232,860 to 201,700. There will still be normal security at airports, train stations, etc...

FEMA will retain more than 12,000 of its 15,000 employees. But in October of 2013, the agency's administrative support reportedly suffered (IT, HR, etc...)

US Postal Service: You'll still get your mail.

Department of Transportation: Air Traffic Controllers keep directing flights. FAA, FRA, FTA and other agency investigations generally come to a halt unless they pose an imminent threat.

Social Security: Will continue to issue checks.

EPA: Employees were told to go to work next week in the event of a shutdown. Administrator Scott Pruitt said in an email that the EPA has "sufficient resources" to stay open for a limited amount of time.

USDA: Meat, egg, and dairy inspections continue. Food stamps are still available but could run out of money. Food inspections of processed and imported food conducted by the FDA would be suspended.

Customer service at many of these agencies, including Medicare and Medicaid could be impacted due to furloughed employees.

What happens at Department of Health and Human Services

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would have a tough time supporting its annual seasonal influenza program, among other programs. Reduced staffing and worker furloughs might be needed.

Neither CDC nor the Office of Management and Budget would elaborate when asked by ABC News.

What happens to NASA?

NASA says critical work continues - which would need to be identified. The space station is at the top of the list since there are people living in orbit.

We're testing a power source that could provide safe, efficient energy for future crewed missions to the Moon, Mars & beyond. The system may be essential for day-to-day mission needs, like lighting, water & oxygen, as well as fuel for the journey home: https://t.co/vRYuKr4iqn pic.twitter.com/kLzwrvhl5Z
- NASA (@NASA) January 19, 2018

Mission Control would continue to operate 24/7 with a critical needs staff.

However, there would be no more astronauts tweets, because they can't actually tweet on their own - someone on the ground needs to push it out for them. They would assess various missions and see how far along they are in development - first up is the GOLD launch - which measures what happens when space weather from above meets terrestrial weather from below - but its launching from French Guiana so that helps. NASA space station management will be talking about two spacewalks coming up at the end of the month - to do critical work to maintain the space station Canadian robotic arm. The spacewalks would proceed but NASA won't be televising them so if you don't get a direct NASA wired feed you won't know anything (we get those feeds here at out office at Johnson Space Center).

What happens to National Parks?

In a break from previous shutdowns, the administration has said that national parks will be accessible if the government shuts down this weekend, perhaps in an attempt to avoid the striking images of veterans being turned away from war memorials that we saw during previous shutdowns. Roads, trails, and memorials will be open but parks will not collect entrance fees and will not be staffed for basic work like picking up trash, staffing visitors centers, or issuing permits. Campgrounds will be closed.

According to the National Park Service contingency plan only 3,300 employees are deemed essential out of almost 25,000, 650 of which are Park Police. If the Park thinks areas of the park are not safe without guides the area can be closed but they cannot bring on additional staff to enforce the closure. Individual parks will have their own plans to determine what areas will be open.

What happens to the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo?

In the event of a federal government shutdown Friday night, the Smithsonian museums and its National Zoo will remain open for the weekend. The museums and the National Zoo will be closed beginning Monday, Jan. 22. The Smithsonian also has two museums in New York City that will be closed - the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum and Heye Center, a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian.

The National Zoo live-animal cameras, including the panda cam, will not be broadcasting. All the animals will continue to be fed and cared for at the National Zoo. A shutdown will not affect the Zoo's commitment to the safety of staff and the standard excellence in animal care.

ABC News' Lucien Bruggeman, Jeff Cook, Jack Date, Erin Dooley, Stephanie Ebbs, Conor Finnegan, Luis Martinez, Elizabeth McLaughlin, Gina Sunseri, Audrey Taylor, Trish Turner and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this story.

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Here's how a government shutdown could affect you

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So the government shut down at 12:01 a.m. EST on Saturday after lawmakers unsuccessfully brokered a plan to continue government funding into next week. But how will various branches and agencies of the federal government respond? Below, a primer of what to expect: Some history There have been 12...

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Patients are not accepted into the clinical research at the National Institutes of Health, so if a patient's last chance is being in a clinical trial, well there chances are slim until the government comes back into the picture. Also disease hotline calls were not being answered.

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobfrenkel/2018/01/22/victims-of-the-government-shutdown-travel-industry-conferences-and-contractors/#1b33e6fbcb94

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Government shut down could have major ramifications

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Government shut down could have major ramifications

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Katherine Gutierrez

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So the government shut down at 12:01 a.m. EST on Saturday after lawmakers unsuccessfully brokered a plan to continue government funding into next week.

But how will various branches and agencies of the federal government respond? Below, a primer of what to expect:

Some history

There have been 12 shutdowns since 1981, ranging in duration from a single day to 21 days, according to the Congressional Research Service. The last shutdown happened in 2013 and lasted 16 days.

Nearly 800,000 federal employees were out of work without pay. In addition, more than a million other working employees had their paychecks delayed. On day five of the shutdown, Congress voted to give the furloughed government employees retroactive pay.

Meanwhile, some members of Congress kept collecting their paychecks, while others voluntarily gave up their checks. According to estimates by the financial services company Standards & Poor's, the last government shutdown cost America $24 billion, or $1.5 billion a day.

Congress still gets paid

It's the ultimate paradox. Salaries for members of the House and Senate are written into permanent law. That's why politicians get paid even in the event that congress can't agree on a bill to fund the government.

"Due to their constitutional responsibilities and a permanent appropriation for congressional pay, Members of Congress are not subject to furlough. Additionally, Article I, Section 6, of the Constitution states that Members of Congress 'shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States,' and the 27th Amendment states, 'No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.'"

What happens to the military?

Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan issued guidance to top Department of Defense heads, including service secretaries, under secretaries of defense, and commanders of combatant commands, on Friday that outlines how the department functions in the absence of government funds.

The department lists "excepted" activities that it considers essential services during a government shutdown. At the top of that list is national security.

U.S. military options around the world continue unaffected, including the war in Afghanistan and ongoing operations in Iraq and Syria. All active duty (and reserve components on federal active duty) continue to work during a shutdown. Civilian personnel with the Department of the Defense who are deemed essential to "excepted" activities will also continue to work. However, both groups would not be paid until after the shutdown ends.

Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP

Non-essential Department of Defense civilian employees will be furloughed. During the 2013 shutdown, 400,000 of the department's 800,000 civilian workers were furloughed without pay, though they were later repaid after the shutdown.

Government contracts that were fully funded prior to the shutdown will continue, but new contracts (including renewals or extensions) will be halted.

Additionally, families will not receive the $100,000 death benefit provided for fallen service members. That money can cover funeral costs and family travel. It also helps to bridge the sudden halt of once-regular paychecks that the deceased was receiving -- paychecks that end immediately after the individual is killed.

During the 2013 shutdown, Congress worked to mitigate the shutdown's effects on the Department of Defense by passing a bill allowing for the death benefits to continue. Another bill allowed service members and "essential" Department of Defense civilian personnel to be exempt from the pay freeze.

Out of 114,647 employees, 95,102 are excepted from furlough, representing 83 percent of DOJ employees. Most of these exempt employees, 72,242, are necessary to protect life and property.

Criminal litigation will continue without interruption, but civil litigation will be curtailed or postponed as long as safety of human life or protection of property are not impacted. Administrative services will curtailed and maintained only to the extent needed to support operations. Training will largely be cancelled.

What happens to the special counsel's Russia investigation?

The Special Counsel's work will continue, as it is funded through a permanent indefinite appropriation. The Special Counsel's Office is funded with a permanent indefinite appropriation and all direct employees are excepted positions because their funding is not dependent upon an appropriations that require renewal.

The U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, would have roughly three weeks of budgetary pad, meaning they can keep the lights on and doors open.

What happens at the State Department? Passport services?

The State Department provided guidance to its employees on Friday in advance of a potential shutdown.

Starting Monday, the agency will furlough non-essential personnel and require them not to work or even use their government-issued laptops or cell phones - although they could come in for four hours to finish any required work and prepare for when the shutdown ends.

Because some U.S. missions overseas are open Sunday to Thursday, those missions would move into restricted operations starting Sunday.

State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said Thursday that the agency will do its best to "minimize the impact on the American people," including passport and visa services. According to the agency's internal guidance, "Consular operations domestically and abroad will remain 100% operational as long as there are sufficient fees to support operations" and except if housed in a different government building that is forced to close.

It's the secretary's office that reviews the available options and will make a decision, but they have no numbers yet on possible furloughs or anything.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

"We're not going to get all excited about what may or may not happen. We will have contingency plans that we put in place and we will adhere to those," she said. But one area that won't be touched: "We will not pull back on areas of national security or staff security."

Tillerson is scheduled to travel to Europe next week, and the agency is still working to determine whether or not he would go, with one State Department official saying they were still awaiting guidance from Office of Management and Budget. Nauert said Thursday that Tillerson will follow all the necessary regulations very carefully, but won't make any decisions until necessary.

The Under Secretary of State for Management normally handles the contingency plans for a shutdown, but because that role is still vacant under the Trump administration, William Todd, the acting Director of Human Resources, sent out the agency's guidance instead.

Tillerson himself was asked about a shutdown during a photo-op with the Jordanian Foreign Minister and said the agency is ready, but hoping there isn't a shutdown.

"We're ready if that's what happens. We hope not. We hope not, but we're ready."

What happens to the Supreme Court?

In the event of a lapse of appropriations, the Supreme Court will continue to conduct its normal operations, and the Court building will be open to the public during its usual hours. The Court will rely on non-appropriated funds, as it has in the past, to maintain operations through the duration of short-term lapses of appropriations.

What happens at other agencies?

Staffing at most agencies will be cut to just a fraction of normal levels across federal government agencies.

Consumer Product Safety Commission: The number of employees goes from 550 to 22. Investigations generally come to a halt. It continues to implement the most critical of recalls.

National Transportation Safety Board: Employees go from 405 to 22. Most investigations cannot be launched or continued during shutdown. However, if a major transportation accident occurs, it will be investigated.

Department of Education: Employees go from 4,000 to 250, more than 150 of those are from the student financial aid office... so already-awarded grants and loans can continue as normal.

Department of Homeland Security: Staffing would go down from 232,860 to 201,700. There will still be normal security at airports, train stations, etc...

FEMA will retain more than 12,000 of its 15,000 employees. But in October of 2013, the agency's administrative support reportedly suffered (IT, HR, etc...)

US Postal Service: You'll still get your mail.

Department of Transportation: Air Traffic Controllers keep directing flights. FAA, FRA, FTA and other agency investigations generally come to a halt unless they pose an imminent threat.

Social Security: Will continue to issue checks.

EPA: Employees were told to go to work next week in the event of a shutdown. Administrator Scott Pruitt said in an email that the EPA has "sufficient resources" to stay open for a limited amount of time.

USDA: Meat, egg, and dairy inspections continue. Food stamps are still available but could run out of money. Food inspections of processed and imported food conducted by the FDA would be suspended.

Customer service at many of these agencies, including Medicare and Medicaid could be impacted due to furloughed employees.

What happens at Department of Health and Human Services

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would have a tough time supporting its annual seasonal influenza program, among other programs. Reduced staffing and worker furloughs might be needed.

Neither CDC nor the Office of Management and Budget would elaborate when asked by ABC News.

What happens to NASA?

NASA says critical work continues - which would need to be identified. The space station is at the top of the list since there are people living in orbit.

We're testing a power source that could provide safe, efficient energy for future crewed missions to the Moon, Mars & beyond. The system may be essential for day-to-day mission needs, like lighting, water & oxygen, as well as fuel for the journey home: https://t.co/vRYuKr4iqn pic.twitter.com/kLzwrvhl5Z
- NASA (@NASA) January 19, 2018

Mission Control would continue to operate 24/7 with a critical needs staff.

However, there would be no more astronauts tweets, because they can't actually tweet on their own - someone on the ground needs to push it out for them. They would assess various missions and see how far along they are in development - first up is the GOLD launch - which measures what happens when space weather from above meets terrestrial weather from below - but its launching from French Guiana so that helps. NASA space station management will be talking about two spacewalks coming up at the end of the month - to do critical work to maintain the space station Canadian robotic arm. The spacewalks would proceed but NASA won't be televising them so if you don't get a direct NASA wired feed you won't know anything (we get those feeds here at out office at Johnson Space Center).

What happens to National Parks?

In a break from previous shutdowns, the administration has said that national parks will be accessible if the government shuts down this weekend, perhaps in an attempt to avoid the striking images of veterans being turned away from war memorials that we saw during previous shutdowns. Roads, trails, and memorials will be open but parks will not collect entrance fees and will not be staffed for basic work like picking up trash, staffing visitors centers, or issuing permits. Campgrounds will be closed.

According to the National Park Service contingency plan only 3,300 employees are deemed essential out of almost 25,000, 650 of which are Park Police. If the Park thinks areas of the park are not safe without guides the area can be closed but they cannot bring on additional staff to enforce the closure. Individual parks will have their own plans to determine what areas will be open.

What happens to the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo?

In the event of a federal government shutdown Friday night, the Smithsonian museums and its National Zoo will remain open for the weekend. The museums and the National Zoo will be closed beginning Monday, Jan. 22. The Smithsonian also has two museums in New York City that will be closed - the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum and Heye Center, a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian.

The National Zoo live-animal cameras, including the panda cam, will not be broadcasting. All the animals will continue to be fed and cared for at the National Zoo. A shutdown will not affect the Zoo's commitment to the safety of staff and the standard excellence in animal care.

ABC News' Lucien Bruggeman, Jeff Cook, Jack Date, Erin Dooley, Stephanie Ebbs, Conor Finnegan, Luis Martinez, Elizabeth McLaughlin, Gina Sunseri, Audrey Taylor, Trish Turner and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this story.

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Here's how a government shutdown could affect you

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So the government shut down at 12:01 a.m. EST on Saturday after lawmakers unsuccessfully brokered a plan to continue government funding into next week. But how will various branches and agencies of the federal government respond? Below, a primer of what to expect: Some history There have been 12...

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States impacted most by government shutdown

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States impacted most by government shutdown

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On the one year anniversary of President Donald Trump's time in office, the government shut down for the 19th time in history.

The shutdown will have a significant impact on millions of Americans, especially those who work for the federal government or rely on federal contracts. WalletHub compared all 50 states and the District of Columbia to determine where people will be most impacted by the shutdown. Six factors were considered in WalletHub's analysis, including share of federal jobs, federal contract dollars per capita and percentage of children enlisted in the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Here are the 10 states that will be hit the hardest by the shutdown:

Naomi Hayes of Island Memories Photography | Getty Images

Salvatore Liguigli / Eyeem | Getty Images

Unsurprisingly, WalletHub found that the District of Columbia will bear the greatest impact. Washington, D.C., has the highest share of federal jobs and the highest percentage of residents who depend on federal contracts. Maryland, which came in second on the list, will be impacted for similar reasons.

States with high percentages of children who receive health insurance through CHIP also ranked highly on the list of the states most impacted by the shutdown. WalletHub calculated that California and Montana had the highest share of kids who depend on CHIP.

Overall, WalletHub found that red states and blue states would be similarly impacted but that red states would be hit harder. The average score for a state that voted majority republican during the 2016 presidential election was 28.17, and the average score for state that voted majority democrat was 22.90.
Like this story? Like CNBC Make It on Facebook Don't miss:

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The 10 states that will be most affected by the government shutdown

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On the one year anniversary of President Donald Trump's time in office, the government shut down for the 19th time in history. The shutdown will have a significant impact on millions of Americans, especially those who work for the federal government or rely on federal contracts.

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The vote will come several hours after the workday for hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees was supposed to have begun, and comes three days after the government officially shut down Friday at midnight. Many of the shutdown's full effects were less visible during the weekend, when much of the federal workforce would typically be off anyway.

The vote was moved from 1 a.m. ET Monday to noon after it became clear Democrats would block the spending bill over disagreements on a variety of issues, most notably what do about young people affected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas said he thought Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York agreed to push back the vote to give his caucus "a chance to chew" on a GOP proposal to break the impasse.

"It's better to have a successful vote tomorrow at noon than a failed vote tonight," Cornyn told reporters.

But a top Democratic leadership aide disputed Cornyn's assertion and said unless Republicans make significant changes to their offer, Democrats will likely reject it when the vote comes. The Democratic aide did say, however, that progress was made in the lengthy negotiations that took place late Sunday night. But more talks are needed.

GOP Sen. Jeff Flake told reporters Sunday night a bipartisan group of senators will meet again at 10 a.m. ET Monday ahead of the noon vote.

He said he was now a "yes" on the funding bill and it was his hope that six or seven more moderate Democrats would come on board to get the continuing resolution over the finish line -- to 60 votes -- to end the shutdown.

He said the Democrats still want something tangible on DACA but said it was problematic because it could run into the February 8 funding deadline.

He argued that they won a concession from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he isn't requiring President Donald Trump to sign off before an immigration bill moves to the floor.

"For the first time, we have the majority leader move off of we can only move something if the President agrees," Flake told reporters.

Despite Schumer's rejection of the deal, one senior GOP aide involved in the talks told CNN Republican leaders think they have a shot of picking off enough Democrats to move forward.

While McConnell's commitment falls far short of what the vast majority of Democrats want, there's some GOP hope they can get enough to move forward -- and notably split the caucus.

"This is their off-ramp," the aide said. "We'll see if they dig in or if they want a way out."

The aide also noted talks will continue and may yield more progress in the meantime.

Earlier Sunday, Trump called for Senate Republicans to change the chamber's rules to resolve the funding impasse as the government shutdown continued into its second day. He tweeted a call for McConnell to invoke the so-called "nuclear option" and thereby remove leverage for Senate Democrats.

Senate rules impose a threshold of 60 votes to break a filibuster, and Senate Republicans currently hold a slim majority of 51 votes, meaning even if they can unite their members, they need nine more votes to end debate. The White House is calling for the Senate to change its rules and move the threshold to a simple majority of 51 votes.

A spokesman for McConnell said in response to the tweet that the Senate Republican Conference does not support changing the 60-vote rule, a reiteration of Republican Senate leadership's already-stated opposition to the move Trump has called for over the past year.

CNN's Phil Mattingly contributed to this report.

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senate to vote at noon on whether to end government shutdown - cnnpolitics

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Ted Barrett, Ashley Killough and Daniella Diaz, CNN

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Senate to vote at noon on whether to end government shutdown

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The vote will come several hours after the workday for hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees was supposed to have begun, and comes three days after the government officially shut down Friday at midnight. Many of the shutdown's full effects were less visible during the weekend, when much of the federal workforce would typically be off anyway.

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Republicans are using the health insurance of 9 million children as leverage to get Democrats to vote for the government shutdown bill!!!!!

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Republicans are using the health insurance of 9 million children as leverage to get Democrats to vote for the government shutdown bill!!!!!

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Venla Kuvaja

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Keith Srakocic/AP

Republicans proposed a six-year extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) as part of a funding bill to avoid a government shutdown.

They hope Democrats will support the bill since long-term funding for CHIP is included.

Democrats and Republicans have been at odds in recent months over how to pay for the vital health program, even though both parties overwhelmingly support it.

House Republicans unveiled a short-term funding plan on Tuesday to keep the government running past the end of this week, and they're hoping it contains enough leverage to get Democrats to sign on to the deal.

At the heart of the proposal is the popular Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which provides coverage for nearly nine million children and pregnant women across the US.

A CHIP extension has stalled in Congress since federal funding for the program expired September 30. Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly support the program, but they have been at odds over how to pay for it.

The latest continuing resolution includes funding for CHIP for six years, but does not include include a codification of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration program. This could derail the bill since Democrats have insisted that any funding bill include protections for the roughly 800,000 DACA recipients.

"It seems [Congress] is playing politics with CHIP and other priorities as well," Kelly Whitener, a public policy professor at Georgetown University, told Business Insider. "That's not totally surprising because that's what's been happening since the fall when we thought CHIP [extension] should happen before September 30."

Some Democrats suggested that the GOP deliberately included long-term funding for CHIP without any DACA protections so that in the likely event the resolution fails, Republicans will be able to blame Democrats for voting against passing healthcare for children.

Congress gets a lifeline

Brennan Linsley/AP

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and longtime champion of CHIP, told Business Insider on Wednesday that the Republican tax law that President Donald Trump signed last month gave Congress the "momentum to push a long-term CHIP extension across the finish line."

"The proof is in the pudding," he added. "We must stop holding CHIP hostage and get this important program extended to ensure the families who rely on it get the care they need."

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office granted lawmakers a lifeline after months of deadlock in Congress over long-term funding for CHIP.

In a letter to Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., office director Keith Hall said CHIP reauthorization would save the government $6 billion over a 10-year period.

That was a surprising reversal from an earlier projection. On January 5, the CBO estimated that a similar CHIP extension would actually cost the government $800 million over the next 10 years.

Republicans and Democrats welcomed the news.

The CBO previously estimated that the GOP tax law's repeal of the Obama-era individual mandate will encourage parents to shift their children from the marketplace to CHIP, costing the government less overall.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden echoed Hatch's comments.

"Big News: extending #CHIP for 10 years would SAVE $6 billion dollars. With this news, securing kids' health care for the long-term should be a no-brainer," he said in a tweet.

Should Congress approve the six-year extension, states will finally enjoy stability after the months-long lapse in funding, Samantha Artiga, a health care policy expert from the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Business Insider on Wednesday.

"But it's important for states to take action to overcome confusion among families," she added. State officials in a handful of states, including Colorado and Pennsylvania, have sent termination letters to families warning them that their children could lose their healthcare if Congress doesn't restore funding.

SEE ALSO: The Republican tax law will likely save the government billions on a crucial child healthcare program

DON'T MISS: Over 2 million children and pregnant women are on the brink of losing health insurance

NOW WATCH: This congressman wants to target the USPS to help stop the opioid crisis

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Republicans are using the health insurance of 9 million children as leverage to get Democrats to vote for the government shutdown bill

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Republicans proposed a six-year extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) as part of a funding bill to avoid a government shutdown. They hope Democrats will support the bill since long-term funding for CHIP is included. Democrats and Republicans have been at odds in recent months over how to pay for the vital health program, even though both parties overwhelmingly support it.

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The FDA will be unable to support the majority of its food safety, nutrition and cosmetic activities due to the government shutting down.

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As the government shuts down, affects multiple groups of people who depend on the government for their daily living. For example, someone who gets ill and has medicare will not be able to receive medical care unless they paid out of pocket

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Economic Impact Of A Government Shutdown

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Economic Impact Of A Government Shutdown

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https://www.npr.org/2018/01/21/579584199/the-economic-impact-of-a-government-shutdown

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The National Institutes of Health can’t enroll new patients in clinical trials or take action on grant applications.

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The government shutdown isn't over Obamacare this time. But depending on how long it lasts, there will be ripple effects on health care as the Department of Health and Human Services sees half its workers furloughed.
Happy third day of the shutdown. The impasse on Capitol Hill continues, as Democrats refuse to budge on their demands for legal protections for young immigrants and Republicans seem unwilling to move in their direction, my tireless colleagues Robert Costa, Erica Werner, Mike DeBonis and Sean Sullivan report. After a bipartisan group of moderate senators failed to produce a compromise yesterday, buy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to hold a vote at about noon anyway. There was some hope building yesterday for a deal to fund the government for three weeks with a guarantee by McConnell to consider immigration legislation after that if there has been no agreement before then. But it doesn't look like we're there yet.

The effects of the shutdown were relatively limited over the weekend, but now that the workweek is starting, hundreds of thousands of workers will stay home and key federal agencies will be affected. "Federal contractors will see payments delayed, and the Internal Revenue Service will slow its preparations for the coming tax season," my colleagues writes.

Trump, who to his aides relief it seems, has remained relatively quiet during the shutdown so far. Nonetheless, the president took to Twitter this morning to blame Democrats:

The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens. Not good!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018

Democrats have shut down our government in the interests of their far left base. They don't want to do it but are powerless!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018

But the effects of a shutdown -- especially if it continues -- on the federal workforce, and Americans by extension, are real.

Granted, because so much of what HHS does is considered "essential," a smaller proportion of its workers are furloughed during a shutdown compared to other agencies. About 41,000 of HHS' 82,148 employees will still come to work today, according to these helpful visuals from The Post's Darla Cameron and Lisa Rein. There are five other federal agencies - Justice, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Defense and Transportation - where at least half of employees are similarly considered essential.

On Friday, HHS updated its last shutdown contingency plan - issued in the fall of 2013 when the government shut down for more than two weeks as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) demanded to defund the Affordable Care Act - with a new version. Per that document, here are five top things the agency keeps doing while the government is shuttered - and five services it halts.
Services that continue:
1. States keep getting their Medicaid payments. Federal funding for the health insurance program for the low-income population is secure through the end of June, according to the contingency plan. And because states oversee enrollment, Americans should be able to continue signing up for the program without hiccups.

2. Seniors can keep seeing the doctor. As with Medicaid, Medicare has funding sources that don't depend on Congress passing annual spending bills. Beneficiaries shouldn't much feel the effects of a shutdown, unless it is prolonged. Medicare will continue to reimburse medical providers, so coverage should continue without interruption.

3. Premium subsidies continue for Obamacare enrollees, and the marketplaces remain open for those qualifying to sign up off-season. Like Medicare and Medicaid benefits, marketplace subsidies are considered mandatory spending. And the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services can use leftover fees paid by health insurers to keep verifying eligibility so enrollments can continue.

4. The Food and Drug Administration continues drug reviews. That's because these reviews are paid for by fees from the pharmaceutical industry. Staffers who analyze and review medicines entering the United States would also be considered essential, according to HHS.

5. The nation's 1,400 community health centers stay open. These clinics - which provide preventive care and dental services to about 27 million low-income Americans - also enjoy mandatory spending status. But they're threatened by an underlying problem: The program has needed reauthorization by Congress since last fall, and it's unclear whether lawmakers will include that in a spending bill reopening the government.
Services that stop or slow:
1. The FDA's food-safety inspection program hits pause. "FDA will be unable to support the majority of its food safety, nutrition and cosmetics activities," the HHS contingency plan says. The exception is meat and poultry inspections carried out by the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

2. The National Institutes of Health can't enroll new patients in clinical trials or take action on grant applications. During the last shutdown, NIH turned away about 200 patients each week from its clinical research center since nearly three-fourths of its staff was furloughed. The center can only admit new patients with cases NIH Director Francis Collins deems "medically necessary."

3. No new mental health or social services grant awards and less monitoring of existing grants. The HHS departments most involved in issuing grants to health-care providers around the country would be particularly affected by the shutdown because more of their employees are furloughed. This includes the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Administration for Children and Families.

4. Payments for senior nutrition programs stop. The shutdown would halt funding for federal senior nutrition programs funded through the Administration for Community Living, and would delay federal reimbursements to privately run programs such as Meals on Wheels (which services more than 2.4 million seniors across the country). But the severity of the impact on such programs depends on how long the shutdown lasts.

5. Response to this year's deadly flu outbreak could be slowed. The CDC says its "immediate response to urgent disease outbreaks, including seasonal influenza" will continue. This includes collecting data reported by states, hospitals and others. But a CDC representative told BuzzFeed News the reports could be issued at a slower rate than usual. Former CDC director Tom Frieden, who led the agency during the 2013 shutdown, told NPR the shutdown means a slower response to changes in the flu virus and less preparation among doctors to provide rapid treatment.
AHH, OOF and OUCH
AHH: A government shutdown comes at an especially inopportune time for flu season, which is particularly deadly this year per the latest data released Friday, The Post's Lena H. Sun reports. During the second week of January, more people sought care for flulike illnesses than at any comparable period in nearly a decade and 10 children died, bringing the total number of pediatric deaths this flu season to 30. More than 8,900 people have been hospitalized since the season started Oct. 1.

"The flu activity indicators are notable for the sheer volume and intensity of flu that is taking place in most of the country at the same time," Lena writes. "A federal government shutdown could complicate CDC's ability to know, in real time, whether flu cases are continuing to increase."

About 63 percent of CDC employees are furloughed, according to HHS's contingency plan. While state labs will continue to operate and monitor flu activity, test specimens and send that information to the federal agency, there may not be enough CDC epidemiologists to monitor the data and compile it, Lena reports. Additionally, there are spot shortages of prescription antiviral drugs and it's unclear whether the agency personnel working on that will be able to stay on duty during a shutdown.

OOF: In the state President Trump called a "drug-infested den" - New Hampshire - the opioid crisis is something of an obsession, the New York Times's Katharine Q. Seelye reports. New Hampshire is tied with Ohio for the state with the second-highest rate of drug overdose deaths per capita (West Virginia is first), and 53 percent of adults there say drugs are the biggest problem.

It's surprising when you consider New Hampshire's demographics. "Unlike West Virginia, New Hampshire is relatively prosperous, which makes an opioid crisis here seem all the more jarring," Katharine writes. "This state has the highest median household income in the country, ranks low in unemployment and crime, and often lands at or near the top of lists of the best states in which to live."

So why is the state's opioid problem so bad? Researchers say one big reason is the proximity to an abundant drug supply in neighboring Massachusetts and its drug distribution networks; another is the state's limited spending on addiction services. In addition, doctors in New Hampshire have long prescribed opioids at almost twice the national rate.

"This is a kind of perfect storm," Lisa Marsch, a professor of psychiatry and health policy at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, told the Times. "We have highly available, highly potent opioids in New Hampshire. And highly limited resources to reduce the risk."

OUCH: And over in neighboring Massachusetts, there's a spirited debate over the idea of "supervised injection sites" as another way to reduce overdose deaths, the AP reports. These sites are safe spaces where drug users can shoot up under the supervision of trained staff. While the Massachusetts Medical Society and the Massachusetts Hospital Association back the idea, Gov. Charlie Baker (R) is among the skeptics who don't see such sites as leading to treatment.

"As far as the data I've seen is concerned, it has not demonstrated any legitimate success in creating a pathway to treatment," Baker said at a public hearing last week. "The harm reduction argument I think is a much better one, but I'm kind of a hard sell on that one."

"In a report released last year, the medical society found supervised injection sites can reduce overdose mortality and increase access to drug treatment. Much of the research is based on two sites in Canada and Australia," Steve Leblanc writes. "The report called for the creation of a pilot supervised injection facility program in Massachusetts. The group said the state should seek an exemption from federal drug laws to pursue the pilot program and consider partnering with other states."
TRUMP TEMPERATURE
- The Trump administration may be no more willing to put more restrictions on food stamps than was the Obama administration. Although momentum is building for a ban on the purchase of candy and soda with food stamps, the Agriculture Department last week denied a request from Maine that would have placed such restrictions on its food stamp program, The Post's Caitlin Dewey reports. Now, supporters of such bans are trying to parse the meaning of the rejection.

"In its application to USDA, Maine said it would evaluate the ban's impact on soda and candy purchases but did not propose any specific monitoring of health effects," Caitlin writes. "It is not clear if USDA rejected the request because of this kind of omission or because the administration more generally opposes junk food bans."

"When considering waiver requests, USDA focuses on moving people into self-sufficient lives, protecting the integrity of the program, and improving customer service," the agency said in a statement. "We don't want to be in the business of picking winners and losers among food products in the marketplace, or in passing judgment about the relative benefits of individual food products."

--About that 24-year-old in a top Trump administration role: Taylor Weyeneth, who was appointed to a top position in the White House's drug policy office at age 23, was previously dismissed from a job at a law firm for repeatedly missing work, The Post's Robert O'Harrow Jr. reports. Weyeneth worked as a legal assistant at the New York firm O'Dwyer & Bernstien while in college, but he was "discharged" in August 2015 for being a no-show.

Brian O'Dwyer, a partner at the firm, said he hired Weyeneth in part because both men were involved in the same fraternity. He told Robert the team was "very disappointed in what happened" and that Weyeneth "just didn't show."

"In a résumé initially submitted to the government, Weyeneth said he worked at the firm until April 2016," Robert writes. "When an FBI official called as part of a background check in January 2017, the firm said Weyeneth had left eight months earlier than the résumé indicated...an administration official previously said that Weyeneth revised his résumé to correct 'errors.'" In a revised résumé, Weyeneth said he worked at the law firm from November 2014 to August 2015.

Since Robert first reported on the young appointee's rapid ascent to a top White House post, several Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern about Weyeneth and about other unfilled drug policy roles in the administration. The concern comes as Trump, who has pledged to allocate government resources toward the opioid crisis, still has not named a permanent director for his drug policy office.

"You have claimed that the opioid epidemic is a top priority for your administration, but the personnel you have staffing these key agencies - and the lack of nominees to head them - is cause for deep concern," ten lawmakers, including Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), recently wrote to the president.
AGENCY ALERT
- Our colleague Tory Newmyer, who writes The Finance 202, is staking out the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland this week. We noticed FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is among the top Trump appointees who are on the guest list. The president is also expected to attend. Sign up to receive updates from Davos in The Finance 202 here.
HEALTH ON THE HILL
--Top Senate Finance Committee Democrat Ron Wyden (Ore.) wants an investigation into whether Seema Verma, who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, violated ethics rules in handling Medicaid waiver requests from states she used to work with privately. Verma formerly consulted for Kentucky, Arkansas, Iowa and other states seeking permission from the federal government to enact changes to their Medicaid programs.

Wyden asked HHS's general counsel, in a letter last week, to open an ethics investigation into the matter, questioning whether she had recused herself (as she'd promised) from being involved in waiver requests with states with whom she formerly contracted.

"Administrator Verma's commitment to recuse herself from work with former clients appears to have fallen short of the mark thus far, which is extremely concerning given that many of her former clients have sought, or plan to seek, waivers to impose unprecedented work requirements in state Medicaid programs," he wrote.
--A few more good reads from The Post and beyond: MEDICAL MISSIVES INDUSTRY RX STATE SCAN OPIOID OPTICS REPRODUCTIVE WARS DAYBOOK Today

The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, hold the "National Drug and Alcohol Chat Day" web chat event.

The Alliance of Community Health Plans holds a briefing on "The Value of Medicare Advantage."

The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, and the American Public Human Services Association host a webinar.

Coming Up

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on "Facing 21st Century Public Health Threats: Our Nation's Preparedness and Response Capabilities, Part 2" on Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Sickle Cell Disease Advisory Committee for presentations and discussion of programs on Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Institute of Nursing Research to discuss program policies and issues on Tuesday.

The Advisory Board holds a web conference on BPCI Advanced on Tuesday.

The Families USA Health Action Conference begins on Wednesday.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is scheduled to hold a hearing on combatting the opioid crisis on Thursday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Advisory Mental Health Council on Thursday.

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission holds its January meeting starting on Thursday.

SUGAR RUSH
House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the military would be paid during the government shutdown:

Activists protest around the globe during the a second annual Women's March:

Saturday Night Live takes on White House doctor Navy Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson's report on President Trump's health:

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Trump's first year as president:

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Analysis | The Health 202: How the government shutdown could affect your health care (or not)

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The government shutdown isn't over Obamacare this time. But depending on how long it lasts, there will be ripple effects on health care as the Department of Health and Human Services sees half its workers furloughed. Happy third day of the shutdown.

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People affected by the government shutdown 

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People affected by the government shutdown 

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So the government shut down at 12:01 a.m. EST on Saturday after lawmakers unsuccessfully brokered a plan to continue government funding into next week.

But how will various branches and agencies of the federal government respond? Below, a primer of what to expect:

Some history

There have been 12 shutdowns since 1981, ranging in duration from a single day to 21 days, according to the Congressional Research Service. The last shutdown happened in 2013 and lasted 16 days.

Nearly 800,000 federal employees were out of work without pay. In addition, more than a million other working employees had their paychecks delayed. On day five of the shutdown, Congress voted to give the furloughed government employees retroactive pay.

Meanwhile, some members of Congress kept collecting their paychecks, while others voluntarily gave up their checks. According to estimates by the financial services company Standards & Poor's, the last government shutdown cost America $24 billion, or $1.5 billion a day.

Congress still gets paid

It's the ultimate paradox. Salaries for members of the House and Senate are written into permanent law. That's why politicians get paid even in the event that congress can't agree on a bill to fund the government.

"Due to their constitutional responsibilities and a permanent appropriation for congressional pay, Members of Congress are not subject to furlough. Additionally, Article I, Section 6, of the Constitution states that Members of Congress 'shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States,' and the 27th Amendment states, 'No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.'"

What happens to the military?

Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan issued guidance to top Department of Defense heads, including service secretaries, under secretaries of defense, and commanders of combatant commands, on Friday that outlines how the department functions in the absence of government funds.

The department lists "excepted" activities that it considers essential services during a government shutdown. At the top of that list is national security.

U.S. military options around the world continue unaffected, including the war in Afghanistan and ongoing operations in Iraq and Syria. All active duty (and reserve components on federal active duty) continue to work during a shutdown. Civilian personnel with the Department of the Defense who are deemed essential to "excepted" activities will also continue to work. However, both groups would not be paid until after the shutdown ends.

Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP

Non-essential Department of Defense civilian employees will be furloughed. During the 2013 shutdown, 400,000 of the department's 800,000 civilian workers were furloughed without pay, though they were later repaid after the shutdown.

Government contracts that were fully funded prior to the shutdown will continue, but new contracts (including renewals or extensions) will be halted.

Additionally, families will not receive the $100,000 death benefit provided for fallen service members. That money can cover funeral costs and family travel. It also helps to bridge the sudden halt of once-regular paychecks that the deceased was receiving -- paychecks that end immediately after the individual is killed.

During the 2013 shutdown, Congress worked to mitigate the shutdown's effects on the Department of Defense by passing a bill allowing for the death benefits to continue. Another bill allowed service members and "essential" Department of Defense civilian personnel to be exempt from the pay freeze.

Out of 114,647 employees, 95,102 are excepted from furlough, representing 83 percent of DOJ employees. Most of these exempt employees, 72,242, are necessary to protect life and property.

Criminal litigation will continue without interruption, but civil litigation will be curtailed or postponed as long as safety of human life or protection of property are not impacted. Administrative services will curtailed and maintained only to the extent needed to support operations. Training will largely be cancelled.

What happens to the special counsel's Russia investigation?

The Special Counsel's work will continue, as it is funded through a permanent indefinite appropriation. The Special Counsel's Office is funded with a permanent indefinite appropriation and all direct employees are excepted positions because their funding is not dependent upon an appropriations that require renewal.

The U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, would have roughly three weeks of budgetary pad, meaning they can keep the lights on and doors open.

What happens at the State Department? Passport services?

The State Department provided guidance to its employees on Friday in advance of a potential shutdown.

Starting Monday, the agency will furlough non-essential personnel and require them not to work or even use their government-issued laptops or cell phones - although they could come in for four hours to finish any required work and prepare for when the shutdown ends.

Because some U.S. missions overseas are open Sunday to Thursday, those missions would move into restricted operations starting Sunday.

State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said Thursday that the agency will do its best to "minimize the impact on the American people," including passport and visa services. According to the agency's internal guidance, "Consular operations domestically and abroad will remain 100% operational as long as there are sufficient fees to support operations" and except if housed in a different government building that is forced to close.

It's the secretary's office that reviews the available options and will make a decision, but they have no numbers yet on possible furloughs or anything.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

"We're not going to get all excited about what may or may not happen. We will have contingency plans that we put in place and we will adhere to those," she said. But one area that won't be touched: "We will not pull back on areas of national security or staff security."

Tillerson is scheduled to travel to Europe next week, and the agency is still working to determine whether or not he would go, with one State Department official saying they were still awaiting guidance from Office of Management and Budget. Nauert said Thursday that Tillerson will follow all the necessary regulations very carefully, but won't make any decisions until necessary.

The Under Secretary of State for Management normally handles the contingency plans for a shutdown, but because that role is still vacant under the Trump administration, William Todd, the acting Director of Human Resources, sent out the agency's guidance instead.

Tillerson himself was asked about a shutdown during a photo-op with the Jordanian Foreign Minister and said the agency is ready, but hoping there isn't a shutdown.

"We're ready if that's what happens. We hope not. We hope not, but we're ready."

What happens to the Supreme Court?

In the event of a lapse of appropriations, the Supreme Court will continue to conduct its normal operations, and the Court building will be open to the public during its usual hours. The Court will rely on non-appropriated funds, as it has in the past, to maintain operations through the duration of short-term lapses of appropriations.

What happens at other agencies?

Staffing at most agencies will be cut to just a fraction of normal levels across federal government agencies.

Consumer Product Safety Commission: The number of employees goes from 550 to 22. Investigations generally come to a halt. It continues to implement the most critical of recalls.

National Transportation Safety Board: Employees go from 405 to 22. Most investigations cannot be launched or continued during shutdown. However, if a major transportation accident occurs, it will be investigated.

Department of Education: Employees go from 4,000 to 250, more than 150 of those are from the student financial aid office... so already-awarded grants and loans can continue as normal.

Department of Homeland Security: Staffing would go down from 232,860 to 201,700. There will still be normal security at airports, train stations, etc...

FEMA will retain more than 12,000 of its 15,000 employees. But in October of 2013, the agency's administrative support reportedly suffered (IT, HR, etc...)

US Postal Service: You'll still get your mail.

Department of Transportation: Air Traffic Controllers keep directing flights. FAA, FRA, FTA and other agency investigations generally come to a halt unless they pose an imminent threat.

Social Security: Will continue to issue checks.

EPA: Employees were told to go to work next week in the event of a shutdown. Administrator Scott Pruitt said in an email that the EPA has "sufficient resources" to stay open for a limited amount of time.

USDA: Meat, egg, and dairy inspections continue. Food stamps are still available but could run out of money. Food inspections of processed and imported food conducted by the FDA would be suspended.

Customer service at many of these agencies, including Medicare and Medicaid could be impacted due to furloughed employees.

What happens at Department of Health and Human Services

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would have a tough time supporting its annual seasonal influenza program, among other programs. Reduced staffing and worker furloughs might be needed.

Neither CDC nor the Office of Management and Budget would elaborate when asked by ABC News.

What happens to NASA?

NASA says critical work continues - which would need to be identified. The space station is at the top of the list since there are people living in orbit.

We're testing a power source that could provide safe, efficient energy for future crewed missions to the Moon, Mars & beyond. The system may be essential for day-to-day mission needs, like lighting, water & oxygen, as well as fuel for the journey home: https://t.co/vRYuKr4iqn pic.twitter.com/kLzwrvhl5Z
- NASA (@NASA) January 19, 2018

Mission Control would continue to operate 24/7 with a critical needs staff.

However, there would be no more astronauts tweets, because they can't actually tweet on their own - someone on the ground needs to push it out for them. They would assess various missions and see how far along they are in development - first up is the GOLD launch - which measures what happens when space weather from above meets terrestrial weather from below - but its launching from French Guiana so that helps. NASA space station management will be talking about two spacewalks coming up at the end of the month - to do critical work to maintain the space station Canadian robotic arm. The spacewalks would proceed but NASA won't be televising them so if you don't get a direct NASA wired feed you won't know anything (we get those feeds here at out office at Johnson Space Center).

What happens to National Parks?

In a break from previous shutdowns, the administration has said that national parks will be accessible if the government shuts down this weekend, perhaps in an attempt to avoid the striking images of veterans being turned away from war memorials that we saw during previous shutdowns. Roads, trails, and memorials will be open but parks will not collect entrance fees and will not be staffed for basic work like picking up trash, staffing visitors centers, or issuing permits. Campgrounds will be closed.

According to the National Park Service contingency plan only 3,300 employees are deemed essential out of almost 25,000, 650 of which are Park Police. If the Park thinks areas of the park are not safe without guides the area can be closed but they cannot bring on additional staff to enforce the closure. Individual parks will have their own plans to determine what areas will be open.

What happens to the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo?

In the event of a federal government shutdown Friday night, the Smithsonian museums and its National Zoo will remain open for the weekend. The museums and the National Zoo will be closed beginning Monday, Jan. 22. The Smithsonian also has two museums in New York City that will be closed - the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum and Heye Center, a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian.

The National Zoo live-animal cameras, including the panda cam, will not be broadcasting. All the animals will continue to be fed and cared for at the National Zoo. A shutdown will not affect the Zoo's commitment to the safety of staff and the standard excellence in animal care.

ABC News' Lucien Bruggeman, Jeff Cook, Jack Date, Erin Dooley, Stephanie Ebbs, Conor Finnegan, Luis Martinez, Elizabeth McLaughlin, Gina Sunseri, Audrey Taylor, Trish Turner and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this story.

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Here's how a government shutdown could affect you

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So the government shut down at 12:01 a.m. EST on Saturday after lawmakers unsuccessfully brokered a plan to continue government funding into next week. But how will various branches and agencies of the federal government respond? Below, a primer of what to expect: Some history There have been 12...

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Everyone effected by the gov. shutdown-Addison D

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Everyone effected by the gov. shutdown-Addison D

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According to this source, national park services and national museums are closed to visitors. I never would have thought that national parks would be effected by the closing of the government.

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A government shutdown has happened for the first time since 2013.

President Donald Trump, the Republican-controlled Senate and House and the congressional Democratic minority are fighting over how to extend spending for federal operations after the current authority expired on Jan. 19. The key roadblocks are not so much differences on spending levels, but rather on separate issues, notably a renewal of legal status for "Dreamers," people who had been brought illegally to the United States as children.

Here's what happens when government funding expires.
What is a shutdown?
Federal government shutdowns occur when spending bills expire, and Congress and the president find themselves at an impasse.

Shutdowns have a constitutional basis, from Article I, Section 9, which says, "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law."

This has been reinforced by the Antideficiency Act, which stems from an 1870 law that has been revised periodically over the years. There is some leeway to continue certain federal activities that are deemed essential.
How common are shutdowns?
There have been 18 shutdowns since 1976, according to the Congressional Research Service.

However, the impact of these shutdowns has changed significantly since 1980.

Prior to 1980, many federal agencies continued to operate during funding gaps, assuming that money would be restored soon and that Congress didn't intend for them to close down. But in 1980 and 1981, then-Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued two opinions that required agency heads to suspend operations until funding began to flow again.

The only activities that could go forward, Civiletti wrote, were those where there is a connection "between the function to be performed and the safety of human life or the protection of property," or where otherwise "authorized by law."

Some post-1980 shutdowns were devoid of partisan warfare and quickly resolved. That changed in the mid 1990s, when President Bill Clinton squared off against a new Republican majority in the House and Senate. One shutdown lasted for five days in November 1995, and the other went on for 21 days, from December 1995 to January 1996.

After 17 years without a shutdown, President Barack Obama, a Democratic-controlled Senate and a Republican-controlled House failed to reach an agreement on spending, resulting in a two-week shutdown in 2013.
In a shutdown, who works and who doesn't?
During the 2013 shutdown, as many as 850,000 workers were furloughed per day, or about 40 percent of the federal workforce (not counting active-duty military personnel and U.S. Postal Service workers). Roughly 6.6 million employee work days were lost in the 2013 shutdown, with "furloughs affecting workers at the vast majority of agencies," according to the Office of Management and Budget.

Civiletti's guidance for retaining employees whose jobs involve public safety and the protection of property continues to determine who works and who doesn't.

The decisions about individual positions has traditionally been made by senior executives and legal advisors at each agency. In addition, work by federal contractors can be heavily impacted.
How is the military affected?
Active-duty military personnel have always been required to work through shutdowns. Army troops don't abandon their posts and naval ships don't all return to port. In addition, many civilian workers in the Defense Department have been ordered to work through shutdowns.

Other civilian workers in the Defense Department, however, hold jobs that do not meet the urgency threshold to keep working. In 2013, the government furloughed about half of its civilian workers, or about 400,000 employees, leaving a patchwork of various permissible and impermissible activities, according to Federal News Radio.

Meanwhile, veterans' health services would generally continue unabated.
How does a shutdown affect ordinary Americans?
During a shutdown, some government functions may continue, either because Congress has already passed a spending bill for a particular department, because an agency is reliant on funding other than congressional appropriations, or because it is considered vital for the safety of human life or the protection of properties.

However, many activities cease for as long as a shutdown is under way. Here are just a few of the activities that have stopped during previous shutdowns, according to the Congressional Research Service:

* New patients were not accepted into clinical research at the National Institutes of Health, and hotline calls about diseases went unanswered.

* The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ceased disease surveillance.

* Recruitment and testing of federal law-enforcement officials stopped, in one case including the hiring of 400 border patrol agents.

* National Park Service sites and national museums and monuments closed to visitors.

* Work on visa and passport services stopped.

* Inspections for food, consumer products, and workplace safety could not be carried out.

* The Internal Revenue Service was unable to verify income and Social Security numbers in 2013, producing a backlog of 1.2 million requests that may have delayed mortgage and loan approvals.
Would a shutdown affect my tax refund?
Possibly. In 2013, some tax refunds were delayed. This year, work on implementing the newly enacted tax bill - such as updating software and providing staff to answer questions from taxpayers - would likely be hampered, and the processing of tax returns could be affected.
Will I stop getting my mail?
The mail will keep coming, because the U.S. Postal Service is not dependent on federal appropriations for its day-to-day operations.
What happens to the courts?
In many cases, courts have been able to shift money around to keep key operations running during previous shutdowns, though some functions - such as the handling of civil cases and building maintenance - were affected. If the shifted money eventually ran out, many court duties would be considered essential, meaning that judges and other core staffers would avoid being furloughed.

In fact, due to a constitutional prohibition against cutting judicial pay, judges and Supreme Court justices would keep collecting paychecks. Other court staff may need to wait for their paychecks until the shutdown ends, like other federal employees.
Would Social Security checks go out?
If past is prologue, then yes.

Social Security is a mandatory program supported by a trust fund, so Social Security benefits don't have to be formally approved by Congress every year. However, the Social Security Administration employees who literally cut the checks and stuff the envelopes are paid through appropriated funds.

The question about a government shutdown is whether those employees would be kept from going to work and, if so, whether the checks would sit idle rather than arriving in mailboxes nationwide. (This is also a relevant question for other types of federal payments, such as veterans' benefits.)

Historically, at least, shutdown regulations have been flexible enough to provide leeway for federal workers to carry out core Social Security functions, so checks have always gone out in the past. However, some activities, such as the issuance of new Social Security cards, may not continue during a shutdown.
How much does a shutdown cost?
"A shutdown is a huge waste of taxpayer dollars, disruptive of government operations, and simply bad management," said John Palguta, a former federal human-resources official who is now an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute.

The most thorough report examining the 2013 shutdown comes from an Office of Management and Budget analysis.

* $2.5 billion in compensation costs for furloughed workers (whose lack of pay for two weeks hampered consumer spending);

* 120,000 fewer private-sector jobs created in the first half of October;

* $500 million lost in visitor spending because of closed National Parks ;

* $11 million in lost National Parks and Smithsonian Institution revenue;

* Interest accrued on billions of dollars of payments owed to third parties that the government was unable to pay during the shutdown;

* Resources spent on putting activities in standby or maintaining them in an idle mode;

* 1.2 million Internal Revenue Service identity verification requests that couldn't be processed, causing a delay in private-sector lending and other activities;

* Stalled approvals from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration delayed moving products to market.

Private financial analytics companies also estimated a negative effect on the economy.

Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics, said the 2013 shutdown stunted fourth quarter GDP growth by 0.5 points, resulting in a $20 billion hit. Standard & Poor's said the shutdown took $24 billion out of the economy and reduced yearly fourth quarter GDP growth by 0.6 percent. Macroeconomic Advisers estimated the shutdown cut 0.3 points off of fourth-quarter growth

All told, when Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said that "it cost us more to shut the government down than to keep it open," we rated it True.
Are the workers who stay on the job paid?
Not immediately, at least.

Employees who are required to work are not paid until a new spending bill is passed- meaning they are effectively working for free, at least temporarily.

Furloughed workers have historically been compensated for back pay through subsequent congressional action, though there is no requirement that such a bill be passed. In 2013, the Office of Management and Budget estimated that $2.5 billion in pay and benefits was paid for hours not worked government-wide.

As the 2013 shutdown was going on, Congress and Obama agreed to a bill in the middle that paid all active-duty and many civilian Defense Department employees. This enabled Defense Department employees to return to work while the shutdown was still under way for workers in other departments.
Can furloughed employees go to work if they want?
No, furloughed employees are barred from working during a shutdown, "except to perform minimal activities as necessary to execute an orderly suspension of agency operations," according to the Office of Personnel Management. "An agency may not accept the voluntary services of an employee."

Federal employees theoretically could take another job during their period of furlough, but they would have to run a gauntlet of ethical approvals that makes this option unlikely. They also may qualify for unemployment insurance, though the turnaround time for receiving benefits from their jurisdiction may reduce the feasibility of this option.

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Everything you need to know about a government shutdown

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Updated January 20, 2018. A government shutdown has happened for the first time since 2013. President Donald Trump, the Republican-controlled Senate and House and the congressional Democratic minority are fighting over how to extend spending for federal operations after the current authority expired on Jan. 19.

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Medical Research During a Shutdown- Bailey Herrera

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Medical Research During a Shutdown- Bailey Herrera

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Medical researchers and scientists across the US lose federal government funding for the duration of the shutdown if they are funded by the Fed system. In this situation, their expenditure ratio is reduced and they must pay out of pocket if they extend the expenditure. Government may continue to fund essential research to the US such as the CDC flu research due to the Flu epidemic this year.

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How the government shutdown could affect your health care

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How the government shutdown could affect your health care

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Venla Kuvaja

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The government shutdown isn't over Obamacare this time. But depending on how long it lasts, there will be ripple effects on health care as the Department of Health and Human Services sees half its workers furloughed.
Happy third day of the shutdown. The impasse on Capitol Hill continues, as Democrats refuse to budge on their demands for legal protections for young immigrants and Republicans seem unwilling to move in their direction, my tireless colleagues Robert Costa, Erica Werner, Mike DeBonis and Sean Sullivan report. After a bipartisan group of moderate senators failed to produce a compromise yesterday, buy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to hold a vote at about noon anyway. There was some hope building yesterday for a deal to fund the government for three weeks with a guarantee by McConnell to consider immigration legislation after that if there has been no agreement before then. But it doesn't look like we're there yet.

The effects of the shutdown were relatively limited over the weekend, but now that the workweek is starting, hundreds of thousands of workers will stay home and key federal agencies will be affected. "Federal contractors will see payments delayed, and the Internal Revenue Service will slow its preparations for the coming tax season," my colleagues writes.

Trump, who to his aides relief it seems, has remained relatively quiet during the shutdown so far. Nonetheless, the president took to Twitter this morning to blame Democrats:

The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens. Not good!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018

Democrats have shut down our government in the interests of their far left base. They don't want to do it but are powerless!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018

But the effects of a shutdown -- especially if it continues -- on the federal workforce, and Americans by extension, are real.

Granted, because so much of what HHS does is considered "essential," a smaller proportion of its workers are furloughed during a shutdown compared to other agencies. About 41,000 of HHS' 82,148 employees will still come to work today, according to these helpful visuals from The Post's Darla Cameron and Lisa Rein. There are five other federal agencies - Justice, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Defense and Transportation - where at least half of employees are similarly considered essential.

On Friday, HHS updated its last shutdown contingency plan - issued in the fall of 2013 when the government shut down for more than two weeks as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) demanded to defund the Affordable Care Act - with a new version. Per that document, here are five top things the agency keeps doing while the government is shuttered - and five services it halts.
Services that continue:
1. States keep getting their Medicaid payments. Federal funding for the health insurance program for the low-income population is secure through the end of June, according to the contingency plan. And because states oversee enrollment, Americans should be able to continue signing up for the program without hiccups.

2. Seniors can keep seeing the doctor. As with Medicaid, Medicare has funding sources that don't depend on Congress passing annual spending bills. Beneficiaries shouldn't much feel the effects of a shutdown, unless it is prolonged. Medicare will continue to reimburse medical providers, so coverage should continue without interruption.

3. Premium subsidies continue for Obamacare enrollees, and the marketplaces remain open for those qualifying to sign up off-season. Like Medicare and Medicaid benefits, marketplace subsidies are considered mandatory spending. And the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services can use leftover fees paid by health insurers to keep verifying eligibility so enrollments can continue.

4. The Food and Drug Administration continues drug reviews. That's because these reviews are paid for by fees from the pharmaceutical industry. Staffers who analyze and review medicines entering the United States would also be considered essential, according to HHS.

5. The nation's 1,400 community health centers stay open. These clinics - which provide preventive care and dental services to about 27 million low-income Americans - also enjoy mandatory spending status. But they're threatened by an underlying problem: The program has needed reauthorization by Congress since last fall, and it's unclear whether lawmakers will include that in a spending bill reopening the government.
Services that stop or slow:
1. The FDA's food-safety inspection program hits pause. "FDA will be unable to support the majority of its food safety, nutrition and cosmetics activities," the HHS contingency plan says. The exception is meat and poultry inspections carried out by the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

2. The National Institutes of Health can't enroll new patients in clinical trials or take action on grant applications. During the last shutdown, NIH turned away about 200 patients each week from its clinical research center since nearly three-fourths of its staff was furloughed. The center can only admit new patients with cases NIH Director Francis Collins deems "medically necessary."

3. No new mental health or social services grant awards and less monitoring of existing grants. The HHS departments most involved in issuing grants to health-care providers around the country would be particularly affected by the shutdown because more of their employees are furloughed. This includes the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Administration for Children and Families.

4. Payments for senior nutrition programs stop. The shutdown would halt funding for federal senior nutrition programs funded through the Administration for Community Living, and would delay federal reimbursements to privately run programs such as Meals on Wheels (which services more than 2.4 million seniors across the country). But the severity of the impact on such programs depends on how long the shutdown lasts.

5. Response to this year's deadly flu outbreak could be slowed. The CDC says its "immediate response to urgent disease outbreaks, including seasonal influenza" will continue. This includes collecting data reported by states, hospitals and others. But a CDC representative told BuzzFeed News the reports could be issued at a slower rate than usual. Former CDC director Tom Frieden, who led the agency during the 2013 shutdown, told NPR the shutdown means a slower response to changes in the flu virus and less preparation among doctors to provide rapid treatment.
AHH, OOF and OUCH
AHH: A government shutdown comes at an especially inopportune time for flu season, which is particularly deadly this year per the latest data released Friday, The Post's Lena H. Sun reports. During the second week of January, more people sought care for flulike illnesses than at any comparable period in nearly a decade and 10 children died, bringing the total number of pediatric deaths this flu season to 30. More than 8,900 people have been hospitalized since the season started Oct. 1.

"The flu activity indicators are notable for the sheer volume and intensity of flu that is taking place in most of the country at the same time," Lena writes. "A federal government shutdown could complicate CDC's ability to know, in real time, whether flu cases are continuing to increase."

About 63 percent of CDC employees are furloughed, according to HHS's contingency plan. While state labs will continue to operate and monitor flu activity, test specimens and send that information to the federal agency, there may not be enough CDC epidemiologists to monitor the data and compile it, Lena reports. Additionally, there are spot shortages of prescription antiviral drugs and it's unclear whether the agency personnel working on that will be able to stay on duty during a shutdown.

OOF: In the state President Trump called a "drug-infested den" - New Hampshire - the opioid crisis is something of an obsession, the New York Times's Katharine Q. Seelye reports. New Hampshire is tied with Ohio for the state with the second-highest rate of drug overdose deaths per capita (West Virginia is first), and 53 percent of adults there say drugs are the biggest problem.

It's surprising when you consider New Hampshire's demographics. "Unlike West Virginia, New Hampshire is relatively prosperous, which makes an opioid crisis here seem all the more jarring," Katharine writes. "This state has the highest median household income in the country, ranks low in unemployment and crime, and often lands at or near the top of lists of the best states in which to live."

So why is the state's opioid problem so bad? Researchers say one big reason is the proximity to an abundant drug supply in neighboring Massachusetts and its drug distribution networks; another is the state's limited spending on addiction services. In addition, doctors in New Hampshire have long prescribed opioids at almost twice the national rate.

"This is a kind of perfect storm," Lisa Marsch, a professor of psychiatry and health policy at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, told the Times. "We have highly available, highly potent opioids in New Hampshire. And highly limited resources to reduce the risk."

OUCH: And over in neighboring Massachusetts, there's a spirited debate over the idea of "supervised injection sites" as another way to reduce overdose deaths, the AP reports. These sites are safe spaces where drug users can shoot up under the supervision of trained staff. While the Massachusetts Medical Society and the Massachusetts Hospital Association back the idea, Gov. Charlie Baker (R) is among the skeptics who don't see such sites as leading to treatment.

"As far as the data I've seen is concerned, it has not demonstrated any legitimate success in creating a pathway to treatment," Baker said at a public hearing last week. "The harm reduction argument I think is a much better one, but I'm kind of a hard sell on that one."

"In a report released last year, the medical society found supervised injection sites can reduce overdose mortality and increase access to drug treatment. Much of the research is based on two sites in Canada and Australia," Steve Leblanc writes. "The report called for the creation of a pilot supervised injection facility program in Massachusetts. The group said the state should seek an exemption from federal drug laws to pursue the pilot program and consider partnering with other states."
TRUMP TEMPERATURE
- The Trump administration may be no more willing to put more restrictions on food stamps than was the Obama administration. Although momentum is building for a ban on the purchase of candy and soda with food stamps, the Agriculture Department last week denied a request from Maine that would have placed such restrictions on its food stamp program, The Post's Caitlin Dewey reports. Now, supporters of such bans are trying to parse the meaning of the rejection.

"In its application to USDA, Maine said it would evaluate the ban's impact on soda and candy purchases but did not propose any specific monitoring of health effects," Caitlin writes. "It is not clear if USDA rejected the request because of this kind of omission or because the administration more generally opposes junk food bans."

"When considering waiver requests, USDA focuses on moving people into self-sufficient lives, protecting the integrity of the program, and improving customer service," the agency said in a statement. "We don't want to be in the business of picking winners and losers among food products in the marketplace, or in passing judgment about the relative benefits of individual food products."

--About that 24-year-old in a top Trump administration role: Taylor Weyeneth, who was appointed to a top position in the White House's drug policy office at age 23, was previously dismissed from a job at a law firm for repeatedly missing work, The Post's Robert O'Harrow Jr. reports. Weyeneth worked as a legal assistant at the New York firm O'Dwyer & Bernstien while in college, but he was "discharged" in August 2015 for being a no-show.

Brian O'Dwyer, a partner at the firm, said he hired Weyeneth in part because both men were involved in the same fraternity. He told Robert the team was "very disappointed in what happened" and that Weyeneth "just didn't show."

"In a résumé initially submitted to the government, Weyeneth said he worked at the firm until April 2016," Robert writes. "When an FBI official called as part of a background check in January 2017, the firm said Weyeneth had left eight months earlier than the résumé indicated...an administration official previously said that Weyeneth revised his résumé to correct 'errors.'" In a revised résumé, Weyeneth said he worked at the law firm from November 2014 to August 2015.

Since Robert first reported on the young appointee's rapid ascent to a top White House post, several Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern about Weyeneth and about other unfilled drug policy roles in the administration. The concern comes as Trump, who has pledged to allocate government resources toward the opioid crisis, still has not named a permanent director for his drug policy office.

"You have claimed that the opioid epidemic is a top priority for your administration, but the personnel you have staffing these key agencies - and the lack of nominees to head them - is cause for deep concern," ten lawmakers, including Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), recently wrote to the president.
AGENCY ALERT
- Our colleague Tory Newmyer, who writes The Finance 202, is staking out the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland this week. We noticed FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is among the top Trump appointees who are on the guest list. The president is also expected to attend. Sign up to receive updates from Davos in The Finance 202 here.
HEALTH ON THE HILL
--Top Senate Finance Committee Democrat Ron Wyden (Ore.) wants an investigation into whether Seema Verma, who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, violated ethics rules in handling Medicaid waiver requests from states she used to work with privately. Verma formerly consulted for Kentucky, Arkansas, Iowa and other states seeking permission from the federal government to enact changes to their Medicaid programs.

Wyden asked HHS's general counsel, in a letter last week, to open an ethics investigation into the matter, questioning whether she had recused herself (as she'd promised) from being involved in waiver requests with states with whom she formerly contracted.

"Administrator Verma's commitment to recuse herself from work with former clients appears to have fallen short of the mark thus far, which is extremely concerning given that many of her former clients have sought, or plan to seek, waivers to impose unprecedented work requirements in state Medicaid programs," he wrote.
--A few more good reads from The Post and beyond: MEDICAL MISSIVES INDUSTRY RX STATE SCAN OPIOID OPTICS REPRODUCTIVE WARS DAYBOOK Today

The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, hold the "National Drug and Alcohol Chat Day" web chat event.

The Alliance of Community Health Plans holds a briefing on "The Value of Medicare Advantage."

The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, and the American Public Human Services Association host a webinar.

Coming Up

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on "Facing 21st Century Public Health Threats: Our Nation's Preparedness and Response Capabilities, Part 2" on Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Sickle Cell Disease Advisory Committee for presentations and discussion of programs on Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Institute of Nursing Research to discuss program policies and issues on Tuesday.

The Advisory Board holds a web conference on BPCI Advanced on Tuesday.

The Families USA Health Action Conference begins on Wednesday.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is scheduled to hold a hearing on combatting the opioid crisis on Thursday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Advisory Mental Health Council on Thursday.

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission holds its January meeting starting on Thursday.

SUGAR RUSH
House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the military would be paid during the government shutdown:

Activists protest around the globe during the a second annual Women's March:

Saturday Night Live takes on White House doctor Navy Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson's report on President Trump's health:

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Trump's first year as president:

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Analysis | The Health 202: How the government shutdown could affect your health care (or not)

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The government shutdown isn't over Obamacare this time. But depending on how long it lasts, there will be ripple effects on health care as the Department of Health and Human Services sees half its workers furloughed. Happy third day of the shutdown.

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It's tax filing season. But the federal government is now shut down after a debate over immigration got in the way of Congress passing a spending deal. So how will this affect your tax returns and refunds?

The short version: You can still mail in your tax returns or submit them online. And if the federal government shutdown only lasts a few days (and ends, specifically, before January 29), there shouldn't be a noticeable effect on getting your tax refund or any other processing. That's because the IRS wasn't planning to accept tax returns until January 29, anyway.

But if the shutdown drags on longer, there could be delays and other serious problems at the IRS. So if you plan to rely on your tax refund for a big January or February purchase, you may want to hold off.

The long version: As part of the federal government shutdown, the IRS will retain less than half of its workforce - or a little more than 35,000 people, according to a contingency plan.

That will let the IRS continue some operations in the short term. Some examples: processing electronic returns, processing returns with payments, mailing tax forms, appeals, civil and criminal cases, criminal investigations, and some technical work to make sure computer systems remain up and running.

So you will be able to mail in your tax returns or submit them online - whatever you prefer.

But depending on how long the shutdown lasts, there could be some problems.

First, tax refunds will stop being issued. Now, this shouldn't affect most taxpayers unless the shutdown drags on. Although the IRS considers tax filing season to run between January 1 and April 30, it wasn't planning to accept 2017 tax returns until January 29, according to CNN.

So if the shutdown ends before then, there shouldn't be a big impact on getting people's 2017 tax refunds issued. If the shutdown lasts beyond January 29, expect delays on those refunds (since, after all, the government will be running out of cash).

One group that could be affected: those still waiting on tax refunds from before 2017. As long as the government remains closed down, don't expect to get those refunds.

Meanwhile, the IRS will also stop several other functions: audits, return examinations, non-automated collections, and 1040X processing, among other operations. (For a full list, check out the IRS's contingency plan.)

One other area in which the IRS may have problems is implementing the 2017 tax plan passed by Republicans in Congress and signed by President Donald Trump. National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson had already told Congress earlier this year that the IRS needed more money to implement the law. A shutdown will likely make the problem worse, though, as with other possible problems, it shouldn't get too bad unless the shutdown continues for long.

That's the big caveat to all of this: The longer the shutdown goes on for, the worse problems will get. In particular, the IRS has indicated that if the shutdown lasts longer than five days, there could be changes in its plan.

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The government shutdown's effect on tax returns and refunds, explained

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It's tax filing season. But the federal government is now shut down after a debate over immigration got in the way of Congress passing a spending deal. So how will this affect your tax returns and refunds? The short version: You can still mail in your tax returns or submit them online.

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The Department of Veterans Affairs - which runs more than 150 hospitals across the country - will remain open and largely unaffected by the federal government shutdown.

Certain claims processing departments of the VA may experience a slowdown. But its core functions - providing health care services to an estimated 9 million American veterans - are largely exempted from federal rules that require "nonessential" services to scale back or shut entirely.

The VA's official shutdown plan notes that 96 percent of its 377,000 employees will continue to work through a government shutdown. That's a significantly higher share than most other federal employees. Only 5 percent of Department of Education employees continue to work through a shutdown, for example, and 50 percent of Health and Human Services workers.

VA hospitals and clinics will remain open in the midst of a government shutdown, with patients able to keep their appointments or seek help in case of an emergency.

The reason the VA continues to operate normally has to do with the criteria the government uses to decide which functions are "essential" during a shutdown. Those criteria instruct agencies to keep running programs that are necessary to protect human life and property.

The VA's role administering medical care means it easily fits into the category of protecting human life.

There are, however, some smaller functions of the VA that did slow down during the last government shutdown in 2013. The agency stopped processing disability claims during that 16-day closure. A federal report estimated that this "stalled weekly progress in reducing the backlog of veterans' disability claims, which was previously being reduced at a rate of almost 20,000 claims per week."

The same report found that certain call lines, meant to help veterans better understand their benefits, closed during the shutdown.

"Services that help veterans understand their benefits - including the education call center, hotlines, and all regional offices outreach activities - were closed to the public during the shutdown, and many veterans lost access to vocational rehabilitation and education counseling services," the Office of Management and Budget report said.

Read more of Vox's 2018 government shutdown coverage here.

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Why VA hospitals stay open during a government shutdown

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The Department of Veterans Affairs - which runs more than 150 hospitals across the country - will remain open and largely unaffected by the federal government shutdown. Certain claims processing departments of the VA may experience a slowdown.

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J. Scott Applewhite/AP Images

The deal to reopen the federal government, passed Monday, will fund the government through February 8.

The Senate's deal to end the shutdown included a commitment from Republicans to try to codify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program into law.

Just a day after Congress struck the deal, negotiations over DACA are not looking promising.

Congress voted to reopen the government on Monday, ending the partial shutdown of federal services after just 69 hours. But in doing so, lawmakers set up another shutdown deadline just over two weeks away.

The two parties have just 15 days, until February 8, to resolve the differences over immigration, defense funding, and social programs that helped prompt the shutdown last weekend. And the chances of avoiding a second shutdown already look grim.

"A sequel seems likely given absolutely no policy resolution," said Chris Krueger, an analyst at Cowen Washington Research Group.

DACA is the central fight

The main policy issue that could push Washington to the brink of a second shutdown is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields from deportation about 700,000 unauthorized immigrants who came to the US as minors.

As part of the deal to end a shutdown, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to hold a vote to codify the program into law. President Donald Trump in September announced plans to end the program, but he gave Congress until March 5 to work out a permanent solution for it.

The key sticking point in the February shutdown negotiations won't be formulating a bill that is acceptable to most senators. Rather, it will come in finding a deal that both the House of Representatives and the White House support.

The White House has already poured cold water on a bipartisan bill from GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin.

"The Graham-Durbin proposal is not a proposal the president can sign," the White House deputy press secretary, Raj Shah, said.

The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, reiterated the position Tuesday, saying the Graham-Durbin bill "should be declared dead on arrival."

Trump also addressed the coming fight over DACA in a statement applauding the end of the government shutdown.

"As I have always said, once the government is funded, my administration will work toward solving the problem of very unfair illegal immigration," Trump said. "We will make a long-term deal on immigration if, and only if, it is good for our country."

Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

House Republicans have already declared themselves not privy to any deal between McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

"There were no commitments made in the House," Rep. Steve Scalise, the House majority whip, said Tuesday.

In fact, to help secure votes from the conservative House Freedom Caucus to pass a spending bill last week, House leadership agreed to support a staunchly conservative immigration bill. That legislation would be dead on arrival in the Senate, and it shows the massive gap between the two chambers.

"We believe that you need to start in the House and it has been my position consistently, you start in the House with the most conservative bill, you send it to the Senate, it gets moderated in the Senate, and then comes back," Rep. Mark Meadows, the Freedom Caucus chair, told reporters last weekend. "And perhaps a bill that I vote on to start the process in the House is not one I vote for in final passage, but it's the way that it's supposed to work."

It's not only Republicans rejecting ideas to solve the impasse on DACA. Schumer said his offer to Trump to partially fund the president's long-promised wall on the Mexican border, made during a negotiation on Friday, was no longer valid.

But that's not all

DACA represents the central issue of the next shutdown fight, but it won't the only policy problem Congress must resolve before February 8.

Also high on the list is funding for the 2018 fiscal year. The bill passed Monday was a short-term funding vehicle known as a continuing resolution, and it is the fourth such stopgap measure Congress has used to fund the government since September.

Members of both parties have criticized the use of continuing resolutions, which provide little long-term certainty for federal agencies. Before the next deadline, congressional leaders must agree on funding levels for defense and nondefense programs over the next year and a half.

Reaching an agreement is harder than it sounds. Republicans want to bump military spending by twice as much as nondefense spending, while Democrats want those two sides to rise in equal measure.

Given the ramifications, the funding issue could become nearly as contentious as the DACA fight.

Lawmakers must also come to agreements on additional funds for disaster relief, extensions of certain Medicare provisions, funds for programs to combat the opioid crisis, policies to stabilize the individual health-insurance marketplaces, and more.

While none of these issues are as politically divisive as DACA, they could complicate negotiations over the next two-plus weeks.

Perhaps best summarizing how far lawmakers have to go, Cowen's Krueger described the agreement that ended the shutdown as a deal "to maybe do a Senate deal later" with "no agreements from the House or White House."

He added: "It is literally a deal that hinges on a nonbinding promise for the Senate to begin talking about immigration later this month on the floor."

SEE ALSO: Congress just set up another government shutdown deadline - and the next fight could get even nastier

NOW WATCH: Here's how the map of the United States has changed in 200 years

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The fight over the next government shutdown - just 15 days away - already looks like a disaster

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The deal to reopen the federal government, passed Monday, will fund the government through February 8. The Senate's deal to end the shutdown included a commitment from Republicans to try to codify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program into law. Just a day after Congress struck the deal, negotiations over DACA are not looking promising.

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Ridiculous on both sides: Government shutdown continues; so do negotiations

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Ridiculous on both sides: Government shutdown continues; so do negotiations

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WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's budget director is holding out hope that feuding Democrats and Republicans in Congress can reach a short-term spending agreement before the start of the workweek Monday, but he worries that the government shutdown could last for several more days if progress remains elusive.

Democratic lawmakers challenged the president to get more involved and to accept bipartisan compromise as a way out of a shutdown that entered its second day Sunday amid finger-pointing from both parties as to who bears primary responsibility.

"I really do believe that at heart here there was an interest by some folks in the Democratic Party to deny the president sort of the victory lap of the anniversary of his inauguration, the chance to talk about the success of the tax bill, the success of the economy and jobs," budget director Mick Mulvaney said on "Fox News Sunday." ''And I think if they get over that, there's a chance this thing gets done before 9 o'clock on Monday morning when folks come to work."

Democratic lawmakers counter that the president hurt negotiations when he initially expressed support for a compromise and then abruptly turned away from it.

"How can you negotiate with the president under those circumstances where he agrees face-to-face to move forward with a certain path and then within two hours calls back and pulls the plug?" said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on ABC's "This Week."

Five Republicans were among the senators who voted Friday night against a House-passed plan. The measure gained 50 votes to proceed to 49 against, but 60 were needed to break a Democratic filibuster. One of those senators, Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky, said he is opposed to short-term fiscal bills and called the blame game "ridiculous on both sides."

"It's gamesmanship and it's partisanship," Paul said.

Paul said the answer to solving the brinksmanship is to guarantee Democrats in writing that they'll get their debate on immigration issues.

Durbin said bipartisan conversations are taking place and lawmakers from both sides are "in good faith trying to find common ground and put this behind us."

"But at the end of the day the president has to step up and lead in this situation," Durbin said.

Lawmakers are participating in rare weekend proceedings in both the House and Senate, where lawmakers were eager to show voters they were actively working for a solution -- or at least actively making their case why the other party was at fault. The scene highlighted the political stakes for both parties in an election-year shutdown whose consequences are far from clear.

Democrats refused to provide the votes needed to reopen the government until they strike a deal with Trump protecting young immigrants from deportation, providing disaster relief and boosting spending for opioid treatment and other domestic programs.

The shutdown came on the anniversary of Trump's inauguration. As lawmakers bickered in the Capitol, protesters marched outside in a reprise of the women's march from a year ago. The president remained out of sight and canceled plans to travel to his resort in Florida for the weekend. He did tweet, making light of the timing by saying Democrats "wanted to give me a nice present" to mark the start of his second year in office.

And he resumed his social media commentary early Sunday, before lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill, tweeting that it was "Great to see how hard Republicans are fighting for our Military and Safety at the Border. The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked." He suggested that if the stalemate drags on, majority Republicans should consider changing Senate rules to do away with the 60-vote threshold to advance legislation and "vote on real, long term budget."

Trump earlier had worked the phones, staying in touch with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., while White House legislative affairs director Marc Short and the budget chief, Mulvaney, met at the Capitol with House Republicans. GOP lawmakers voiced support for the White House stance of not negotiating while the government was shuttered.

Tempers were short and theatrics high.

Republicans blamed the breakdown on Schumer. Democrats increasingly focused their messaging on criticizing Trump, whose popularity is dismal. Democrats were using his zigzagging stance in immigration talks -- first encouraging deals, then rejecting them -- to underscore his first, chaotic year in office.

"Negotiating with President Trump is like negotiating with Jell-O," Schumer said.

Short compared Democrats' actions to "a 2-year-old temper tantrum."

Republicans seemed content to hope additional Democrats will break as pressure builds and the impact of the shutdown becomes clearer. GOP lawmakers argued that Democrats were blocking extra Pentagon money by keeping government closed and thwarting a long-term budget deal.

But pressure on Republicans could mount when the new business week begins and the impact becomes more apparent to the public.

The Statue of Liberty and Philadelphia's Liberty Bell were closed, but visitors had access to other sites such as Yellowstone. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke tweeted a photo of him talking to students at the World War II Memorial in Washington, blocks from the White House.

Social Security and most other safety-net programs were unaffected by the lapse in federal spending authority. Critical government functions continued, with uniformed service members, health inspectors and law enforcement officers set to work without pay. But if no deal is reached before Monday, hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be furloughed.

For leverage, Democrats were banking on Trump's wobbly presidency and the GOP's control of the White House, the House and Senate -- a triumvirate that until now had never allowed a government closure to occur.

Democrats have been seeking a deal to protect so-called Dreamers. About 700,000 of them have been shielded against deportation by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which Trump halted last year. He's given lawmakers until early March to pass legislation restoring the protections, but he's demanded added money for his proposed border wall with Mexico as a price.
By Alan Fram, Andrew Taylor and Zeke Miller, Associated Press. Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, Richard Lardner and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

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'Ridiculous on both sides': Government shutdown continues; so do negotiations

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President Donald Trump's budget director is holding out hope that feuding Democrats and Republicans in Congress can reach a short-term spending agreement before the start of the workweek Monday, but he worries that the government shutdown could last for several more days if progress remains elusive.

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How the government shutdown could affect health care 

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How the government shutdown could affect health care 

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Isabella Mejia

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The government shutdown isn't over Obamacare this time. But depending on how long it lasts, there will be ripple effects on health care as the Department of Health and Human Services sees half its workers furloughed.
Happy third day of the shutdown. The impasse on Capitol Hill continues, as Democrats refuse to budge on their demands for legal protections for young immigrants and Republicans seem unwilling to move in their direction, my tireless colleagues Robert Costa, Erica Werner, Mike DeBonis and Sean Sullivan report. After a bipartisan group of moderate senators failed to produce a compromise yesterday, buy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to hold a vote at about noon anyway. There was some hope building yesterday for a deal to fund the government for three weeks with a guarantee by McConnell to consider immigration legislation after that if there has been no agreement before then. But it doesn't look like we're there yet.

The effects of the shutdown were relatively limited over the weekend, but now that the workweek is starting, hundreds of thousands of workers will stay home and key federal agencies will be affected. "Federal contractors will see payments delayed, and the Internal Revenue Service will slow its preparations for the coming tax season," my colleagues writes.

Trump, who to his aides relief it seems, has remained relatively quiet during the shutdown so far. Nonetheless, the president took to Twitter this morning to blame Democrats:

The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens. Not good!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018

Democrats have shut down our government in the interests of their far left base. They don't want to do it but are powerless!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018

But the effects of a shutdown -- especially if it continues -- on the federal workforce, and Americans by extension, are real.

Granted, because so much of what HHS does is considered "essential," a smaller proportion of its workers are furloughed during a shutdown compared to other agencies. About 41,000 of HHS' 82,148 employees will still come to work today, according to these helpful visuals from The Post's Darla Cameron and Lisa Rein. There are five other federal agencies - Justice, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Defense and Transportation - where at least half of employees are similarly considered essential.

On Friday, HHS updated its last shutdown contingency plan - issued in the fall of 2013 when the government shut down for more than two weeks as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) demanded to defund the Affordable Care Act - with a new version. Per that document, here are five top things the agency keeps doing while the government is shuttered - and five services it halts.
Services that continue:
1. States keep getting their Medicaid payments. Federal funding for the health insurance program for the low-income population is secure through the end of June, according to the contingency plan. And because states oversee enrollment, Americans should be able to continue signing up for the program without hiccups.

2. Seniors can keep seeing the doctor. As with Medicaid, Medicare has funding sources that don't depend on Congress passing annual spending bills. Beneficiaries shouldn't much feel the effects of a shutdown, unless it is prolonged. Medicare will continue to reimburse medical providers, so coverage should continue without interruption.

3. Premium subsidies continue for Obamacare enrollees, and the marketplaces remain open for those qualifying to sign up off-season. Like Medicare and Medicaid benefits, marketplace subsidies are considered mandatory spending. And the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services can use leftover fees paid by health insurers to keep verifying eligibility so enrollments can continue.

4. The Food and Drug Administration continues drug reviews. That's because these reviews are paid for by fees from the pharmaceutical industry. Staffers who analyze and review medicines entering the United States would also be considered essential, according to HHS.

5. The nation's 1,400 community health centers stay open. These clinics - which provide preventive care and dental services to about 27 million low-income Americans - also enjoy mandatory spending status. But they're threatened by an underlying problem: The program has needed reauthorization by Congress since last fall, and it's unclear whether lawmakers will include that in a spending bill reopening the government.
Services that stop or slow:
1. The FDA's food-safety inspection program hits pause. "FDA will be unable to support the majority of its food safety, nutrition and cosmetics activities," the HHS contingency plan says. The exception is meat and poultry inspections carried out by the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

2. The National Institutes of Health can't enroll new patients in clinical trials or take action on grant applications. During the last shutdown, NIH turned away about 200 patients each week from its clinical research center since nearly three-fourths of its staff was furloughed. The center can only admit new patients with cases NIH Director Francis Collins deems "medically necessary."

3. No new mental health or social services grant awards and less monitoring of existing grants. The HHS departments most involved in issuing grants to health-care providers around the country would be particularly affected by the shutdown because more of their employees are furloughed. This includes the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Administration for Children and Families.

4. Payments for senior nutrition programs stop. The shutdown would halt funding for federal senior nutrition programs funded through the Administration for Community Living, and would delay federal reimbursements to privately run programs such as Meals on Wheels (which services more than 2.4 million seniors across the country). But the severity of the impact on such programs depends on how long the shutdown lasts.

5. Response to this year's deadly flu outbreak could be slowed. The CDC says its "immediate response to urgent disease outbreaks, including seasonal influenza" will continue. This includes collecting data reported by states, hospitals and others. But a CDC representative told BuzzFeed News the reports could be issued at a slower rate than usual. Former CDC director Tom Frieden, who led the agency during the 2013 shutdown, told NPR the shutdown means a slower response to changes in the flu virus and less preparation among doctors to provide rapid treatment.
AHH, OOF and OUCH
AHH: A government shutdown comes at an especially inopportune time for flu season, which is particularly deadly this year per the latest data released Friday, The Post's Lena H. Sun reports. During the second week of January, more people sought care for flulike illnesses than at any comparable period in nearly a decade and 10 children died, bringing the total number of pediatric deaths this flu season to 30. More than 8,900 people have been hospitalized since the season started Oct. 1.

"The flu activity indicators are notable for the sheer volume and intensity of flu that is taking place in most of the country at the same time," Lena writes. "A federal government shutdown could complicate CDC's ability to know, in real time, whether flu cases are continuing to increase."

About 63 percent of CDC employees are furloughed, according to HHS's contingency plan. While state labs will continue to operate and monitor flu activity, test specimens and send that information to the federal agency, there may not be enough CDC epidemiologists to monitor the data and compile it, Lena reports. Additionally, there are spot shortages of prescription antiviral drugs and it's unclear whether the agency personnel working on that will be able to stay on duty during a shutdown.

OOF: In the state President Trump called a "drug-infested den" - New Hampshire - the opioid crisis is something of an obsession, the New York Times's Katharine Q. Seelye reports. New Hampshire is tied with Ohio for the state with the second-highest rate of drug overdose deaths per capita (West Virginia is first), and 53 percent of adults there say drugs are the biggest problem.

It's surprising when you consider New Hampshire's demographics. "Unlike West Virginia, New Hampshire is relatively prosperous, which makes an opioid crisis here seem all the more jarring," Katharine writes. "This state has the highest median household income in the country, ranks low in unemployment and crime, and often lands at or near the top of lists of the best states in which to live."

So why is the state's opioid problem so bad? Researchers say one big reason is the proximity to an abundant drug supply in neighboring Massachusetts and its drug distribution networks; another is the state's limited spending on addiction services. In addition, doctors in New Hampshire have long prescribed opioids at almost twice the national rate.

"This is a kind of perfect storm," Lisa Marsch, a professor of psychiatry and health policy at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, told the Times. "We have highly available, highly potent opioids in New Hampshire. And highly limited resources to reduce the risk."

OUCH: And over in neighboring Massachusetts, there's a spirited debate over the idea of "supervised injection sites" as another way to reduce overdose deaths, the AP reports. These sites are safe spaces where drug users can shoot up under the supervision of trained staff. While the Massachusetts Medical Society and the Massachusetts Hospital Association back the idea, Gov. Charlie Baker (R) is among the skeptics who don't see such sites as leading to treatment.

"As far as the data I've seen is concerned, it has not demonstrated any legitimate success in creating a pathway to treatment," Baker said at a public hearing last week. "The harm reduction argument I think is a much better one, but I'm kind of a hard sell on that one."

"In a report released last year, the medical society found supervised injection sites can reduce overdose mortality and increase access to drug treatment. Much of the research is based on two sites in Canada and Australia," Steve Leblanc writes. "The report called for the creation of a pilot supervised injection facility program in Massachusetts. The group said the state should seek an exemption from federal drug laws to pursue the pilot program and consider partnering with other states."
TRUMP TEMPERATURE
- The Trump administration may be no more willing to put more restrictions on food stamps than was the Obama administration. Although momentum is building for a ban on the purchase of candy and soda with food stamps, the Agriculture Department last week denied a request from Maine that would have placed such restrictions on its food stamp program, The Post's Caitlin Dewey reports. Now, supporters of such bans are trying to parse the meaning of the rejection.

"In its application to USDA, Maine said it would evaluate the ban's impact on soda and candy purchases but did not propose any specific monitoring of health effects," Caitlin writes. "It is not clear if USDA rejected the request because of this kind of omission or because the administration more generally opposes junk food bans."

"When considering waiver requests, USDA focuses on moving people into self-sufficient lives, protecting the integrity of the program, and improving customer service," the agency said in a statement. "We don't want to be in the business of picking winners and losers among food products in the marketplace, or in passing judgment about the relative benefits of individual food products."

--About that 24-year-old in a top Trump administration role: Taylor Weyeneth, who was appointed to a top position in the White House's drug policy office at age 23, was previously dismissed from a job at a law firm for repeatedly missing work, The Post's Robert O'Harrow Jr. reports. Weyeneth worked as a legal assistant at the New York firm O'Dwyer & Bernstien while in college, but he was "discharged" in August 2015 for being a no-show.

Brian O'Dwyer, a partner at the firm, said he hired Weyeneth in part because both men were involved in the same fraternity. He told Robert the team was "very disappointed in what happened" and that Weyeneth "just didn't show."

"In a résumé initially submitted to the government, Weyeneth said he worked at the firm until April 2016," Robert writes. "When an FBI official called as part of a background check in January 2017, the firm said Weyeneth had left eight months earlier than the résumé indicated...an administration official previously said that Weyeneth revised his résumé to correct 'errors.'" In a revised résumé, Weyeneth said he worked at the law firm from November 2014 to August 2015.

Since Robert first reported on the young appointee's rapid ascent to a top White House post, several Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern about Weyeneth and about other unfilled drug policy roles in the administration. The concern comes as Trump, who has pledged to allocate government resources toward the opioid crisis, still has not named a permanent director for his drug policy office.

"You have claimed that the opioid epidemic is a top priority for your administration, but the personnel you have staffing these key agencies - and the lack of nominees to head them - is cause for deep concern," ten lawmakers, including Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), recently wrote to the president.
AGENCY ALERT
- Our colleague Tory Newmyer, who writes The Finance 202, is staking out the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland this week. We noticed FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is among the top Trump appointees who are on the guest list. The president is also expected to attend. Sign up to receive updates from Davos in The Finance 202 here.
HEALTH ON THE HILL
--Top Senate Finance Committee Democrat Ron Wyden (Ore.) wants an investigation into whether Seema Verma, who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, violated ethics rules in handling Medicaid waiver requests from states she used to work with privately. Verma formerly consulted for Kentucky, Arkansas, Iowa and other states seeking permission from the federal government to enact changes to their Medicaid programs.

Wyden asked HHS's general counsel, in a letter last week, to open an ethics investigation into the matter, questioning whether she had recused herself (as she'd promised) from being involved in waiver requests with states with whom she formerly contracted.

"Administrator Verma's commitment to recuse herself from work with former clients appears to have fallen short of the mark thus far, which is extremely concerning given that many of her former clients have sought, or plan to seek, waivers to impose unprecedented work requirements in state Medicaid programs," he wrote.
--A few more good reads from The Post and beyond: MEDICAL MISSIVES INDUSTRY RX STATE SCAN OPIOID OPTICS REPRODUCTIVE WARS DAYBOOK Today

The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, hold the "National Drug and Alcohol Chat Day" web chat event.

The Alliance of Community Health Plans holds a briefing on "The Value of Medicare Advantage."

The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, and the American Public Human Services Association host a webinar.

Coming Up

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on "Facing 21st Century Public Health Threats: Our Nation's Preparedness and Response Capabilities, Part 2" on Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Sickle Cell Disease Advisory Committee for presentations and discussion of programs on Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Institute of Nursing Research to discuss program policies and issues on Tuesday.

The Advisory Board holds a web conference on BPCI Advanced on Tuesday.

The Families USA Health Action Conference begins on Wednesday.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is scheduled to hold a hearing on combatting the opioid crisis on Thursday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Advisory Mental Health Council on Thursday.

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission holds its January meeting starting on Thursday.

SUGAR RUSH
House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the military would be paid during the government shutdown:

Activists protest around the globe during the a second annual Women's March:

Saturday Night Live takes on White House doctor Navy Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson's report on President Trump's health:

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Trump's first year as president:

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Analysis | The Health 202: How the government shutdown could affect your health care (or not)

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The government shutdown isn't over Obamacare this time. But depending on how long it lasts, there will be ripple effects on health care as the Department of Health and Human Services sees half its workers furloughed. Happy third day of the shutdown.

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10 Effects of a Federal Government Shutdown

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10 Effects of a Federal Government Shutdown

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https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/20/opinion/government-shutdown-democrats.html?referer=https://www.google.com/

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What the Shut Down Means for Health of Americans

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What the Shut Down Means for Health of Americans

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The federal government shut down this weekend, as Congress failed to pass a stopgap spending measure. Many may wonder what this means for the nation's public health battles against threats like the flu and the opioid crisis.

In a shutdown, contingency plans allow the federal government to meet most short-term health care needs. Most American hospitals are privately run. Public hospitals are, with very few exceptions, run by state and local governments, which aren't directly affected. No one will be turned away at the emergency room because of the shutdown.

There are, however, plenty of federally funded programs and a few medical facilities that are immediately affected. The federal government will also likely take longer to respond to emerging health crises, as nonessential personnel are sent home.

Patient care

Most federal funding for direct patient care is appropriated separately from the budget negotiations causing the shutdown. So Medicare and Medicaid will be largely unaffected, for example.

There's also a separate appropriation to sustain medical care for veterans. This has been in place since the 2013 shutdown, which caused Congress to change the way it funds veteran care.

The shutdown does affect the Department of Health and Human Services, where 50 percent of all public employees will be sent home on furlough, or without pay. The remaining workers are considered essential to protect life and property.

HHS provides direct patient care only in a few cases, but Indian Health Services - the agency charged with providing clinical care for 2.2 million American Indians and Alaskan Natives - is under its purview. Thankfully, there will be no disruptions in those services, because nearly every IHS employee is considered essential.

The National Health Institute Clinical Center provides medical services, primarily for patients participating in medical studies funded by the federal government. Patients already admitted will continue to receive care, but there will be no new clinical study admissions during the shutdown.

This is one of the few places where the shutdown could result in fatalities. Many patients only participate in medical studies when conventional medicine has failed. It's possible that some would-be patients, who would have received potentially lifesaving medical care, will die without these lifesaving treatments. That probability increases with the duration of the shutdown.

Public health

Much of the federal funding for public health helps local and state authorities preempt and mitigate threats.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supports local and state authorities in disease outbreaks and coordinates national level efforts to counter them. The urgent response to disease outbreaks, like the this year's record-breaking flu, will continue without disruption.

However, federal investigations of new disease outbreaks - which are crucial to countering diseases before they become widespread in multiple states - will be substantially slower during the shutdown. It will also take longer for the CDC to disseminate crucial national public health information to hospitals and doctors, who often depend on this data to administer appropriate care at local levels.

The federal government also ensures the safety and well-being of Americans through food inspections, which keep contaminated meats, eggs, grains and other foodstuffs from making it to the consumer. Many of these inspections will continue without disruption.

Brain drain

While the law mandates that the essential personnel who protect life and property must remain at work, these government workers will not receive pay during the shutdown.

By law, essential personnel have to be reimbursed for their lost earnings once the government resumes full operations. But, in the short run, it changes how government workers can spend money and take care of their families. The government workers who were furloughed are not guaranteed any pay for the period they were locked out.

The public health sector, more so than many other aspects of the federal government, depends on highly educated and skilled employees with advanced degrees, such as medical doctors and researchers. Although government workers often make higher wages than they could in the private sector, that isn't true for those who are most skilled. Many public servants in public health take pay cuts to work for the federal government.

Friday's government shutdown is the second in just five years. With the disruption to the livelihoods of more than a million federal employees, it's understandable that some employees may seek employment in the private sector instead, leaving the federal government less capable in the future.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What the government shutdown means for the health of Americans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The federal government shut down this weekend, as Congress failed to pass a stopgap spending measure. Many may wonder what this means for the nation's public health battles against threats like the flu and the opioid crisis. In a shutdown, contingency plans allow the federal government to meet most short-term health care needs.

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The Government Shutdown And Bipartisanship

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The Government Shutdown And Bipartisanship

# data[].attributes.body
Aimee Hou

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For 30 years, William Hoagland participated on the front lines of the annual battles over the federal budget as a Senate staffer. Steve Inskeep asks him about the recent government shutdown.

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The Government Shutdown And Bipartisanship

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For 30 years, William Hoagland participated on the front lines of the annual battles over the federal budget as a Senate staffer. Steve Inskeep asks him about the recent government shutdown.

# data[].attributes.headline
What government shutdown means for healthcare for americans

# data[].attributes.subject
What government shutdown means for healthcare for americans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The federal government shut down this weekend, as Congress failed to pass a stopgap spending measure. Many may wonder what this means for the nation's public health battles against threats like the flu and the opioid crisis.

In a shutdown, contingency plans allow the federal government to meet most short-term health care needs. Most American hospitals are privately run. Public hospitals are, with very few exceptions, run by state and local governments, which aren't directly affected. No one will be turned away at the emergency room because of the shutdown.

There are, however, plenty of federally funded programs and a few medical facilities that are immediately affected. The federal government will also likely take longer to respond to emerging health crises, as nonessential personnel are sent home.

Patient care

Most federal funding for direct patient care is appropriated separately from the budget negotiations causing the shutdown. So Medicare and Medicaid will be largely unaffected, for example.

There's also a separate appropriation to sustain medical care for veterans. This has been in place since the 2013 shutdown, which caused Congress to change the way it funds veteran care.

The shutdown does affect the Department of Health and Human Services, where 50 percent of all public employees will be sent home on furlough, or without pay. The remaining workers are considered essential to protect life and property.

HHS provides direct patient care only in a few cases, but Indian Health Services - the agency charged with providing clinical care for 2.2 million American Indians and Alaskan Natives - is under its purview. Thankfully, there will be no disruptions in those services, because nearly every IHS employee is considered essential.

The National Health Institute Clinical Center provides medical services, primarily for patients participating in medical studies funded by the federal government. Patients already admitted will continue to receive care, but there will be no new clinical study admissions during the shutdown.

This is one of the few places where the shutdown could result in fatalities. Many patients only participate in medical studies when conventional medicine has failed. It's possible that some would-be patients, who would have received potentially lifesaving medical care, will die without these lifesaving treatments. That probability increases with the duration of the shutdown.

Public health

Much of the federal funding for public health helps local and state authorities preempt and mitigate threats.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supports local and state authorities in disease outbreaks and coordinates national level efforts to counter them. The urgent response to disease outbreaks, like the this year's record-breaking flu, will continue without disruption.

However, federal investigations of new disease outbreaks - which are crucial to countering diseases before they become widespread in multiple states - will be substantially slower during the shutdown. It will also take longer for the CDC to disseminate crucial national public health information to hospitals and doctors, who often depend on this data to administer appropriate care at local levels.

The federal government also ensures the safety and well-being of Americans through food inspections, which keep contaminated meats, eggs, grains and other foodstuffs from making it to the consumer. Many of these inspections will continue without disruption.

Brain drain

While the law mandates that the essential personnel who protect life and property must remain at work, these government workers will not receive pay during the shutdown.

By law, essential personnel have to be reimbursed for their lost earnings once the government resumes full operations. But, in the short run, it changes how government workers can spend money and take care of their families. The government workers who were furloughed are not guaranteed any pay for the period they were locked out.

The public health sector, more so than many other aspects of the federal government, depends on highly educated and skilled employees with advanced degrees, such as medical doctors and researchers. Although government workers often make higher wages than they could in the private sector, that isn't true for those who are most skilled. Many public servants in public health take pay cuts to work for the federal government.

Friday's government shutdown is the second in just five years. With the disruption to the livelihoods of more than a million federal employees, it's understandable that some employees may seek employment in the private sector instead, leaving the federal government less capable in the future.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What the government shutdown means for the health of Americans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The federal government shut down this weekend, as Congress failed to pass a stopgap spending measure. Many may wonder what this means for the nation's public health battles against threats like the flu and the opioid crisis. In a shutdown, contingency plans allow the federal government to meet most short-term health care needs.

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government shutdown in the united states

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What Is a Government Shutdown? Here's What Happens If Congress Can't Make a Deal

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Lawmakers are scrambling and headlines are screaming Friday as the U.S. government heads towards a shutdown. But what does that mean?

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https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/20/politics/what-next-government-shutdown/index.html

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Graham-Durbin Bipartisan Bill to fund the Government

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Graham-Durbin Bipartisan Bill to fund the Government

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-18/seven-gop-senators-back-bipartisan-immigration-bill-graham-says
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-18/seven-gop-senators-back-bipartisan-immigration-bill-graham-says

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Here’s What’s Open During the Government Shutdown — And What’s Closed

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Here’s What’s Open During the Government Shutdown — And What’s Closed

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Venla Kuvaja

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will mail be delivered during government shutdown

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whats open and closed during government shutdown

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Here's What's Open During the Government Shutdown - And What's Closed

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You can still send mail and visit Smithsonian museums.

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobfrenkel/2018/01/22/victims-of-the-government-shutdown-travel-industry-conferences-and-contractors/#1b33e6fbcb94

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A colorful talking stick helped Republican Senator Susan Collins lead bipartisan negotiations early this week among a group of about 24 centrist senators that broke an impasse and ended the 69-hour government shutdown Monday.

"As you can imagine, with that many senators in a room, they all want to talk at once," Collins told the Associated Press. To create order, she said, the stick-which was given to her by North Dakota Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp-was handed to each senator. "They were allowed to speak, and then I'd take the stick from them, give it to the next person."

Multiple senators told CNN that the stick was successful in preventing senators from speaking over each other and created an atmosphere for discussion.

Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now

Senators from both parties failed to strike a deal last Friday to keep the government running. Over the weekend, a bipartisan group of senators branding themselves the Common Sense Coalition met to negotiate for hours on both Saturday and Sunday. But they were unable to reach a deal until Monday, when Republicans promised to address the issue of the Dreamers, young people brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

The Dreamers have been able to work in the U.S. without being deported, thanks to the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. President Donald Trump said last September he would end the program unless Congress negotiates a new law to protect it.

"I hope and intend" to resolve those issues by February 8, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said early Monday.
Related: Trump says Democrats caved over shutdown
Democrats and Republicans then voted 81-18 to proceed with short-term funding that will keep the government open until February 8 while lawmakers try to reach a more long-term solution on immigration issues like the DACA program.

"Big win for Republicans as Democrats cave on Shutdown," Trump tweeted early Tuesday. "Now I want a big win for everyone, including Republicans, Democrats and DACA, but especially for our Great Military and Border Security. Should be able to get there. See you at the negotiating table!"

Rather than negotiate, over the weekend Trump pushed for Republicans to use the "nuclear option" and override rules that require a 60-vote majority to end a filibuster and shut down the debate over short-term spending. But McConnell did not take Trump's advice.

The president has been pushing Democrats to provide funding for his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, but senators on both sides have said it has been hard to pin him down in negotiations on exactly what he wants in a final deal.

The talking stick helped Democrats and Republicans reach an agreement on further negotiations Monday. "That was the most entertaining meeting I'd ever been to," one Republican told CNN afterward.

Yet negotiations on a host of issues-including disaster relief for states hit by hurricanes and wildfires last year, domestic and military spending, and a deal on more border security and immigration-remain ahead.

"The effort has resulted in the government reopening. That was the critical first step," Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski told The New York Times, speaking of Monday's negotiations. "But now the real work begins."

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Senators used a talking stick to resolve the U.S. government shutdown

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A colorful talking stick helped Republican Senator Susan Collins lead bipartisan negotiations early this week among a group of about 24 centrist senators that broke an impasse and ended the 69-hour government shutdown Monday. "As you can imagine, with that many senators in a room, they all want to talk at once," Collins told the Associated Press.

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Its 15 days away and everything is already a disaster

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Its 15 days away and everything is already a disaster

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http://ww

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Current Budget Status: A continuing resolution will keep the government open until Feb. 8. MOAA will continue to keep our members posted as federal budget issues evolve.
The government is on the brink of shutting down again.

Congress has just hours to pass another stopgap budget to fund federal programs past Friday at midnight. A proposed bill would keep the government running through Feb. 16, and Republicans in Congress are trying to get the votes needed to pass it.

Some members of Congress say they're willing to support a smaller spending bill to fund the government a few more days while they work on a compromise deal for immigration reform, Politico reported Thursday. On Thursday, 171 House Democrats sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to consider bipartisan negotiations to keep the government funded. Points both parties could agree on, they wrote, include funding for the VA and preserving the agreement in the Budget Act of 2013 that lessened across-the-board defense spending cuts.

"If we can't agree," they wrote, "your party has the majority in the House and Senate to pass your own funding resolution. But that will be a bill we cannot support."

If a deal isn't reached by Friday night, troops, veterans, and their families could face a government shutdown like the one they experienced in 2013. That could leave some uniformed servicemembers without paychecks or access to some on-base services.

Military officials braced for a shutdown last month, too, before Congress passed another continuing resolution funding the government through the holidays. Here's how a shutdown might affect things like military operations, pay, and access to medical care.

Who's on duty? All military personnel remain on active duty during government shutdowns, continuing to carry out their normal roles. Active duty troops' duties won't be affected if some portions of the government close, according to a 2016 Pentagon memo about funding lapses.

That's not true for all civilian DoD employees though. Only those whose roles "are necessary to carry out or support expected activities" would be asked to come to work. The rest would be furloughed, meaning they'd be placed in a nonwork, nonpaid status.

Troops' pay. Military personnel and civilian DoD employees shouldn't expect to get a paycheck during a government shutdown - even if they're showing up for duty every day.

During the 2013 shutdown, which lasted for more than two weeks, Congress passed legislation that allowed uniformed personnel to receive their paychecks during the shutdown. Since the statute was limited to "members of the Armed Forces," though, it meant USPHS and NOAA Corps officers were still on duty without pay.

DoD is also under no legal obligation to pay any personnel - military or civilian - during a government shutdown, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service website states.

In 2013, civilian employees who were furloughed weren't paid during the shutdown. Congress later approved back pay for those workers.

Retirees' checks. A government shutdown won't affect payments for retirees or those receiving annuities, like surviving spouses who are paid under the Survivor Benefit Plan, said Steve Burghardt, a spokesman for the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

Those funds come from a military retirement trust fund, he said. They're not based on the Continuing Resolution Act appropriations, so the payments continue as scheduled.

Families of the fallen. If a servicemember dies during a government shutdown, their families are not guaranteed death benefit payouts, including funds for funeral expenses and the $100,000 gratuity paid to families of the fallen.

MOAA has urged Congress to protect those benefits. The unexpected loss of a servicemember is a traumatic event for any family, and any delay in earned benefits only makes that pain greater, said Col. Dan Merry, USAF (Ret), MOAA's vice president of Government Relations. Congress should find a permanent solution to this problem, Merry added.

Training and operations. The fight against the Islamic State group or other overseas operations won't stop with a government shutdown.

"The Department will, of course, continue to prosecute the war in Afghanistan and ongoing operations against al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, including preparation of forces for deployment into those conflicts," the DoD memo states.

Medical care. Servicemembers and their families should still be able to get medical and dental care at on-base facilities even if the government shuts down. They also can seek private-sector care using TRICARE. Elective surgeries or procedures, however, could be postponed or rescheduled.

And while some VA employees could be furloughed, most of the department's facilities and clinics remain fully functional during government shutdowns, according to a VA memo on the topic. Access to in- and outpatient care, prescriptions, surgeries, and mental health appointments likely won't be interrupted.

Some VA hotlines, websites, and claims processes could slow or stop in the event of a government shutdown.

Base and financial services. Morale, welfare, and recreation-related activities are likely to continue if they support military missions. That means mess halls, physical training centers, and childcare activities likely will remain running if they're required for readiness.

If civilian employees who run those facilities or programs are furloughed, though, uniformed personnel will be reassigned to carry out the duties.

DoD has published a list of family support resources. As for families with an upcoming permanent change of station, some moves may be limited in the case of a government shutdown. Troops should check with their commands to make sure everything is still on schedule.

Veterans in the process of buying new homes could face delays in seeing their VA loans go through.

The Office of Personnel Management offers guidance on shutdown furloughs here.

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government shutdown;continuing resolution;va benefits;military;how a government shutdown affects the military ;military government shutdown ;tricare government shutdown ;va government shutdown ;january government shutdown

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How a government shutdown could affect troops, veterans, and their families

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Current Budget Status: A continuing resolution will keep the government open until Feb. 8. MOAA will continue to keep our members posted as federal budget issues evolve. The government is on the brink of shutting down again. Congress has just hours to pass another stopgap budget to fund federal programs past Friday at midnight.

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Aimee Hou

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President Trump has signed a stopgap spending bill passed by Congress on Monday, ending the partial shutdown of the federal government after three days.

The White House has said normal government operations will resume by Tuesday morning.

The bill passed the Senate on Monday afternoon with a 81-18 vote, but the real hurdle was the procedural vote earlier in the day requiring at least 60 votes. That's where the measure hit a snafu late Friday night, triggering the stalemate. The House later passed the 17-day extension by a 266-150 vote.

Shortly before the Monday procedural vote was set to begin, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced that he would vote to reopen the government along with enough Democrats needed to advance the bill. After 24 hours of furious negotiation over plans to consider immigration legislation in the coming weeks, the Senate voted to move forward with the continuing resolution, which would fund the government through Feb. 8.

In exchange for his support, Schumer said, he has received assurances from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that if an agreement isn't reached by then, the GOP leader will bring a vote to the floor on legislation to grant legal status to those protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, roughly 700,000 immigrants who are in the country illegally after being brought here as children. The bill also extends the expired Children's Health Insurance Program for six years.

McConnell says Democrats caved because they realized holding out for a DACA deal tied to the funding deal was not wise politically.

"I think if we've learned anything during this process it's that a strategy to shut down the government over the issue of illegal immigration is something that the American people didn't understand," McConnell said.

Schumer, however, argued that blame for the weekend-long stalemate lay at the president's feet.

"The reason the Republican majority had such difficulty finding consensus is they could never get a firm grip on what the president of their party wanted to do. These days, you never know who to deal with when it comes to the Republicans," Schumer said. "The Republican leaders told me to work out a deal with the White House. The White House said, work it out with Republican leaders on the Hill. Separately, President Trump turned away from not one, but two bipartisan compromises. Each would have avoided this shutdown."

In statement later Monday, Trump said that with the government on the path to reopening, the administration would work on immigration legislation - but "only if it's good for our country."

"I am pleased that Democrats in Congress have come to their senses and are now willing to fund our great military, border patrol, first responders and insurance for vulnerable children," Trump said. "As I've always said, once the government is funded, my administration will work towards solving the problem of very unfair illegal immigration. We will make a long-term deal on immigration if and only if it's good for our country."

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dodged questions at the daily briefing as to whether that would include a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, which many hard-line conservatives oppose. And she insisted that the president has been clear about what he wants in an immigration bill, despite shifting positions over the past week that even GOP leaders have complained about.

With the measure moving forward, it will now be hard for Democrats to argue they extracted many concessions from GOP leaders. McConnell's promise is just that - a promise. "Some of us struggle to trust him," Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., told NPR's Morning Edition, "because of the famously vulgar way that President Trump sort of blew up the last time thatSens. [Lindsey] Graham and [Dick] Durbin offered him a bipartisan deal [on immigration]."

Democrats were trying to frame the deal as a temporary victory, though. Senate Minority Whip Durbin took the floor to call the DACA issue the "civil rights issue of our time" and underscore the importance of passing an immigration bill by the new deadline, which he said McConnell had assured them would be on a level playing field.

While many Senate Democrats had remained entrenched in their opposition to any funding deal that didn't include a DACA fix, a growing number of moderate lawmakers were wary of an extended shutdown fight. Most of the endangered Democrats who are up for re-election in 2018 in states that Trump won all voted to advance the measure, except for Montana Sen. Jon Tester.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who faces a potentially competitive re-election this fall, sounded optimistic about the agreement.

"What you have is pretty much an ironclad commitment that if we don't resolve this - and that's what we're going to try to do with the Graham bill - resolve the DACA issue by Feb. 8, the commitment is you go to the floor with a neutral bill, like a shell, and you let the Senate process work," Nelson said.

Many Democrats had worried that the Republican talking point that Democrats were siding with "illegal immigrants" over the military and government would resonate with voters as the stalemate extended into the workweek Monday morning.

President Trump tweeted that argument himself.

The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens. Not good!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who has argued for tougher immigration standards, also echoed that sentiment.

"Shutting down the government and depriving American citizens of services because you want amnesty for illegal immigrants is a massive political blunder," said Cotton.

Trump has generally kept a low profile during the shutdown. He canceled a planned trip to Florida where he hoped to celebrate the first anniversary of his inauguration with a high-dollar fundraising party.

Aides say the president spent the weekend telephoning lawmakers and working with staff to minimize fallout from shuttered government operations.

Sanders pushed back on allegations from Schumer and other Democrats that Trump was absent from negotiations over the weekend and never reached out to their side. "What the president did clearly worked," Sanders countered. "The vote just came in 81-18."

A group of about 20 senators met for several hours on Saturday and again on Sunday afternoon to hash out the plan that ultimately allowed both sides to back down from their increasingly entrenched positions and vote to reopen the government.

Representatives from those talks briefed leaders Sunday afternoon, but the suspense dragged out for nearly six hours before McConnell made his announcement.

Several of the senators in the bipartisan group said they worried a prolonged shutdown could become harder to fix and would cause greater damage to the country.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., who is one of several Democrats up for re-election in states where Trump won in 2016, joined the talks. "One of the things we learned from the last shutdown was that as time goes on, positions harden," Heitkamp said. "Resolution gets more difficult the longer we wait."

However, more liberal senators - including several potential 2020 hopefuls such as Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California and Bernie Sanders of Vermont - all voted against the measure, standing firm over the DACA issue.

Two conservative GOP senators, Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky, also voted no, though they have repeatedly opposed on principle any continuing resolutions as a way to keep the government funded.
NPR White House correspondent Scott Horsley and NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis contributed to this report.

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Trump Signs Funding Bill, Bringing Shutdown To An End

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President Trump has signed a stopgap spending bill passed by Congress on Monday, ending the partial shutdown of the federal government after three days. The White House has said normal government operations will resume by Tuesday morning.

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On Monday, soon after noon, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that he and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had reached a deal to end the shutdown of the government, and to keep it open until February 8th. Schumer portrayed this as a victory, because, he said, McConnell had promised to bring legislation to the floor to address the plight of the Dreamers-young, undocumented Americans brought to the country as children-with a fair debate. That is an opening, not an ending; McConnell has worked his way out of such promises before. At the same time, Schumer quickly passed over the most solid victory in the bill to end the shutdown: six years of funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program, or . This means that the nine million children who rely on CHIP are no longer on the brink of losing their coverage. (Funding for it officially ran out at the end of September, and it has kept going since then only thanks to the budgetary equivalent of scrounging and foraging.) That is something that Democrats should be celebrating-even as it might cause them to reflect on whether they miscalculated in letting the government shut down in the first place.

The CHIP money is not a new addition to the Monday deal. It was in the bill that failed on Friday, when all but five Democrats (along with five Republicans, including, for parliamentary reasons, McConnell) voted against it, triggering the shutdown. (One of those five Democrats, Senator Doug Jones, of Alabama, fresh from defeating Roy Moore in a special election, cited the " strong commitment" that he had made to CHIP on the campaign trail as his reason for doing so.) Partly as a result, the matter of CHIP, which had, in the past few months, been a rallying cry for Democrats, has, in the past few days, been turned against them, with Republicans baldly claiming that Democrats don't care about children's health. ("The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens. Not good!" Trump tweeted on Monday morning.) This is utterly cynical demagoguery-especially as it was accompanied by a truly shameful ad released over the weekend by Trump's reëlection-campaign committee (which is already at work) asserting that Democrats would be " complicit" in any murders committed by undocumented perpetrators. What anything in the bill had to do with such theoretical murders was obscure. And there is something enraging about McConnell, who had stalled for months on bringing CHIP to the Senate floor, piously reminding his colleagues how "vulnerable" these children are. But it's also a move that the Democrats should have seen coming, and should have had a better plan for addressing. Instead, Democratic senators just kept pointing out how hypocritical and sneaky the G.O.P. was being. For many Americans, though, that charge is not a news flash when applied to politicians of either party.

The expiration date for the final Dreamer protections is in early March. Each day brings more uncertainty for those who were formerly protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which Trump renounced; thousands have not, for one reason or another, had their status renewed. They deserve that the remaining weeks be used productively, not squandered. The Friday bill would have kept the government open only four more weeks, and so allowed time for another showdown-at which point there might have been an actual deal on the table; at the moment, there is not. If anything, having CHIP finally taken care of leaves the Democrats in a stronger position for hard negotiations: they are less vulnerable to extortion, and to the pressure of children, state by state, being shut out of doctors' offices. Each state has its own program and eligibility formula for CHIP, with different calendars and, in some cases, with more of a potential backstop in Medicaid (though states could cut back there, too). But more than a million and a half children were expected to lose coverage in the next few weeks. Many states had already sent out letters to families telling them not to count on CHIP for their children's care, the kind of message that leaves any parent feeling helpless, humiliated, lost, or-rightly-angry.

The decision of the Republican leadership to put long-term CHIP funding in the bill was a bluff that the Democrats could and should have called earlier. There is no actual logic in portraying votes like those of the Democrats who voted Friday to keep the government open as a betrayal of the Dreamers, or as a trade-off of one group or the other-even if some Democrats themselves saw it that way. But they could have taken that win without compromising their position on immigration-it would have done so less than Schumer's notion of helping Trump build his wall. And McConnell's commitments now are too tenuous to explain why it was worth the risk that CHIP would be taken off the table.

What should be discouraging for anyone who hopes that the Democrats can close a deal for the Dreamers-and, beyond that, present a coherent program that Americans can vote for in 2018 and 2020-is how clumsy it all was. Negotiating with Trump surely is, as Schumer complained, like trying to handle Jell-O. Trump really is an extremist on immigration, one who has surrounded himself with hard-liners like John Kelly, his chief of staff, and his policy aide Stephen Miller. So what's the plan? CHIP has been funded; the focus now is on protecting Dreamers, and the question is how to do it. What did the Democratic Party's leadership think it won with this shutdown? And what will it get next time around?

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The Best Reason for Democrats Ending the Shutdown Now: CHIP Funding

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On Monday, soon after noon, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that he and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had reached a deal to end the shutdown of the government, and to keep it open until February 8th.

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WASHINGTON - Congress brought an end to a three-day government shutdown on Monday as Senate Democrats buckled under pressure to adopt a short-term spending bill to fund government operations without first addressing the fate of young undocumented immigrants.

The House quickly approved the measure - which will fund the government through Feb. 8 and extend funding for the popular Children's Health Insurance Program for six years - and President Trump signed it on Monday night.

The agreement also revealed fissures among Democrats, with about one-third of the party's members in the Senate and a majority in the House voting against it.

The passage of the measure ended an ugly, if short-lived, impasse that threatened to give a black eye to both major political parties. The deal, reached after a bipartisan group of senators pushed their leaders to come to terms, enables hundreds of thousands of federal employees who had been facing furloughs to go back to work.

But a key part of the deal, a pledge by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, to allow an immigration vote in the coming weeks, sets the stage for a battle over the so-called Dreamers, young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate are offering drastically different visions of how to resolve their fate. But those on both sides of the debate, as well as advocates for immigrants' rights, said that ultimately Mr. Trump would need to get involved for the immigration dispute to be settled.

Mr. Trump's intentions were hard to discern, even as he took time to jab at the Democrats.

"Big win for Republicans as Democrats cave on Shutdown," the president said on Twitter at 11:30 p.m.

The message continued: "Now I want a big win for everyone, including Republicans, Democrats and DACA," referring to the Dreamers, "but especially for our Great Military and Border Security. Should be able to get there. See you at the negotiating table!"

The vote in the Senate was lopsided: 81 senators voted to end the shutdown while 18 - two Republicans and the rest of the Democrats and an independent who caucuses with them - sided against the measure. In the House, the vote was 266 to 150, with about three-quarters of Democrats opposed.

The measure also shored up the Children's Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, which insures nearly nine million children. States had warned that they were on the verge of having to end coverage after Congress allowed funding for the program, which had been created and sustained for two decades with bipartisan support, to expire in September.

The votes came after a weekend of fevered negotiations by a bipartisan group that eventually grew to include about 25 senators, who helped put together a framework in which Democrats would vote to reopen the government in exchange for the promise from Mr. McConnell.

An apparent turning point came when Mr. McConnell took the Senate floor on Monday morning to announce that he would ensure a "level playing field" on immigration - language that some Democrats interpreted as going further than he had before. Mr. McConnell said he would have the Senate take up immigration legislation by mid-February if the issue had not been resolved by then.

"I sat on the floor and listened to him very intently, somewhat holding my breath," said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats. "I think the majority leader has made a public commitment that it would be very hard for him not to meet."

But Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, was unconvinced, and voted against the bill. She suggested that she did not trust Mr. McConnell.

"I refuse to put the lives of nearly 700,000 young people in the hands of someone who has repeatedly gone back on his word," she said.

Immigrants' rights activists were crushed.

"Last week, I was moved to tears of joy when Democrats stood up and fought for progressive values and for Dreamers," said Frank Sharry, the executive director of America's Voice, an immigrants' rights group. "Today, I am moved to tears of disappointment and anger that Democrats blinked."

Hundreds of thousands of young immigrants have been protected from deportation under an Obama-era initiative, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Mr. Trump rescinded the program in September and gave Congress six months, until March 5, to come up with a replacement.

But the president has demanded that border security - including money for the "big, beautiful wall" he has promised at the southern border with Mexico - be included in any package. Mr. Trump also wants limits on what critics call "chain migration," in which immigrants can sponsor their relatives, and an end to the diversity visa lottery, which fosters immigration from countries that are underrepresented.

A bipartisan group of six senators, led by Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, has proposed the backbone of an immigration deal that backers hope could garner 60 votes, enough to break a filibuster.

But Mr. Trump has rejected that plan. And the measure is almost certainly a nonstarter in the House, where Speaker Paul D. Ryan has promised a vote on a conservative immigration measure championed by the chairmen of the Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees, if it has the support to pass.

"If we are hoping that Paul Ryan is going to have courage and that the House Republicans are going to be fair and decent and that a bill could emerge, we're smoking something," Mr. Sharry said.

Monday's Senate vote exposed a rift between moderate Democrats who are up for re-election this year in states won by Mr. Trump and their more liberal counterparts.

One of those Trump-state Democrats, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, characterized the vote as a "big win for the Dreamers," adding that if the Senate passes a measure with more than 60 votes, it would "put a lot of pressure" on the House to act.

But more liberal Democrats, including Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who voted against the spending measure, disagreed.

"The lesson to me is that a promise here is far less meaningful when there is no involvement by the House, not to mention the White House," he said, adding that he has "no confidence, zero, that Paul Ryan will bring a measure to the floor, in fact on the contrary."

Mr. Graham said it was critical that the Senate's eventual immigration bill have the support of a broad bipartisan majority of perhaps 70 senators.

"A partisan product doesn't get you to where you want to go," he said. "If you're going to make the play of trying to pick off a handful of the other side, it's going to crash and burn."

The shutdown crisis began Friday, after talks between Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, and Mr. Trump to keep the government open broke down when the president and his chief of staff demanded more concessions on immigration.

According to one person familiar with that day's discussion, Mr. Schumer agreed to more military spending and discussed fully funding the president's request for a border wall in exchange for an agreement from the president to support legalizing the Dreamers.

Late that night, an overwhelming majority of Democrats, joined by a handful of Republicans, voted to block consideration of a spending bill very much like the measure that passed Monday. The only difference is that the initial bill would have funded the government for four weeks, not three.

A round of partisan finger-pointing ensued, with Democrats calling the impasse the "Trump Shutdown" and Republicans branding it the "Schumer Shutdown."

At the White House on Monday, Mr. Trump's press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, insisted that Monday's deal was not "drastically different" than what was discussed on Friday between the president and Mr. Schumer.

Despite what was characterized by both parties as Mr. Trump's invisibility this weekend, Ms. Sanders insisted that he was responsible for making a deal happen.

"What the president did clearly worked," she said, adding, "The president stayed firm, Republicans stayed firm, and Democrats, I think, realized that they had to move past that piece of legislation" to discuss immigration going forward.

But Ms. Sanders declined to clarify precisely what the parameters of an immigration deal would look like. That worried Democrats like Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

"The problem with all of this is the problem it's been from the beginning," Mr. Menendez said. "You got no guarantees from the House. You got no guarantees from the president. So you have two-thirds of the equation that are just not there."

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Government Shutdown Ends After 3 Days of Recriminations

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WASHINGTON - Congress brought an end to a three-day government shutdown on Monday as Senate Democrats buckled under pressure to adopt a short-term spending bill to fund government operations without first addressing the fate of young undocumented immigrants. The House quickly approved the measure - which will fund the government through Feb.

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Local federal agencies were either closed or had a reduction in services Monday due to a federal government shutdown, which ended later in the day.

Orangeburg's U.S. National Fish Hatchery was closed with a locked gate barring vehicle or pedestrian entry onto its premises off Stonewall Jackson Boulevard.

Hatchery biologist Jonathan Wardell was the only individual onsite at the hatchery.

"We have live organisms on station so there has to be someone here regardless of a government shutdown," Wardell said. "We have critically endangered (freshwater) mussels here. They are the most endangered animals east of the Mississippi and certainly in South Carolina."

The animal is called the Carolina heelsplitter. To be considered critically endangered means the species is facing an extremely high risk of becoming extinct in the wild in the immediate future.

"We propagate that here in addition to the fish," Wardell said, noting hopes the shutdown would be short-lived. "We have no idea at this point."

The hatchery employs seven individuals, all of whom were on furlough during the shutdown.

The government shutdown ended Monday afternoon as the Senate voted on a measure to keep the government running until Feb. 8.

The government officially shut down Friday night.

The Orangeburg Social Security office was also impacted by the shutdown.

Offices were open but were not providing the typical array of services due to the shutdown.

Signage on the front door of the office both in English and Spanish listed services that were not being provided.

Services continuing under the shutdown included: help applying for benefits, changing direct-deposit information, verification or change of citizenship status or the replacement or lost or missing Social Security payments

But if you needed to replace a lost or missing Social Security card or needed to update or correct earnings records, you were out of luck Monday.

Planned military disaster relief exercises at the North Auxiliary Airfield this week were also postponed to a future date due to the government shutdown.

The future date has yet to be determined.

Airmen from the 321st Contingency Response Squadron, 621st Contingency Response Group, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, and C-17 Globemaster III aircraft from the 437th Airlift Wing, Joint Base Charleston, were planning to conduct Exercise Crescent Moon at the North airbase from Jan. 19-25.

The activities were to be held around the clock including the use of blank ammunition. Local law enforcement and residents were initially notified to be aware of the activity.

Situated three miles east of the town of North, the 2,400-acre airfield is owned by the U.S. Air Force and is used primarily for C-17 Globemaster III training by the 437th Airlift Wing and its Air Force Reserve "Associate" unit, the 315th Airlift Wing, at Charleston Air Force Base.

Contact the writer: gzaleski@timesanddemocrat.com or 803-533-5551. Check out Zaleski on Twitter at @ZaleskiTD.

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Government shutdown felt locally; fish hatchery, Social Security office affected

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Local federal agencies were either closed or had a reduction in services Monday due to a federal government shutdown, which ended later in the day. Orangeburg's U.S. National Fish Hatchery was closed with a locked gate barring vehicle or pedestrian entry onto its premises off Stonewall Jackson Boulevard.

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The military continues on with its normal function during the shutdown. Reserve members are sent home without pay if the shut down continues on long enough. Working service members are not paid for their work.

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Getty Images

More than 48 hours after the 69-hour weekend government shutdown, party leaders and members of Congress continue to spin and assign blame. Who won the shutdown is mostly irrelevant to the weeks ahead, but the debate itself highlights more fundamental problems in American politics.

The deeper issue is what this brief and soon-forgotten episode says about the broken legislative practices inside the halls of Congress. From immigration to health care, privacy to national security, there are bipartisan majorities on Capitol Hill willing to debate any number of important bills. The problem is they aren't getting a say in what Congress debates. Congressional leaders care more about spin than deliberation. As a result, Congress has morphed from a democratic arena weighing important policy differences to a debate-stunted PR firm. This is not exactly new, but the 115th Congress is reaching new levels of dysfunction. And as long as leaders seek brinkmanship over debate, shutdowns will become only more common.

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One reason is the growing power of hard-line activist groups, on both sides, to set the political agenda. Neither party really wanted a shutdown, but they valued other priorities more than keeping the government open. Democrats wanted to stand firm to protect from deportation the undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, under a program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA; Republicans would rather risk a shutdown than make any concessions that might accentuate their party's internal divisions on immigration.

Strategically, Democrats got nothing of value from shuttering the government. They gained no leverage they didn't already have. It didn't make a DACA bill more likely to pass. If anything, it may have slightly weakened their hand in the short term.

Democrats do, however, still have significant leverage on several spending and fiscal issues coming up over the next several weeks. Congress will soon turn to raising the Budget Control Act caps, increasing the debt limit and drafting an omnibus spending package. Since Republicans took control of the House in 2011, they have averaged fewer than 160 Republican "yes" votes on budget, spending and debt limit legislation. If that history is any indicator, Democrats will be needed to pass these routine governing bills and can rightly demand policy concessions in exchange for their support to keep the government running. So Democrats did not need to filibuster the short-term spending bill on Friday to get leverage for passing DACA. They already have it.

Further, McConnell's promise does not give Senate Democrats what they really need: the ability to push a DACA bill through the House. McConnell's pledge is valuable only if you pretend the lower chamber does not exist, as Houes Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) reminded everyone yesterday. Immigration is a notoriously difficult issue for House Republicans. For years, it has divided their majority, incentivizing speakers to ignore the subject altogether. For example, a bipartisan immigration reform bill sailed through the Senate in 2013 but never even moved out of committee in the House. A barrage of public pressure by activists and Democrats, and threats of a discharge petition were not enough to overcome Republican fissures on the issue.

The House is in a similar place today. Speaker Paul Ryan would need to overcome significant agitation in his own conference, and likely risk his political career, to bring a bipartisan immigration bill to the House floor on its own. To say nothing of the fact that Republicans in both chambers are looking to President Donald Trump for guidance. He hasn't clarified what kind of Democratic concessions he's willing to accept in exchange for a deal on DACA-so Republican lawmakers remain paralyzed.

Many observers rightly point out that Democrats lost no leverage by reopening the government after a three-day shutdown. This brings into focus a larger strategic question: Was it necessary to filibuster a functioning majority when Democrats hold more leverage over the spending bills Congress will take up over the next two months?

The short answer is no. Democrats essentially shut down the government in exchange for a promise they didn't need and that won't ensure passage of a DACA bill. The only plausible reason for the shutdown was to appease those on the left looking to secure a DACA fix immediately. The blowback Schumer is receiving from progressives suggests they may not have accomplished that goal, either.

This has implications beyond an unmemorable shutdown. As many Democrats argued in 2013, shutting down the government to force debate on broader policy issues is irresponsible governance, a waste of taxpayer dollars and damaging to the economy. It is simply too high a price to exact on what should be a routine legislative debate in the chambers of Congress. But on Friday, they helped normalize shutdown threats, a tactic they derided just four years ago.

Unfortunately, it won't get better. The weekend shutdown only reminded us that congressional leaders in both parties care more about public relations than proper deliberation. By nearly every deliberative standard-open debate, amendments, committee debate and markup-this is among the least democratic Congresses in our history. Media outlets are filled with takes on who won the shutdown. Republicans are doing victory laps, seemingly unaware their party remains in a horrifically bad negotiating position for Feb. 8, when they will likely get rolled on several fronts. Democratic spinmeisters are claiming they didn't get rolled over the weekend. It's a vapid debate congressional leaders want, but it glosses over the institution's fundamental problem.

Congress was envisioned as the hub of American debate. Yet today, it evidently requires a government shutdown just to begin serious policy discussions on the floor of either chamber. Brinkmanship has replaced deliberation. And because of that, we'll be hearing about all this again in 15 days.

Josh Huder is senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University. He is writing a book about congressional development.

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The Real Takeaway from the Shutdown: Congress Is Broken

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More than 48 hours after the 69-hour weekend government shutdown, party leaders and members of Congress continue to spin and assign blame. Who won the shutdown is mostly irrelevant to the weeks ahead, but the debate itself highlights more fundamental problems in American politics.

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Lesser known effects of the government shutdown

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Health care affected by government shutdown

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Health care affected by government shutdown

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The government shutdown isn't over Obamacare this time. But depending on how long it lasts, there will be ripple effects on health care as the Department of Health and Human Services sees half its workers furloughed.
Happy third day of the shutdown. The impasse on Capitol Hill continues, as Democrats refuse to budge on their demands for legal protections for young immigrants and Republicans seem unwilling to move in their direction, my tireless colleagues Robert Costa, Erica Werner, Mike DeBonis and Sean Sullivan report. After a bipartisan group of moderate senators failed to produce a compromise yesterday, buy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to hold a vote at about noon anyway. There was some hope building yesterday for a deal to fund the government for three weeks with a guarantee by McConnell to consider immigration legislation after that if there has been no agreement before then. But it doesn't look like we're there yet.

The effects of the shutdown were relatively limited over the weekend, but now that the workweek is starting, hundreds of thousands of workers will stay home and key federal agencies will be affected. "Federal contractors will see payments delayed, and the Internal Revenue Service will slow its preparations for the coming tax season," my colleagues writes.

Trump, who to his aides relief it seems, has remained relatively quiet during the shutdown so far. Nonetheless, the president took to Twitter this morning to blame Democrats:

The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens. Not good!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018

Democrats have shut down our government in the interests of their far left base. They don't want to do it but are powerless!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018

But the effects of a shutdown -- especially if it continues -- on the federal workforce, and Americans by extension, are real.

Granted, because so much of what HHS does is considered "essential," a smaller proportion of its workers are furloughed during a shutdown compared to other agencies. About 41,000 of HHS' 82,148 employees will still come to work today, according to these helpful visuals from The Post's Darla Cameron and Lisa Rein. There are five other federal agencies - Justice, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Defense and Transportation - where at least half of employees are similarly considered essential.

On Friday, HHS updated its last shutdown contingency plan - issued in the fall of 2013 when the government shut down for more than two weeks as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) demanded to defund the Affordable Care Act - with a new version. Per that document, here are five top things the agency keeps doing while the government is shuttered - and five services it halts.
Services that continue:
1. States keep getting their Medicaid payments. Federal funding for the health insurance program for the low-income population is secure through the end of June, according to the contingency plan. And because states oversee enrollment, Americans should be able to continue signing up for the program without hiccups.

2. Seniors can keep seeing the doctor. As with Medicaid, Medicare has funding sources that don't depend on Congress passing annual spending bills. Beneficiaries shouldn't much feel the effects of a shutdown, unless it is prolonged. Medicare will continue to reimburse medical providers, so coverage should continue without interruption.

3. Premium subsidies continue for Obamacare enrollees, and the marketplaces remain open for those qualifying to sign up off-season. Like Medicare and Medicaid benefits, marketplace subsidies are considered mandatory spending. And the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services can use leftover fees paid by health insurers to keep verifying eligibility so enrollments can continue.

4. The Food and Drug Administration continues drug reviews. That's because these reviews are paid for by fees from the pharmaceutical industry. Staffers who analyze and review medicines entering the United States would also be considered essential, according to HHS.

5. The nation's 1,400 community health centers stay open. These clinics - which provide preventive care and dental services to about 27 million low-income Americans - also enjoy mandatory spending status. But they're threatened by an underlying problem: The program has needed reauthorization by Congress since last fall, and it's unclear whether lawmakers will include that in a spending bill reopening the government.
Services that stop or slow:
1. The FDA's food-safety inspection program hits pause. "FDA will be unable to support the majority of its food safety, nutrition and cosmetics activities," the HHS contingency plan says. The exception is meat and poultry inspections carried out by the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

2. The National Institutes of Health can't enroll new patients in clinical trials or take action on grant applications. During the last shutdown, NIH turned away about 200 patients each week from its clinical research center since nearly three-fourths of its staff was furloughed. The center can only admit new patients with cases NIH Director Francis Collins deems "medically necessary."

3. No new mental health or social services grant awards and less monitoring of existing grants. The HHS departments most involved in issuing grants to health-care providers around the country would be particularly affected by the shutdown because more of their employees are furloughed. This includes the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Administration for Children and Families.

4. Payments for senior nutrition programs stop. The shutdown would halt funding for federal senior nutrition programs funded through the Administration for Community Living, and would delay federal reimbursements to privately run programs such as Meals on Wheels (which services more than 2.4 million seniors across the country). But the severity of the impact on such programs depends on how long the shutdown lasts.

5. Response to this year's deadly flu outbreak could be slowed. The CDC says its "immediate response to urgent disease outbreaks, including seasonal influenza" will continue. This includes collecting data reported by states, hospitals and others. But a CDC representative told BuzzFeed News the reports could be issued at a slower rate than usual. Former CDC director Tom Frieden, who led the agency during the 2013 shutdown, told NPR the shutdown means a slower response to changes in the flu virus and less preparation among doctors to provide rapid treatment.
AHH, OOF and OUCH
AHH: A government shutdown comes at an especially inopportune time for flu season, which is particularly deadly this year per the latest data released Friday, The Post's Lena H. Sun reports. During the second week of January, more people sought care for flulike illnesses than at any comparable period in nearly a decade and 10 children died, bringing the total number of pediatric deaths this flu season to 30. More than 8,900 people have been hospitalized since the season started Oct. 1.

"The flu activity indicators are notable for the sheer volume and intensity of flu that is taking place in most of the country at the same time," Lena writes. "A federal government shutdown could complicate CDC's ability to know, in real time, whether flu cases are continuing to increase."

About 63 percent of CDC employees are furloughed, according to HHS's contingency plan. While state labs will continue to operate and monitor flu activity, test specimens and send that information to the federal agency, there may not be enough CDC epidemiologists to monitor the data and compile it, Lena reports. Additionally, there are spot shortages of prescription antiviral drugs and it's unclear whether the agency personnel working on that will be able to stay on duty during a shutdown.

OOF: In the state President Trump called a "drug-infested den" - New Hampshire - the opioid crisis is something of an obsession, the New York Times's Katharine Q. Seelye reports. New Hampshire is tied with Ohio for the state with the second-highest rate of drug overdose deaths per capita (West Virginia is first), and 53 percent of adults there say drugs are the biggest problem.

It's surprising when you consider New Hampshire's demographics. "Unlike West Virginia, New Hampshire is relatively prosperous, which makes an opioid crisis here seem all the more jarring," Katharine writes. "This state has the highest median household income in the country, ranks low in unemployment and crime, and often lands at or near the top of lists of the best states in which to live."

So why is the state's opioid problem so bad? Researchers say one big reason is the proximity to an abundant drug supply in neighboring Massachusetts and its drug distribution networks; another is the state's limited spending on addiction services. In addition, doctors in New Hampshire have long prescribed opioids at almost twice the national rate.

"This is a kind of perfect storm," Lisa Marsch, a professor of psychiatry and health policy at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, told the Times. "We have highly available, highly potent opioids in New Hampshire. And highly limited resources to reduce the risk."

OUCH: And over in neighboring Massachusetts, there's a spirited debate over the idea of "supervised injection sites" as another way to reduce overdose deaths, the AP reports. These sites are safe spaces where drug users can shoot up under the supervision of trained staff. While the Massachusetts Medical Society and the Massachusetts Hospital Association back the idea, Gov. Charlie Baker (R) is among the skeptics who don't see such sites as leading to treatment.

"As far as the data I've seen is concerned, it has not demonstrated any legitimate success in creating a pathway to treatment," Baker said at a public hearing last week. "The harm reduction argument I think is a much better one, but I'm kind of a hard sell on that one."

"In a report released last year, the medical society found supervised injection sites can reduce overdose mortality and increase access to drug treatment. Much of the research is based on two sites in Canada and Australia," Steve Leblanc writes. "The report called for the creation of a pilot supervised injection facility program in Massachusetts. The group said the state should seek an exemption from federal drug laws to pursue the pilot program and consider partnering with other states."
TRUMP TEMPERATURE
- The Trump administration may be no more willing to put more restrictions on food stamps than was the Obama administration. Although momentum is building for a ban on the purchase of candy and soda with food stamps, the Agriculture Department last week denied a request from Maine that would have placed such restrictions on its food stamp program, The Post's Caitlin Dewey reports. Now, supporters of such bans are trying to parse the meaning of the rejection.

"In its application to USDA, Maine said it would evaluate the ban's impact on soda and candy purchases but did not propose any specific monitoring of health effects," Caitlin writes. "It is not clear if USDA rejected the request because of this kind of omission or because the administration more generally opposes junk food bans."

"When considering waiver requests, USDA focuses on moving people into self-sufficient lives, protecting the integrity of the program, and improving customer service," the agency said in a statement. "We don't want to be in the business of picking winners and losers among food products in the marketplace, or in passing judgment about the relative benefits of individual food products."

--About that 24-year-old in a top Trump administration role: Taylor Weyeneth, who was appointed to a top position in the White House's drug policy office at age 23, was previously dismissed from a job at a law firm for repeatedly missing work, The Post's Robert O'Harrow Jr. reports. Weyeneth worked as a legal assistant at the New York firm O'Dwyer & Bernstien while in college, but he was "discharged" in August 2015 for being a no-show.

Brian O'Dwyer, a partner at the firm, said he hired Weyeneth in part because both men were involved in the same fraternity. He told Robert the team was "very disappointed in what happened" and that Weyeneth "just didn't show."

"In a résumé initially submitted to the government, Weyeneth said he worked at the firm until April 2016," Robert writes. "When an FBI official called as part of a background check in January 2017, the firm said Weyeneth had left eight months earlier than the résumé indicated...an administration official previously said that Weyeneth revised his résumé to correct 'errors.'" In a revised résumé, Weyeneth said he worked at the law firm from November 2014 to August 2015.

Since Robert first reported on the young appointee's rapid ascent to a top White House post, several Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern about Weyeneth and about other unfilled drug policy roles in the administration. The concern comes as Trump, who has pledged to allocate government resources toward the opioid crisis, still has not named a permanent director for his drug policy office.

"You have claimed that the opioid epidemic is a top priority for your administration, but the personnel you have staffing these key agencies - and the lack of nominees to head them - is cause for deep concern," ten lawmakers, including Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), recently wrote to the president.
AGENCY ALERT
- Our colleague Tory Newmyer, who writes The Finance 202, is staking out the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland this week. We noticed FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is among the top Trump appointees who are on the guest list. The president is also expected to attend. Sign up to receive updates from Davos in The Finance 202 here.
HEALTH ON THE HILL
--Top Senate Finance Committee Democrat Ron Wyden (Ore.) wants an investigation into whether Seema Verma, who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, violated ethics rules in handling Medicaid waiver requests from states she used to work with privately. Verma formerly consulted for Kentucky, Arkansas, Iowa and other states seeking permission from the federal government to enact changes to their Medicaid programs.

Wyden asked HHS's general counsel, in a letter last week, to open an ethics investigation into the matter, questioning whether she had recused herself (as she'd promised) from being involved in waiver requests with states with whom she formerly contracted.

"Administrator Verma's commitment to recuse herself from work with former clients appears to have fallen short of the mark thus far, which is extremely concerning given that many of her former clients have sought, or plan to seek, waivers to impose unprecedented work requirements in state Medicaid programs," he wrote.
--A few more good reads from The Post and beyond: MEDICAL MISSIVES INDUSTRY RX STATE SCAN OPIOID OPTICS REPRODUCTIVE WARS DAYBOOK Today

The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, hold the "National Drug and Alcohol Chat Day" web chat event.

The Alliance of Community Health Plans holds a briefing on "The Value of Medicare Advantage."

The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, and the American Public Human Services Association host a webinar.

Coming Up

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on "Facing 21st Century Public Health Threats: Our Nation's Preparedness and Response Capabilities, Part 2" on Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Sickle Cell Disease Advisory Committee for presentations and discussion of programs on Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Institute of Nursing Research to discuss program policies and issues on Tuesday.

The Advisory Board holds a web conference on BPCI Advanced on Tuesday.

The Families USA Health Action Conference begins on Wednesday.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is scheduled to hold a hearing on combatting the opioid crisis on Thursday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Advisory Mental Health Council on Thursday.

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission holds its January meeting starting on Thursday.

SUGAR RUSH
House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the military would be paid during the government shutdown:

Activists protest around the globe during the a second annual Women's March:

Saturday Night Live takes on White House doctor Navy Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson's report on President Trump's health:

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Trump's first year as president:

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Analysis | The Health 202: How the government shutdown could affect your health care (or not)

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The government shutdown isn't over Obamacare this time. But depending on how long it lasts, there will be ripple effects on health care as the Department of Health and Human Services sees half its workers furloughed. Happy third day of the shutdown.

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This is the 19th time government has shut down since 1976 - Nate

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Since the modern congressional budgeting process took effect in 1976, there have been a total of seventeen separate government shutdowns (or "spending gaps" in Hill jargon). Given that we appear to be headed for another one imminently, let's look back at those experiences, the political circumstances around them and what happened as a consequence. Most of the specifics were drawn from The Washington Post print archives, which you can access for a modest sum here.

It's also important to note that not all shutdowns are created equal. Before some 1980 and 1981 opinions issued by then-Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti, a failure to fund some part of the government didn't necessarily mean that that part of government would stop functioning. Civiletti's opinions interpreted the Antideficiency Act, a law passed in 1884, as meaning that a failure to pass new spending bills required government functioning to shut down in whole or in part. So the "shutdowns" listed below that happened between 1976 tand 1979 did not always entail an actual stop to government functioning; they were often simply funding gaps that didn't have any real-world effect.

When did it take place? Sept. 30 to Oct. 11, 1976
How long did it last? 10 days
Who was president? Gerald Ford
Who controlled the Senate? Democrats, 62-38; Mike Mansfield was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 291-144; Carl Albert was speaker
Why did it happen? The major budget conflict during this period came because Ford vetoed a funding bill for the Departments of Labor and Health, Education, and Welfare (or HEW, today split into the Departments of Education and of Health and Human Services), arguing that it failed to restrain spending adequately.
What resolved it? Congress overrode Ford's veto Oct. 1, so the spending bills took effect, but it wasn't until over a week later that the partial shutdown ended, as it was only on Oct.11 that a continuing resolution ending funding gaps for other parts of government became law.

Shutdown #2: The Abortion Shutdown
When did it take place? Sept. 30 to Oct. 13, 1977
How long did it last? 12 days
Who was president? Jimmy Carter
Who controlled the Senate? Democrats, 59-41; Robert Byrd was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 292-143; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? The House insisted on continuing the ban on using Medicaid dollars to pay for abortions except in cases where the life of the mother was at stake. The Senate wanted to loosen this to include allowances for abortions in the case of rape or incest or when the mother's health was in danger. Because the issue had become tied to funding for Labor and HEW, failure to come to an agreement led those agencies to have a funding gap.
What resolved it? The Medicaid ban was continued until Oct. 31 and the shutdown ended, to give negotiators more time to work out a deal.

Shutdown #3: The Abortion Shutdown II: Abortion Boogaloo
When did it take place? Oct. 31 to Nov. 9, 1977
How long did it last? 8 days
Who was president? Jimmy Carter
Who controlled the Senate? Democrats, 59-41; Robert Byrd was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 292-143; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? Not enough time had elapsed since the temporary measure ending the shutdown passed for the abortion standoff to be resolved.
What resolved it? Another temporary bill was signed by Carter to allow for more time for Congress to resolve its abortion dispute.

Shutdown #4: The Abortion Shutdown III: Dark of the Moon
When did it take place? Nov. 30 to Dec. 9, 1977
How long did it last? 8 days
Who was president? Jimmy Carter
Who controlled the Senate? Democrats, 59-41; Robert Byrd was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 292-143; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? The second temporary measure ending a shutdown, meant to allow more time for negotiation, didn't last long enough. The House, in particular, rejected a Senate proposal that would have allowed for Medicaid to pay for abortions by victims of statutory rape. House conservatives rejected it as too lax and House liberals as too tough on rape victims. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), who is still in the House, asked on the House floor, "What happens in Fort Apache [South Bronx], where a girl is gang-raped and told she will be killed if she reports it?"

What resolved it? A deal was brokered in which the exception allowing Medicaid to pay for abortions in cases where the mother's life is endangered was widened to include abortions resulting from rape or incest, or which are necessary to protect the mother's health (even if her life was not endangered).

Shutdown #5: Jimmy Carter vs. the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier
When did it take place? Sept. 30 to Oct.18, 1978
How long did it last? 18 days
Who was president? Jimmy Carter
Who controlled the Senate? Democrats, 59-41; Robert Byrd was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 292-143; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? Congress passed a defense bill including funding for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Carter judged that carrier wasteful and vetoed it. He also vetoed a public works appropriations bill because of water projects that he considered wasteful pork. Additionally, spending for HEW was delayed, once again, over a dispute concerning funding for abortion.
What resolved it? A new defense bill, excluding funding for the carrier, was passed, as was a new public works bill excluding the water projects Carter opposed. The previous year's compromise solution on abortion, in which funding was reserved for cases of rape, incest and jeopardy to the mother's health, was agreed to in both houses.

Shutdown #6: Higher pay, fewer abortions
When did it take place? Sept. 30 to Oct. 12, 1979
How long did it last? 11 days
Who was president? Jimmy Carter
Who controlled the Senate? Democrats, 58-42; Robert Byrd was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 277-158; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? The House wanted to raise congressional and senior civil servant pay by 5.5 percent, which the Senate opposed. The lower house also wanted to limit federal abortion spending to cases where the mother's life was in danger, while the Senate wanted to keep funding in cases of rape, incest, and when the mother's health is in serious jeopardy. The dispute was not resolved before a partial shutdown.
What resolved it? The House got its pay increases but had to allow abortion funding in cases of rape or incest (but not when the mother's health, rather than life, was in danger). The latter was a slight tightening of the previous year's Medicaid abortion compromise.

Shutdown #7: You wouldn't like Reagan when he's angry
When did it take place? Nov. 20-23, 1981
How long did it last? 2 days
Who was president? Ronald Reagan
Who controlled the Senate? Republicans, 53-47; Howard Baker was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 244-191; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? Reagan promised to veto any spending bill that didn't include at least half of his proposed $8.4 billion in domestic budget cuts. The Senate passed a bill that met his specifications, but the House insisted on both greater defense cuts than Reagan wanted and pay raises for itself and for senior-level federal civil servants. Eventually, the House and Senate agreed to and passed a package that fell $2 billion short of the cuts Reagan wanted, so Reagan vetoed it and shut down the government.
What resolved it? The House and Senate passed, and Reagan signed, a bill extending current spending through Dec. 15, giving them time to work out a longer-lasting deal.

Shutdown #8: Let them eat shutdown
When did it take place? Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, 1982
How long did it last? 1 day
Who was president? Ronald Reagan
Who controlled the Senate? Republicans, 53-47; Howard Baker was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 244-191; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? Basically no reason. The new fiscal year started and Congress just hadn't passed new spending in time, and so parts of the government were forced to shut down. While there were some disagreements over spending levels between the House and Senate and the administration, the reason the former didn't pass the bill before a shutdown was basically that they had other plans.

"Congressional leaders barred a late-night session because of major social events tonight by both Republicans and Democrats," Martin Tolchin at the New York Times reported. "President Reagan invited all members of Congress to a barbecue at the White House, while Democrats were having a $1,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner."
What resolved it? The House and Senate passed spending bills late, and Reagan signed them despite the fact that they exceeded his desired spending levels in the near-run.

Shutdown #9: Tip O'Neill takes on a nuclear missile and wins
When did it take place? Dec.17-21, 1982
How long did it last? 3 days
Who was president? Ronald Reagan
Who controlled the Senate? Republicans, 53-47; Howard Baker was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 244-191; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? House and Senate negotiators want to fund $5.4 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively, in public works spending to create jobs, but the Reagan administration threatened to veto any spending bill that included jobs money. The House also opposed funding the MX missile program, a major defense priority of Reagan's.
What resolved it? The House and Senate abandoned their jobs plans but declined to fund the MX missile, or the Pershing II missile (which was a medium-range missile, while the MX was intercontinental). They also provided funding for the Legal Services Corp., which provides legal support for poor Americans and which Reagan had wanted abolished, and increased foreign aid to Israel above what Reagan wanted. While Reagan criticized these moves, he grudgingly signed the bill following a short shutdown.
Shutdown #10: So you can have your missiles but Israel gets some, too
When did it take place? Nov. 10-14, 1983
How long did it last? 3 days
Who was president? Ronald Reagan
Who controlled the Senate? Republicans, 55-45; Howard Baker was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 271-164; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? House Democrats passed an amendment adding close to $1 billion in education spending. They also cut foreign aid below what Reagan wanted, adding money for Israel and Egypt but cutting it substantially for Syria and El Salvador, and cut defense spending by about $11 billion relative to Reagan's request. The dispute wasn't resolved before a short shutdown could occur.
What resolved it? House Democrats agreed to reduce their education spending request to about $100 million. They also funded the MX missile, which they had successfully cut funding for during the last shutdown battle. However, they kept their foreign aid and defense cuts, and got a ban on oil and gas leasing in federal animal refuges. The spending bill also added a ban on using federal employee health insurance to fund abortions, except when the mother's life was in danger, similar to the ban already in place for Medicaid (see above). That wasn't as partisan an issue at the time; it was a win for anti-abortion members of both parties (including Reagan and O'Neill) and loss for pro-choice Democrats and Republicans (including Baker).

Shutdown #11: Omnishutdown
When did it take place? Sept. 30 to Oct. 3, 1984
How long did it last? 2 days
Who was president? Ronald Reagan
Who controlled the Senate? Republicans, 55-45; Howard Baker was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 270-165; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? Passage of a spending bill was complicated by the House linking it to a crime-fighting package (which Reagan wanted) and a water projects package (which he opposed), and the Senate's tying it to a civil rights measure (which Reagan also opposed) that would have reversed a Supreme Court ruling weakening civil rights requirements on universities receiving federal funds. Reagan offered to forgo his crime bill in exchange for junking the water package and the civil rights provision, but a deal wasn't reached in time to avoid a brief shutdown.
What resolved it? A three-day spending extension was passed and signed so that the parties could keep negotiating.

Shutdown #12: Omnishutdown II - Shut Down Harder
When did it take place? Oct. 3-5, 1984
How long did it last? 1 day
Who was president? Ronald Reagan
Who controlled the Senate? Republicans, 55-45; Howard Baker was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 270-165; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? The three-day extension (see above) wasn't long enough, apparently.
What resolved it? Congress relented and the water projects were stripped from a spending bill, as was the civil rights measure. They passed a crime package along Reagan's desired lines as well. A compromise was worked out on funding for the Nicaraguan Contras (which emerged as an issue in the course of the negotiations, despite not initially being a cause of the shutdowns), wherein the anti-Sandinista forces could be funded until early the following year.

Shutdown #13: Welfare expansion fail
When did it take place? Oct. 16-18, 1986
How long did it last? 1 day
Who was president? Ronald Reagan
Who controlled the Senate? Republicans, 53-47; Bob Dole was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 253-182; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? The brief shutdown followed several disagreements between Reagan and the Democrat-controlled House, including over a provision to ban companies from creating subsidiaries to get around labor contracts, another requiring that half the goods and labor used in offshore oil rigs be American in origin, and one that would have expanded Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which is what welfare was known as at the time. All of those were policies supported by House Democrats and opposed by Reagan and Senate Republicans. The dispute wasn't resolved in time to avoid a shutdown.
What resolved it? House Democrats gave up a number of their demands, and secured a promise for a vote on their welfare expansion, and in return passed appropriations necessary to reopen the government. Republicans, meanwhile, offered a concession related to the government's sale of Conrail, a then-public railway.
Shutdown #14: I Think You're a Contra
When did it take place? Dec. 18-20, 1987
How long did it last? 1 day
Who was president? Ronald Reagan
Who controlled the Senate? Democrats, 54-46; Robert Byrd was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 258-177; Jim Wright was speaker
Why did it happen? Reagan and congressional Democrats could not agree on funding for the Nicaraguan "Contra" militants in time to avoid a shutdown. Additionally, Democrats pushed for a provision reinstating the "Fairness Doctrine," which required that broadcasters give equal airing to both sides in political disputes, and which the FCC had recently stopped enforcing at the time.
What resolved it? Democrats yielded on the Fairness Doctrine, and a deal was worked out wherein nonlethal aid was provided to the Contras.

Shutdown #15: Somebody come up with a plan!
When did it take place? Oct. 5-9, 1990
How long did it last? 3 days
Who was president? George H.W. Bush
Who controlled the Senate? Democrats, 55-45; George Mitchell was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 258-176; Tom Foley was speaker
Why did it happen? Bush refused to sign any continuing resolution into law unless it was paired with a deficit reduction plan, and backed up the pledge by vetoing one that made it to his desk. The House failed to override his veto and the conflict was not resolved before a shutdown.
What resolved it? The House and Senate adopted a joint budget resolution that provided an outline for reducing the deficit, and Bush then signed a continuing resolution they sent him, ending the shutdown.

Shutdown #16: Clinton v. Gingrich, the First
When did it take place? Nov. 13-19, 1995
How long did it last? 5 days
Who was president? Bill Clinton
Who controlled the Senate? Republicans, 53-47; Bob Dole was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Republicans, 233-199; Newt Gingrich was speaker
Why did it happen? The GOP-run Congress sent Clinton a continuing resolution that would have raised Medicare premiums, committed the president to balance the budget within seven years, and curtailed environmental regulations, among other provisions. He vetoed it, triggering a shutdown.
What resolved it? The shutdown was ended when Clinton, Gingrich and Dole reached an agreement to fund the government at 75 percent levels for four weeks while budget negotiations continued. Clinton also agreed to the seven-year balanced budget timeline. Workers furloughed during the shutdown were given back pay.

Shutdown #17: Clinton v. Gingrich, the Second: Baseline Boogaloo
When did it take place? Dec. 5, 1995 to Jan. 6, 1996
How long did it last? 21 days
Who was president? Bill Clinton
Who controlled the Senate? Republicans, 53-47; Bob Dole was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Republicans, 235-198; Newt Gingrich was speaker
Why did it happen? Republican leaders demanded that the White House propose a seven-year budget plan that balanced when using the CBO's economic forecasts, rather than the OMB's, which were more optimistic. The plan Clinton proposed still produced a $115 billion deficit in seven years according to CBO numbers, even as the OMB estimated that it would balance the budget by then. The dispute was not resolved before the continuing resolution agreed to a month earlier (see previous entry) expired.
What resolved it? Republicans caved, basically, and passed legislation to keep the government open. Clinton, in turn, submitted a budget plan that the CBO said balanced the budget within seven years.

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Here is every previous government shutdown, why they happened and how they ended

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Since the modern congressional budgeting process took effect in 1976, there have been a total of seventeen separate government shutdowns (or "spending gaps" in Hill jargon). Given that we appear to be headed for another one imminently, let's look back at those experiences, the political circumstances around them and what happened as a consequence.

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The government shutdown isn't over Obamacare this time. But depending on how long it lasts, there will be ripple effects on health care as the Department of Health and Human Services sees half its workers furloughed.
Happy third day of the shutdown. The impasse on Capitol Hill continues, as Democrats refuse to budge on their demands for legal protections for young immigrants and Republicans seem unwilling to move in their direction, my tireless colleagues Robert Costa, Erica Werner, Mike DeBonis and Sean Sullivan report. After a bipartisan group of moderate senators failed to produce a compromise yesterday, buy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to hold a vote at about noon anyway. There was some hope building yesterday for a deal to fund the government for three weeks with a guarantee by McConnell to consider immigration legislation after that if there has been no agreement before then. But it doesn't look like we're there yet.

The effects of the shutdown were relatively limited over the weekend, but now that the workweek is starting, hundreds of thousands of workers will stay home and key federal agencies will be affected. "Federal contractors will see payments delayed, and the Internal Revenue Service will slow its preparations for the coming tax season," my colleagues writes.

Trump, who to his aides relief it seems, has remained relatively quiet during the shutdown so far. Nonetheless, the president took to Twitter this morning to blame Democrats:

The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens. Not good!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018

Democrats have shut down our government in the interests of their far left base. They don't want to do it but are powerless!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018

But the effects of a shutdown -- especially if it continues -- on the federal workforce, and Americans by extension, are real.

Granted, because so much of what HHS does is considered "essential," a smaller proportion of its workers are furloughed during a shutdown compared to other agencies. About 41,000 of HHS' 82,148 employees will still come to work today, according to these helpful visuals from The Post's Darla Cameron and Lisa Rein. There are five other federal agencies - Justice, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Defense and Transportation - where at least half of employees are similarly considered essential.

On Friday, HHS updated its last shutdown contingency plan - issued in the fall of 2013 when the government shut down for more than two weeks as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) demanded to defund the Affordable Care Act - with a new version. Per that document, here are five top things the agency keeps doing while the government is shuttered - and five services it halts.
Services that continue:
1. States keep getting their Medicaid payments. Federal funding for the health insurance program for the low-income population is secure through the end of June, according to the contingency plan. And because states oversee enrollment, Americans should be able to continue signing up for the program without hiccups.

2. Seniors can keep seeing the doctor. As with Medicaid, Medicare has funding sources that don't depend on Congress passing annual spending bills. Beneficiaries shouldn't much feel the effects of a shutdown, unless it is prolonged. Medicare will continue to reimburse medical providers, so coverage should continue without interruption.

3. Premium subsidies continue for Obamacare enrollees, and the marketplaces remain open for those qualifying to sign up off-season. Like Medicare and Medicaid benefits, marketplace subsidies are considered mandatory spending. And the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services can use leftover fees paid by health insurers to keep verifying eligibility so enrollments can continue.

4. The Food and Drug Administration continues drug reviews. That's because these reviews are paid for by fees from the pharmaceutical industry. Staffers who analyze and review medicines entering the United States would also be considered essential, according to HHS.

5. The nation's 1,400 community health centers stay open. These clinics - which provide preventive care and dental services to about 27 million low-income Americans - also enjoy mandatory spending status. But they're threatened by an underlying problem: The program has needed reauthorization by Congress since last fall, and it's unclear whether lawmakers will include that in a spending bill reopening the government.
Services that stop or slow:
1. The FDA's food-safety inspection program hits pause. "FDA will be unable to support the majority of its food safety, nutrition and cosmetics activities," the HHS contingency plan says. The exception is meat and poultry inspections carried out by the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

2. The National Institutes of Health can't enroll new patients in clinical trials or take action on grant applications. During the last shutdown, NIH turned away about 200 patients each week from its clinical research center since nearly three-fourths of its staff was furloughed. The center can only admit new patients with cases NIH Director Francis Collins deems "medically necessary."

3. No new mental health or social services grant awards and less monitoring of existing grants. The HHS departments most involved in issuing grants to health-care providers around the country would be particularly affected by the shutdown because more of their employees are furloughed. This includes the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Administration for Children and Families.

4. Payments for senior nutrition programs stop. The shutdown would halt funding for federal senior nutrition programs funded through the Administration for Community Living, and would delay federal reimbursements to privately run programs such as Meals on Wheels (which services more than 2.4 million seniors across the country). But the severity of the impact on such programs depends on how long the shutdown lasts.

5. Response to this year's deadly flu outbreak could be slowed. The CDC says its "immediate response to urgent disease outbreaks, including seasonal influenza" will continue. This includes collecting data reported by states, hospitals and others. But a CDC representative told BuzzFeed News the reports could be issued at a slower rate than usual. Former CDC director Tom Frieden, who led the agency during the 2013 shutdown, told NPR the shutdown means a slower response to changes in the flu virus and less preparation among doctors to provide rapid treatment.
AHH, OOF and OUCH
AHH: A government shutdown comes at an especially inopportune time for flu season, which is particularly deadly this year per the latest data released Friday, The Post's Lena H. Sun reports. During the second week of January, more people sought care for flulike illnesses than at any comparable period in nearly a decade and 10 children died, bringing the total number of pediatric deaths this flu season to 30. More than 8,900 people have been hospitalized since the season started Oct. 1.

"The flu activity indicators are notable for the sheer volume and intensity of flu that is taking place in most of the country at the same time," Lena writes. "A federal government shutdown could complicate CDC's ability to know, in real time, whether flu cases are continuing to increase."

About 63 percent of CDC employees are furloughed, according to HHS's contingency plan. While state labs will continue to operate and monitor flu activity, test specimens and send that information to the federal agency, there may not be enough CDC epidemiologists to monitor the data and compile it, Lena reports. Additionally, there are spot shortages of prescription antiviral drugs and it's unclear whether the agency personnel working on that will be able to stay on duty during a shutdown.

OOF: In the state President Trump called a "drug-infested den" - New Hampshire - the opioid crisis is something of an obsession, the New York Times's Katharine Q. Seelye reports. New Hampshire is tied with Ohio for the state with the second-highest rate of drug overdose deaths per capita (West Virginia is first), and 53 percent of adults there say drugs are the biggest problem.

It's surprising when you consider New Hampshire's demographics. "Unlike West Virginia, New Hampshire is relatively prosperous, which makes an opioid crisis here seem all the more jarring," Katharine writes. "This state has the highest median household income in the country, ranks low in unemployment and crime, and often lands at or near the top of lists of the best states in which to live."

So why is the state's opioid problem so bad? Researchers say one big reason is the proximity to an abundant drug supply in neighboring Massachusetts and its drug distribution networks; another is the state's limited spending on addiction services. In addition, doctors in New Hampshire have long prescribed opioids at almost twice the national rate.

"This is a kind of perfect storm," Lisa Marsch, a professor of psychiatry and health policy at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, told the Times. "We have highly available, highly potent opioids in New Hampshire. And highly limited resources to reduce the risk."

OUCH: And over in neighboring Massachusetts, there's a spirited debate over the idea of "supervised injection sites" as another way to reduce overdose deaths, the AP reports. These sites are safe spaces where drug users can shoot up under the supervision of trained staff. While the Massachusetts Medical Society and the Massachusetts Hospital Association back the idea, Gov. Charlie Baker (R) is among the skeptics who don't see such sites as leading to treatment.

"As far as the data I've seen is concerned, it has not demonstrated any legitimate success in creating a pathway to treatment," Baker said at a public hearing last week. "The harm reduction argument I think is a much better one, but I'm kind of a hard sell on that one."

"In a report released last year, the medical society found supervised injection sites can reduce overdose mortality and increase access to drug treatment. Much of the research is based on two sites in Canada and Australia," Steve Leblanc writes. "The report called for the creation of a pilot supervised injection facility program in Massachusetts. The group said the state should seek an exemption from federal drug laws to pursue the pilot program and consider partnering with other states."
TRUMP TEMPERATURE
- The Trump administration may be no more willing to put more restrictions on food stamps than was the Obama administration. Although momentum is building for a ban on the purchase of candy and soda with food stamps, the Agriculture Department last week denied a request from Maine that would have placed such restrictions on its food stamp program, The Post's Caitlin Dewey reports. Now, supporters of such bans are trying to parse the meaning of the rejection.

"In its application to USDA, Maine said it would evaluate the ban's impact on soda and candy purchases but did not propose any specific monitoring of health effects," Caitlin writes. "It is not clear if USDA rejected the request because of this kind of omission or because the administration more generally opposes junk food bans."

"When considering waiver requests, USDA focuses on moving people into self-sufficient lives, protecting the integrity of the program, and improving customer service," the agency said in a statement. "We don't want to be in the business of picking winners and losers among food products in the marketplace, or in passing judgment about the relative benefits of individual food products."

--About that 24-year-old in a top Trump administration role: Taylor Weyeneth, who was appointed to a top position in the White House's drug policy office at age 23, was previously dismissed from a job at a law firm for repeatedly missing work, The Post's Robert O'Harrow Jr. reports. Weyeneth worked as a legal assistant at the New York firm O'Dwyer & Bernstien while in college, but he was "discharged" in August 2015 for being a no-show.

Brian O'Dwyer, a partner at the firm, said he hired Weyeneth in part because both men were involved in the same fraternity. He told Robert the team was "very disappointed in what happened" and that Weyeneth "just didn't show."

"In a résumé initially submitted to the government, Weyeneth said he worked at the firm until April 2016," Robert writes. "When an FBI official called as part of a background check in January 2017, the firm said Weyeneth had left eight months earlier than the résumé indicated...an administration official previously said that Weyeneth revised his résumé to correct 'errors.'" In a revised résumé, Weyeneth said he worked at the law firm from November 2014 to August 2015.

Since Robert first reported on the young appointee's rapid ascent to a top White House post, several Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern about Weyeneth and about other unfilled drug policy roles in the administration. The concern comes as Trump, who has pledged to allocate government resources toward the opioid crisis, still has not named a permanent director for his drug policy office.

"You have claimed that the opioid epidemic is a top priority for your administration, but the personnel you have staffing these key agencies - and the lack of nominees to head them - is cause for deep concern," ten lawmakers, including Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), recently wrote to the president.
AGENCY ALERT
- Our colleague Tory Newmyer, who writes The Finance 202, is staking out the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland this week. We noticed FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is among the top Trump appointees who are on the guest list. The president is also expected to attend. Sign up to receive updates from Davos in The Finance 202 here.
HEALTH ON THE HILL
--Top Senate Finance Committee Democrat Ron Wyden (Ore.) wants an investigation into whether Seema Verma, who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, violated ethics rules in handling Medicaid waiver requests from states she used to work with privately. Verma formerly consulted for Kentucky, Arkansas, Iowa and other states seeking permission from the federal government to enact changes to their Medicaid programs.

Wyden asked HHS's general counsel, in a letter last week, to open an ethics investigation into the matter, questioning whether she had recused herself (as she'd promised) from being involved in waiver requests with states with whom she formerly contracted.

"Administrator Verma's commitment to recuse herself from work with former clients appears to have fallen short of the mark thus far, which is extremely concerning given that many of her former clients have sought, or plan to seek, waivers to impose unprecedented work requirements in state Medicaid programs," he wrote.
--A few more good reads from The Post and beyond: MEDICAL MISSIVES INDUSTRY RX STATE SCAN OPIOID OPTICS REPRODUCTIVE WARS DAYBOOK Today

The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, hold the "National Drug and Alcohol Chat Day" web chat event.

The Alliance of Community Health Plans holds a briefing on "The Value of Medicare Advantage."

The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, and the American Public Human Services Association host a webinar.

Coming Up

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on "Facing 21st Century Public Health Threats: Our Nation's Preparedness and Response Capabilities, Part 2" on Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Sickle Cell Disease Advisory Committee for presentations and discussion of programs on Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Institute of Nursing Research to discuss program policies and issues on Tuesday.

The Advisory Board holds a web conference on BPCI Advanced on Tuesday.

The Families USA Health Action Conference begins on Wednesday.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is scheduled to hold a hearing on combatting the opioid crisis on Thursday.

The National Institutes of Health is scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Advisory Mental Health Council on Thursday.

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission holds its January meeting starting on Thursday.

SUGAR RUSH
House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the military would be paid during the government shutdown:

Activists protest around the globe during the a second annual Women's March:

Saturday Night Live takes on White House doctor Navy Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson's report on President Trump's health:

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Trump's first year as president:

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Analysis | The Health 202: How the government shutdown could affect your health care (or not)

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The government shutdown isn't over Obamacare this time. But depending on how long it lasts, there will be ripple effects on health care as the Department of Health and Human Services sees half its workers furloughed. Happy third day of the shutdown.

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Federal Agencies and Departments affected

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Federal Agencies and Departments affected

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Thousands of government workers are unsure whether or not they will be heading to work on Monday amid uncertainty about how long a government shutdown will last.

Uncertainty is the byproduct of a government shutdown, with its impact often hard to predict. However, clues exist in the last shutdown, which was in 2013.

Key services will continue, and many agencies plan to use carryover funds to remain open for several days. But each day the shutdown lasts adds to the pressure on agencies, government employees and civilian contractors, as well as Americans who rely on various federal services.

Employees considered "essential" will still be required to report to work should the shutdown continue, while those in positions deemed "nonessential" will be barred from coming in.

The White House on Friday pledged to minimize the effects of the shutdown on the American people, with one official noting that the administration has urged government agencies "to do as much as they can" within the law to maintain operations.

The push for departments and agencies to utilize existing funding to remain open suggests the Trump administration is hedging its bets that lawmakers can reach a deal and avoid a shutdown the length of one in 2013, which lasted 16 days.

Each federal agency has a contingency plan for a shutdown that is written with help from the White House's Office of Management and Budget. But the impact of the shutdown, which began at midnight when the Senate failed to pass a short-term spending bill, is likely to trickle down gradually as agencies work to mitigate the effects.

About half of the Department of Health and Human Services will be placed on furlough. Beneficiaries of programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid will still receive services. The Food and Drug Administration, however, will take a hit, as it will have to halt activities like food safety inspections. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will continue "immediate response work" on influenza, according to White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney John (Mick) Michael Mulvaney Overnight Finance: Lawmakers see shutdown odds rising | Trump calls for looser rules for bank loans | Consumer bureau moves to revise payday lending rule | Trump warns China on trade deficit Overnight Regulation: Dems claim 50 votes in Senate to block net neutrality repeal | Consumer bureau takes first step to revising payday lending rule | Trump wants to loosen rules on bank loans | Pentagon, FDA to speed up military drug approvals Consumer bureau takes first step to revising payday lending rule MORE .

The National Park Service (NPS) will keep parks open, unlike in 2013, though much of its staff will not report to work. Services such as trash pickup and restroom cleaning will be halted, according to the NPS contingency plan for a shutdown.

Cybersecurity will remain a priority during the shutdown, as the government will continue to protect information technology systems, Mulvaney said Saturday at a press conference.

The Environmental Protection Agency will largely stay open during the government's closure, and the Labor Department will resume mine safety inspections.

Military personnel will be required to show up for work, but will not receive pay for as long as the shutdown lasts. Families of slain military members will experience a halt to death benefits as a result of the shutdown.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel will continue operations, meaning travelers will see both TSA employees and canines operating in airports. The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) management of air traffic control will also continue. Flight delays are not expected and much of the FAA's safety inspections will continue.

The government closure, a result of Congress's failed negotiations over a spending bill the last several weeks, has sparked both intraparty battles and fights between Democrats and Republicans.

The two parties have each tried to cast blame on the other for the shutdown, with the Republican National Committee invoking the hashtag #SchumerShutdown, referring to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer President Trump Donald John Trump Dems flip Wisconsin state Senate seat Sessions: 'We should be like Canada' in how we take in immigrants GOP rep: 'Sheet metal and garbage' everywhere in Haiti MORE is to blame for the closure, which follows failed talks over immigration and health-care funding. Charles (Chuck) Ellis Schumer Democrats will need to explain if they shut government down over illegal immigration White House: Trump remarks didn't derail shutdown talks Schumer defends Durbin after GOP senator questions account of Trump meeting MORE (D-N.Y.). Democrats say

What happens next depends on whether lawmakers reach a deal, as members of both the House and Senate have remained in Washington, D.C., to work toward an agreement to open the government.

Leaders in opposing parties on Saturday appear to be at odds over a short-term resolution to fund the government. Both chambers returned to Capitol Hill on Saturday afternoon to work toward a solution.

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Who is affected by the government shutdown?

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Thousands of government workers are unsure whether or not they will be heading to work on Monday amid uncertainty about how long a government shutdown will last. Uncertainty is the byproduct of a government shutdown, with its impact often hard to predict. However, clues exist in the last shutdown, which was in 2013.

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Economic impacts of the government shutdown

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Economic impacts of the government shutdown

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The federal government has been in a partial shutdown for two days. NPR's Michel Martin talks to David Wessel of the Brookings Institution about the economic impact of shutdown.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We're going to turn now from the politics of the government shutdown to the economics of it. In just a few minutes, we'll hear from a federal employee who would like to be able to go to work tomorrow but might not be able to. But first, we want to talk about the cost of a government shutdown, so we called David Wessel. He is director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution. That's a centrist research institution here in Washington, D.C., and he was nice enough to let us call him at home. David Wessel, thank you so much for joining us.

DAVID WESSEL: Good to be with you, Michel.

MARTIN: So we're hearing that it actually costs money to shut the government down, which seems counter-intuitive on some level. So first, is that true? And if it is, why does it cost money?

WESSEL: Well, it is true. Of course, there's a lot of time spent getting ready for a shutdown - just like if you have a vacation house and you shut it down for the winter, you have to turn off the water to the pipes. The federal government is a huge machine, and if you want to stop it in mid-action, it - you have to spend time turning the dials and figuring out who works and making sure that the right people are working and the right ones aren't. And I found a Government Accountability Office report from 1990, which if you adjusted for inflation, says that if the shutdown is three weekdays, it costs $80 million in administrative costs and $320 million in lost revenue to the government.

MARTIN: So those are actual hard costs. Are there economic impacts that go beyond the actual apparatus of the government?

WESSEL: Yes. Of course, the biggest impact is on the federal employees themselves. Even those people who are required to work will not get paid in real time. In the past, Congress has always said, well, we'll pay you later. That may happen this time. We don't know. But then if you look beyond that, there are government services that are not being provided. You can't sell an airplane, for instance. You can't get a question answered at the Internal Revenue Service. There are all sorts of services that people can't get. The economists who add this up say it works out to about $2 billion a day in lost output to the economy every day the shutdown persists.

MARTIN: Now what if this is resolved before Monday, when most people go to work? I mean, obviously, all kinds of people work throughout the weekend. But let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that the bulk of the workforce works that normal Monday-through-Friday schedule. If they somehow manage to figure all this out today before most people go to work, does the same thing apply?

WESSEL: No, it's basically a blip. It's unfortunate. It's disruptive, but it won't make much difference. It matters if this thing persists, particularly if it persists through February 1 when the next payday comes.

MARTIN: The last time the government shut down was 2013. So presumably, you know, we know what there is to know from that experience. Do you think that the same factors will apply or is there anything different about this that would cause us to have a different outcome?

WESSEL: Well, one thing is that the Trump administration has allowed more people to go to work and allowed more things to happen. The national parks are apparently open. They just don't have staff. So that would mute the effect. But basically, economists estimate that it'll shave about a tenth of a percentage point off of growth of GDP each week the government's closed - $2 billion a day. I don't see any reason why that should be any different than it was in 2013.

MARTIN: Before we let you go, David, do you have any sort of international comparison here? Is there any other developed economy - a peer economy of the United States - that has experienced this kind of disruption to government operations in the last - I don't know - whatever time frame you want to pick - five years or 10 years?

WESSEL: I think the answer is no. This is a case of American exceptionalism.

MARTIN: That's David Wessel. He's director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution. David, thanks so much for speaking with us.

WESSEL: You're welcome.

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

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The Economic Impact Of A Government Shutdown

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The federal government has been in a partial shutdown for two days. NPR's Michel Martin talks to David Wessel of the Brookings Institution about the economic impact of shutdown. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: We're going to turn now from the politics of the government shutdown to the economics of it.

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Aimee Hou

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The sequel rarely bests the original.

Think "Jaws II." "Jurassic World." "Evan Almighty."

The same goes for the 2013 government shutdown compared with the one the other day.

The shutdown five years ago was operatic drama. It featured Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reading "Green Eggs and Ham" on the Senate floor. Then-Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, angrily confronting U.S. Park Police blocking veterans from entering the closed World War II Memorial. A wild, high-speed chase that originated at the White House ending with U.S. Capitol Police shooting and killing a motorist with a baby in the backseat by the Hart Senate Office Building. A House stenographer seizing a microphone on the dais during the vote to re-open the government and delivering a bizarre rant about God, Satan, the Constitution and Freemasons.

This year's shutdown wasn't exactly "The Empire Strikes Back" as an encore to Star Wars.

With the government shutdown franchise, 2018 checked in around "The Phantom Menace."

To quote the Office of Personnel Management, 2018 was a mere "lapse in appropriations."

The government hurtled toward the shutdown last Friday at 11:59 p.m. ET. The U.S. Capitol usually pulses with activity amid crises and big votes. Nervous ides scurry through the marble corridors. Phones ring off the hook. Tense lawmakers caucus in small groups in Statuary Hall and in the Senate Reception Room. A mood of dread cloaks the building.

Yet Friday, the Capitol was eerily quiet. There was a paucity of information as to what came next. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., headed to the White House for one-on-one negotiations with President Trump.

"I'm so glad Chuck Schumer is the one who's over there," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-N.Y., showing her disdain for the president.

But Schumer returned with no accord.

The Senate wouldn't even vote to avert a shutdown Friday night, failing to crack a filibuster.

"This is a circus without a tent," mused Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.

"First prize in a government shutdown is you get to be dumb, not dumber," declared Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

The 2018 government shutdown may be a flop. But the flick boasted some interesting scenes.

Republicans embossed the image of Chuck Schumer on a poster and hauled it to the House chamber.

Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., challenged whether House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, violated House policy when he characterized the government closure as the "Schumer shutdown" during a floor speech. House rules bar members from speaking ill of one another. After a brief conference Perlmutter rescinded his reservations. But a few moments later, Perlmutter flagged a poster brought to the floor by Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala.

"A [government shutdown] is the politics of idiocy, of confrontation, of paralysis," read the placard, quoting Schumer from 2013. GOPers pasted Schumer's mug next to the quote.

Perlmutter insisted the poster was "disparaging to a member of the Senate."

Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., presided at the time. He stopped all floor action and demanded that staff haul the poster "to the chair for his observation." After a brief inspection, Womack ruled the poster met House decorum standards.

Moments later, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., flagged Byrne again for remarks about Pelosi. After yet another consultation, Lewis stood down.

From the chair, Womack finally granted Byrne the right to continue speaking - even though the remaining time dwindled to 40 seconds. Floor staff returned the poster. A cheer erupted from the Republican side of the aisle.

"I finally yield back," grumbled Byrne, concluding his spasmodic speech.

The poster truculence revealed just how far comity devolved in the House.

Shutting down the government in the overnight hours of Saturday is one thing. But it's a different matter to do so on a workday. So lawmakers scrambled to find a deal before most of the federal workforce reported for duty Monday morning. As one GOP source said, a government shutdown over the weekend is like playing with the house's money in a casino. But things get real come Monday morning.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., hoped to hold a new procedural vote late Sunday night. Schumer would meet McConnell on the floor to nix the plan for the time being. But then another lawmaker unexpectedly materialized in the Senate chamber: House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. Meadows intercepted the Kentucky Republican as he walked to the leader's desk. It's not unheard of for House members to show up in the Senate chamber. But Meadows' timing was odd, considering the circumstances.

The new funding deadline is now Feb. 8. If the government is open on Feb. 8, McConnell is willing to consider an immigration measure on the floor. But Meadows is concerned about what kind of immigration plan the Senate may debate. Naturally, House conservatives worry about something which veers toward the center. But the Senate risks never finishing such bill if the plan lurches to the right.

Despite its moments of intrigue, the 2018 shutdown simply didn't deliver the same panache as the 2013 shutdown.

The dialogue was wooden. The cinematography was choppy. The score stunk.

Who's to blame for the government shutdown?

Probably the projectionist.
Capitol Attitude is a weekly column written by members of the Fox News Capitol Hill team. Their articles take you inside the halls of Congress, and cover the spectrum of policy issues being introduced, debated and voted on there.

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The 2018 government shutdown made for a lousy sequel: 'A circus without a tent'

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The sequel rarely bests the original. Think "Jaws II." "Jurassic World." "Evan Almighty." The same goes for the 2013 government shutdown compared with the one the other day. The shutdown five years ago was operatic drama. It featured Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reading "Green Eggs and Ham" on the Senate floor.

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Updated at 8:10 a.m. ET
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees will either be sent home or have been told to not show up to work at all on Monday, as furloughs due to the government shutdown that began Friday night start to affect workers around the country.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., gave a foreboding warning from the Senate floor on Sunday.

"The shutdown is going to get a lot worse tomorrow," he warned. "A lot worse."

Republicans are insisting the shutdown is less "weaponized" than the last time this happened, in 2013 under then-President Barack Obama, but it's still sure to have a broad effect across the country and get worse the longer it goes.

"Essential services" will continue, and essential workers will remain on the job, albeit without pay.

But there will be a lot of federal workers - thousands - who will see a change.

Every federal agency has a specific contingency plan, in the case of a loss of funding, and you can look through them all here. In 2013, about 800,000 of the 2.1 million civilian federal employees were furloughed in 2013, according to The Washington Post.

In the Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency, for example, which employed 10,944 people as of last September, just 62 people are considered completely exempt from furlough.

The agency's plan then lays out a schedule for an additional tapering of labor: All employees are called to work for the first half of the first day of a shutdown, and then over the next 20 days, the plan dwindles the workforce down to 120 by the second half of the first day, and all the way down to seven people by day 20.

Here's how the shutdown will affect some key aspects of the government:
Military
Guidance from the Defense Department issued on Friday said military personnel will continue working, and military operations in places like Afghanistan would continue.

"There would be no gap in their pay unless the shutdown lasted past Feb. 1, and otherwise they would continue on the job without getting paid until the shutdown ended or until Congress and the president agreed to cover their costs before it ended," according to The Washington Post fact checker, who debunked President Trump's numerous claims that the military would be hit the hardest in the event of a government shutdown.
Veterans Affairs
Of the VA's 377,000 employees, more than 335,000 are expected to continue working. After a scare about veterans not getting the care they needed during the last shutdown, the Veterans Health Administration has been getting its funding appropriated in advance.
Social Security
Social Security checks will continue to go out, and most of the Social Security Administration's staff are exempt from the furloughs.
Postal Service
Postal delivery will be unaffected by the shutdown as the Postal Service operates on its own revenue stream. Post offices will also remain open.
The Justice Department
The Justice Department says criminal litigation will go on without interruption. The office of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential ties to the Trump campaign, will also be unimpeded.
Education
In the Department of Education, the contingency plan calls for more than 90 percent of its total 3,912 person staff to be furloughed during the first week of a shutdown, and a total of "not more than 6 percent of the total staff to be called back to work during a longer interruption."
Housing and Urban Development
The Department of Housing and Urban Development employs about 7,800 people. About 300 of them are considered exempt from furloughs, according to its contingency plan. It will continue to provide essential services like housing the homeless and providing emergency services to people with AIDS.

National Parks
One of the most visible symbols of that 2013 shutdown was gated off national parks. That won't be happening this year.

Most national parks, recreation areas, and monuments are staying open during the shutdown, but as NPR's Nathan Rott reported over the weekend, many rangers and staffers won't be on duty.

"There's absolutely a frustration [among park rangers]," Rott said on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. "By keeping the parks open, the Department of Interior is basically saying that we can do this whole national park thing without you guys. And in reality, they don't think that's going to work."

Most landmarks, such as Independence Hall, which houses the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, will be closed.

But one of America's most famous monuments, the Statue of Liberty, will reopen Monday after the state of New York agreed to temporarily pick up the tab for operating the park.

New York State will reopen the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tomorrow. We will not stand by as this symbol of freedom and opportunity goes dark. pic.twitter.com/8g6dnsZmU7
- Archive: Governor Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 22, 2018

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has vowed to keep the Grand Canyon open as well. "The Grand Canyon will not close on our watch. Period," said Ducey said in a statement. "If Washington, D.C. won't function, Arizona will."
EPA
The environmental Protection Agency has enough funding on hand to remain open through the coming week, according to a memo from administrator Scott Pruitt. All EPA employees are expected to come to work on Monday.
Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security says nearly 90 percent of its personnel are considered essential staff and will continue to perform their duties.

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The Thorny Logistics Of A Government Shutdown

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The partial federal shutdown that went into effect at midnight on Friday has a broad impact, from closing Independence Hall to furloughs at the Department of Education.

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7 Questions you were too embarrassed to ask about the government shutdown.

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7 Questions you were too embarrassed to ask about the government shutdown.

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We've entered the third day of the Trump administration's first federal government shutdown. And since the first two days happened over the weekend, you could be forgiven for being a bit behind on exactly what's happening. So as the standoff between Democrats and Republicans continues, here's a primer to what, exactly, is going on and why it matters.

1) Why did the government shut down over the weekend?

The most basic reason is that the government gets funded by laws that have to go through Congress - and this time, Congress failed to pass a new government funding law before the old one expired. Hence, the shutdown.

The more fundamental reason, though, is that a long-simmering dispute between Democrats and Republicans over immigration has finally boiled over.

Democrats are trying to take a stand and force Republican leaders to make a deal giving deportation protections to hundreds of thousands of unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the US as children. These are the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival) program recipients, commonly referred to as DREAMers.

The Trump administration decided to end this program, which would leave these young immigrants, many of whom grew up thinking of themselves as Americans, without legal protections. (Though the administration originally said it would sunset the program on March 5, a recent court ruling has led them to partially restart it for now.)

Until they see some progress on a DACA deal, most Democrats have decided to withhold their support from government funding bills. Since these bills need a 60-vote supermajority, and therefore at least 9 Democratic votes, to pass the Senate, this caused the government shutdown.

2) What is a government shutdown, exactly?

While a government shutdown is indeed a major event, it's not quite as dramatic as it sounds - the entire federal government certainly doesn't shut down. Military and law enforcement activities continue. Social Security checks still go out. Air traffic controllers still go to work.

However, activities the government has deemed "non-essential" stop, and employees tasked with those activities are furloughed - they're told not to come to work, and that they won't be paid until the shutdown is resolved. For the last shutdown, in 2013, this "non-essential" group totaled about 40 percent of federal nonmilitary employees.

Basically, it's a tremendous inconvenience for millions of Americans, and certainly has the potential to lead to even more serious problems the longer it stretches.

3) Has the government shut down before?

The government has actually shut down 18 times in modern history, but the shutdowns that loom the largest in recent memory occurred under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. In both, Republicans in Congress attempted to get a Democratic president to sign on to conservative policy demands in exchange for funding the government. In both, the president refused, leading to shutdowns. And in both, the president was viewed as the eventual "winner," eventually getting Congress to agree to reopen the government with relatively minor if any concessions.

4) What is DACA, and why is it so important to all this?

The chain reaction that eventually led to this shutdown began back in September, when the Trump administration announced it would end the DACA program - and also called on Congress to make it permanent.

This program, which President Obama established in 2012, granted work permits and deportation protections to hundreds of thousands of unauthorized immigrants who came to the US as minors and who had been in the country for several years (often called the DREAMers). However, Republicans have long said Obama didn't have the legal authority to set up the program without Congress, and the Trump administration cited this as its justification for ending it. Attorney General Jeff Sessions made this announcement in September, with the goal of sunsetting the program entirely by March.

But Trump was evidently hesitant to endorse ending DACA outright. The DREAMers have long been considered the most politically sympathetic group of unauthorized immigrants. They're young, they came here through no fault of their own, and many were largely raised here. The Trump administration's decision would put them at risk of deportation when their work permits expired.

So Trump said that Congress should act to "legalize" DACA by March - putting the perennially controversial issue of immigration at the top of their 2018 agenda. One possible motivation for this is that he hoped to avoid political blame for ending DACA. But another is that he essentially hoped to hold DACA recipients hostage to win concessions from Democrats on some "tough" immigration measures.

5) But how did immigration get tied to the government shutdown?

For months, immigration and other progressive activists have been arguing that Democrats needed to fight harder to help DACA recipients. And one obvious point of potential leverage over Republicans is that Democratic votes are needed to fund the government. So these activists argued that Democrats shouldn't vote for any government funding bill without a DACA deal.

Still, for some time, Democratic leaders preferred to pursue negotiations with Trump separately. After all, they thought, Trump had outright called for Congress to legalize DACA, which would seem to suggest he wants to get to yes. And Democrats and several Senate Republicans put together a bipartisan deal.

But earlier this month, however, the talks took a disastrous turn. A bipartisan group of pro-immigration members of Congress headed to the White House to meet Trump on January 11 - and were surprised to see that some of Congress's furthest-right immigration hardliners had also been invited. Things went from bad to worse when Trump reportedly complained that the US is letting in too many immigrants from "shithole countries" (though his defenders claim he said the word "shithouse").

All along, a deal that could get Trump's approval has remained elusive. Whether that's because of the president's own hawkish instincts and views on immigration, or because he's too beholden to his hardline advisers and his "base" voters, isn't clear. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, Republicans' Congressional leaders, have been similarly difficult to pin down.

Finally, frustrated Democrats in Congress concluded that Republicans won't get serious on the matter unless their hand is forced. So most of the party's Congressional wing finally came to agree with their activists that they shouldn't vote to fund the government until Republicans get serious on DACA. And on Friday, they made good on their threat.

6) What happened after the government shut down?

Both Democrats and Republicans talked tough as the shutdown began Saturday - and each party sought to blame the other what happened. All along, though, both sides had political reasons to be queasy about keeping the government shut down for too long.

The Democratic worry was that keeping the government shut down on behalf of unauthorized immigrants - even the DREAMers - is a political loser. Furthermore, many Democratic senators are facing tough reelections in red states this year, and fear being tagged as extremists. Meanwhile, Republicans worry that, since Trump is president and their party controls Congress, they'll be blamed for the shutdown and deemed incompetent.

Now, a shutdown over the weekend wasn't seen as an enormous deal, since the vast majority of furloughed federal workers wouldn't work during the weekend anyway. But extending a shutdown through the workweek - the week before President Trump's State of the Union address, no less, would be much more painful.

So on Sunday night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly made an offer to continue government funding for two and a half more weeks - adding that if no deal on DACA is reached before then, it's his intention to bring up an immigration bill after that.

Democrats, naturally, have some questions and concerns about this. What bill, exactly, would McConnell bring up? Would he even bring up one at all? When would the vote be? And won't this all be for naught unless the House of Representatives and President Trump also sign on?

7) What's next?

McConnell plans to hold a vote on reopening the government around midday today. And at the moment, there appears to be three possible paths forward.

One is that Democrats hold firm and continue the shutdown. Another is that Democrats get something they can portray as a "concession," and stand down. And a third is that enough red state Democrats peel off and agree to reopen the government, even while most of the party isn't on board. We'll see what happens soon enough.

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7 questions about the government shutdown you were too embarrassed to ask

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We've entered the third day of the Trump administration's first federal government shutdown. And since the first two days happened over the weekend, you could be forgiven for being a bit behind on exactly what's happening. So as the standoff between Democrats and Republicans continues, here's a primer to what, exactly, is going on and why it matters.

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Effect on tax returns and refunds, explained

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Both houses of Congress easily approved the short-term funding bill to end the government shutdown, though the votes revealed fissures among Democrats. Credit... Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

WASHINGTON - Congress brought an end to a three-day government shutdown on Monday as Senate Democrats buckled under pressure to adopt a short-term spending bill to fund government operations without first addressing the fate of young undocumented immigrants.

The House quickly approved the measure - which will fund the government through Feb. 8 and extend funding for the popular Children's Health Insurance Program for six years - and President Trump signed it on Monday night.

The agreement also revealed fissures among Democrats, with about one-third of the party's members in the Senate and a majority in the House voting against it.

The passage of the measure ended an ugly, if short-lived, impasse that threatened to give a black eye to both major political parties. The deal, reached after a bipartisan group of senators pushed their leaders to come to terms, enables hundreds of thousands of federal employees who had been facing furloughs to go back to work.

But a key part of the deal, a pledge by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, to allow an immigration vote in the coming weeks, sets the stage for a battle over the so-called Dreamers, young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate are offering drastically different visions of how to resolve their fate. But those on both sides of the debate, as well as advocates for immigrants' rights, said that ultimately Mr. Trump would need to get involved for the immigration dispute to be settled.

Mr. Trump's intentions were hard to discern, even as he took time to jab at the Democrats.

"Big win for Republicans as Democrats cave on Shutdown," the president said on Twitter at 11:30 p.m.

The message continued: "Now I want a big win for everyone, including Republicans, Democrats and DACA," referring to the Dreamers, "but especially for our Great Military and Border Security. Should be able to get there. See you at the negotiating table!"

The vote in the Senate was lopsided: 81 senators voted to end the shutdown while 18 - two Republicans and the rest of the Democrats and an independent who caucuses with them - sided against the measure. In the House, the vote was 266 to 150, with about three-quarters of Democrats opposed.

The measure also shored up the Children's Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, which insures nearly nine million children. States had warned that they were on the verge of having to end coverage after Congress allowed funding for the program, which had been created and sustained for two decades with bipartisan support, to expire in September.

The votes came after a weekend of fevered negotiations by a bipartisan group that eventually grew to include about 25 senators, who helped put together a framework in which Democrats would vote to reopen the government in exchange for the promise from Mr. McConnell.

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Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, announced that he would ensure a "level playing field" on immigration, language that some Democrats interpreted as going further than he had before. Credit... Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

An apparent turning point came when Mr. McConnell took the Senate floor on Monday morning to announce that he would ensure a "level playing field" on immigration - language that some Democrats interpreted as going further than he had before. Mr. McConnell said he would have the Senate take up immigration legislation by mid-February if the issue had not been resolved by then.

"I sat on the floor and listened to him very intently, somewhat holding my breath," said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats. "I think the majority leader has made a public commitment that it would be very hard for him not to meet."

But Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, was unconvinced, and voted against the bill. She suggested that she did not trust Mr. McConnell.

"I refuse to put the lives of nearly 700,000 young people in the hands of someone who has repeatedly gone back on his word," she said.

Immigrants' rights activists were crushed.

"Last week, I was moved to tears of joy when Democrats stood up and fought for progressive values and for Dreamers," said Frank Sharry, the executive director of America's Voice, an immigrants' rights group. "Today, I am moved to tears of disappointment and anger that Democrats blinked."

Hundreds of thousands of young immigrants have been protected from deportation under an Obama-era initiative, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Mr. Trump rescinded the program in September and gave Congress six months, until March 5, to come up with a replacement.

But the president has demanded that border security - including money for the "big, beautiful wall" he has promised at the southern border with Mexico - be included in any package. Mr. Trump also wants limits on what critics call "chain migration," in which immigrants can sponsor their relatives, and an end to the diversity visa lottery, which fosters immigration from countries that are underrepresented.

A bipartisan group of six senators, led by Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, has proposed the backbone of an immigration deal that backers hope could garner 60 votes, enough to break a filibuster.

But Mr. Trump has rejected that plan. And the measure is almost certainly a nonstarter in the House, where Speaker Paul D. Ryan has promised a vote on a conservative immigration measure championed by the chairmen of the Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees, if it has the support to pass.

"If we are hoping that Paul Ryan is going to have courage and that the House Republicans are going to be fair and decent and that a bill could emerge, we're smoking something," Mr. Sharry said.

Monday's Senate vote exposed a rift between moderate Democrats who are up for re-election this year in states won by Mr. Trump and their more liberal counterparts.

One of those Trump-state Democrats, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, characterized the vote as a "big win for the Dreamers," adding that if the Senate passes a measure with more than 60 votes, it would "put a lot of pressure" on the House to act.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, has helped propose the backbone of an immigration bill that backers hope could garner 60 votes, enough to break a filibuster. Credit... Pete Marovich for The New York Times

But more liberal Democrats, including Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who voted against the spending measure, disagreed.

"The lesson to me is that a promise here is far less meaningful when there is no involvement by the House, not to mention the White House," he said, adding that he has "no confidence, zero, that Paul Ryan will bring a measure to the floor, in fact on the contrary."

Mr. Graham said it was critical that the Senate's eventual immigration bill have the support of a broad bipartisan majority of perhaps 70 senators.

"A partisan product doesn't get you to where you want to go," he said. "If you're going to make the play of trying to pick off a handful of the other side, it's going to crash and burn."

The shutdown crisis began Friday, after talks between Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, and Mr. Trump to keep the government open broke down when the president and his chief of staff demanded more concessions on immigration.

According to one person familiar with that day's discussion, Mr. Schumer agreed to more military spending and discussed fully funding the president's request for a border wall in exchange for an agreement from the president to support legalizing the Dreamers.

Late that night, an overwhelming majority of Democrats, joined by a handful of Republicans, voted to block consideration of a spending bill very much like the measure that passed Monday. The only difference is that the initial bill would have funded the government for four weeks, not three.

A round of partisan finger-pointing ensued, with Democrats calling the impasse the "Trump Shutdown" and Republicans branding it the "Schumer Shutdown."

At the White House on Monday, Mr. Trump's press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, insisted that Monday's deal was not "drastically different" than what was discussed on Friday between the president and Mr. Schumer.

Despite what was characterized by both parties as Mr. Trump's invisibility this weekend, Ms. Sanders insisted that he was responsible for making a deal happen.

"What the president did clearly worked," she said, adding, "The president stayed firm, Republicans stayed firm, and Democrats, I think, realized that they had to move past that piece of legislation" to discuss immigration going forward.

But Ms. Sanders declined to clarify precisely what the parameters of an immigration deal would look like. That worried Democrats like Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

"The problem with all of this is the problem it's been from the beginning," Mr. Menendez said. "You got no guarantees from the House. You got no guarantees from the president. So you have two-thirds of the equation that are just not there."

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Government Shutdown Ends After 3 Days of Recriminations (Published 2018)

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WASHINGTON - Congress brought an end to a three-day government shutdown on Monday as Senate Democrats buckled under pressure to adopt a short-term spending bill to fund government operations without first addressing the fate of young undocumented immigrants. The House quickly approved the measure - which will fund the government through Feb.

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Government shutdown effects health system too 

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Government shutdown effects health system too 

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/01/23/the-shutdown-was-a-31-billion-gift-to-the-health-care-industry/?utm_term=.d9575d9adb8f

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Trump signs bill ending shut down - Venla Kuvaja

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Trump signs bill ending shut down - Venla Kuvaja

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The vote will come several hours after the workday for hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees was supposed to have begun, and comes three days after the government officially shut down Friday at midnight. Many of the shutdown's full effects were less visible during the weekend, when much of the federal workforce would typically be off anyway.

The vote was moved from 1 a.m. ET Monday to noon after it became clear Democrats would block the spending bill over disagreements on a variety of issues, most notably what do about young people affected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas said he thought Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York agreed to push back the vote to give his caucus "a chance to chew" on a GOP proposal to break the impasse.

"It's better to have a successful vote tomorrow at noon than a failed vote tonight," Cornyn told reporters.

But a top Democratic leadership aide disputed Cornyn's assertion and said unless Republicans make significant changes to their offer, Democrats will likely reject it when the vote comes. The Democratic aide did say, however, that progress was made in the lengthy negotiations that took place late Sunday night. But more talks are needed.

GOP Sen. Jeff Flake told reporters Sunday night a bipartisan group of senators will meet again at 10 a.m. ET Monday ahead of the noon vote.

He said he was now a "yes" on the funding bill and it was his hope that six or seven more moderate Democrats would come on board to get the continuing resolution over the finish line -- to 60 votes -- to end the shutdown.

He said the Democrats still want something tangible on DACA but said it was problematic because it could run into the February 8 funding deadline.

He argued that they won a concession from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he isn't requiring President Donald Trump to sign off before an immigration bill moves to the floor.

"For the first time, we have the majority leader move off of we can only move something if the President agrees," Flake told reporters.

Despite Schumer's rejection of the deal, one senior GOP aide involved in the talks told CNN Republican leaders think they have a shot of picking off enough Democrats to move forward.

While McConnell's commitment falls far short of what the vast majority of Democrats want, there's some GOP hope they can get enough to move forward -- and notably split the caucus.

"This is their off-ramp," the aide said. "We'll see if they dig in or if they want a way out."

The aide also noted talks will continue and may yield more progress in the meantime.

Earlier Sunday, Trump called for Senate Republicans to change the chamber's rules to resolve the funding impasse as the government shutdown continued into its second day. He tweeted a call for McConnell to invoke the so-called "nuclear option" and thereby remove leverage for Senate Democrats.

Senate rules impose a threshold of 60 votes to break a filibuster, and Senate Republicans currently hold a slim majority of 51 votes, meaning even if they can unite their members, they need nine more votes to end debate. The White House is calling for the Senate to change its rules and move the threshold to a simple majority of 51 votes.

A spokesman for McConnell said in response to the tweet that the Senate Republican Conference does not support changing the 60-vote rule, a reiteration of Republican Senate leadership's already-stated opposition to the move Trump has called for over the past year.

CNN's Phil Mattingly contributed to this report.

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senate to vote at noon on whether to end government shutdown - cnnpolitics

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Ted Barrett, Ashley Killough and Daniella Diaz, CNN

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Senate to vote at noon on whether to end government shutdown

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The vote will come several hours after the workday for hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees was supposed to have begun, and comes three days after the government officially shut down Friday at midnight. Many of the shutdown's full effects were less visible during the weekend, when much of the federal workforce would typically be off anyway.

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Jenna Brown

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The shutdown could potentially affect one of the agency's commercial partners, SpaceX, Elon Musk's company. SpaceX expects to conduct a major engine test of its Falcon Heavy rocket sometime this weekend at a launchpad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida that the company has leased from the agency since 2014. The static-fire test doesn't require any NASA involvement, but the shutdown may affect staffing and operations in and around the spaceflight center, creating unusual conditions for such a high-stakes procedure. SpaceX has not yet responded to a request for comment on the status of potential testing.

The United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing-and a SpaceX competitor-got in just under the wire with a launch Friday night from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. ULA's Atlas V rocket carried a surveillance satellite from the U.S. Air Force.

Related Stories

The government shutdown comes on the anniversary of President Trump's inauguration, and as NASA enters its second year without a permanent administrator. NASA chiefs are chosen by the White House and must be confirmed by the Senate. The Trump administration announced its pick, Oklahoma congressman Jim Bridenstine, last summer, but his nomination has stalled as Democrats and Republicans argue over his credentials and Congress works through a staggering to-do list. This week, after lawmakers failed to break a deadlock over federal protections for young, undocumented immigrants, Senate Democrats and some Republicans responded by blocking a House bill that would buy Congress more time to negotiate a long-term budget deal. (For more on what's happening, read my colleague Russell Berman here.)

The White House also has yet to nominate a deputy administrator for NASA. Even the chief financial officer who signed NASA's recent shutdown plan, Andrew Hunter, is serving on an interim basis.

NASA says it takes the agency less than half a day to run through all its shutdown procedures and commence operations with a skeleton crew. Getting the government back up and running again may take much longer than that. The 2013 shutdown, a showdown between former President Barack Obama and Republicans over Obamacare, lasted 16 days, the third-longest in U.S. history. It's not yet clear what will happen in the next few days. If it's any comfort, remember that while Washington is at a standstill, the Earth is still spinning, joined in its journey around the sun by three federal employees who won't stop working.

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What Happens to Astronauts During a Government Shutdown?

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The shutdown could potentially affect one of the agency's commercial partners, SpaceX, Elon Musk's company. SpaceX expects to conduct a major engine test of its Falcon Heavy rocket sometime this weekend at a launchpad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida that the company has leased from the agency since 2014.

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People affected in the shutdown -Collin Smith

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People affected in the shutdown -Collin Smith

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There are many federal agencies that are affected by the shutdown. As discussed before many military and federal service members are either going without pay or not being able to show up to their occupation. On a positive note, public parks won't be shutting down unlike in 2013. Many other agencies such as Homland security and the Justice Department claim to have enough funding to stay open

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Effects of the Government Shutdown on Economy

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Effects of the Government Shutdown on Economy

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This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertising Policy, visit this page.

Five years after the 2013 government shutdown, the US is on the verge of another closure, because Congress can't agree on a budget. Democrats and Republicans are attempting to come to a compromise by Friday night to keep government agencies open for the short term, but it's not looking bright. Shutdown looms at midnight, Eastern time.

Even if the government shuts down most essential services will continue to operate - social security checks will still be sent out, and the military won't be abandoning their posts.

But what about travel? The government controls and funds agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees air traffic control, or the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Transportation Security Agency. Without the FAA directing your flight and the TSA checking who boards it, you are not flying anywhere within or from the United States of America. And without Customs and Border Protection officers - also part of Homeland Security - at airports and entry posts, no one would get into the US, either.

So what will happen to travel if the government does shut down? For the most part, essential services related to travel would be assured, but there still could be some changes - we've rounded up how things may operate after midnight between Friday and Saturday.

Air and Train Travel

If you're traveling through an airport, you probably won't notice much of a difference. According to NPR, air traffic controllers, TSA and Customs and Border Protection agents will continue working. The government makes sure they stay working since they're vital to safety, just as it did during the 2013 shutdown. During that last government shutdown, the TSA told TPG that security lines would not be much slower than normal since most frontline officers are considered essential. The Hill reports that "most of the [FAA] agency's aviation safety inspectors would keep working."

Amtrak, which is partly funded by the government, will operate as normal.

Passports and Global Entry

Passport and visa issuance and renewal would likely proceed, but with some delays, if things go like they did in 2013, says CNBC. The service is partially funded by application and renewal fees, making it more insulated from government budgets.

However, at least one TPG reader received an email from the Global Entry Enrollment Office at New York's JFK airport stating that all interviews had been cancelled for Saturday due to the shutdown:

Prior to the shutdown, a spokesman from Customs and Border Protection sent TPG this statement: "The dedicated men and women of DHS are fully prepared to protect the homeland and keep Americans safe should a lapse in government funding occur. Nearly 90 percent of all DHS personnel are considered essential staff and will continue to perform their duties in the event of a government shutdown. We urge Congress to fully fund DHS in order to pay the federal employees on the front lines defending our nation."

National Parks and Museums

Government-controlled museums in Washington, DC like the Smithsonian will stay open through the weekend, but if funding hasn't been figured out by Monday, they will shut their doors. New York City Smithsonian institutions will be closed by Saturday.

In 2013, national parks and monuments were closed immediately, but this time around could be different.

"In the event of a shutdown, national parks and other public lands will remain as accessible as possible while still following all applicable laws and procedures," Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift said in a statement carried by the Washington Post.

The Interior Department is attempting to avoid the same mess seen in 2013, which included a group of veterans knocking over the barricades to the World War II Memorial in Washington.

"Visitors who come to our nation's capital will find war memorials and open-air parks open to the public. Nationally, many of our national parks, refuges and other public lands will still allow limited access wherever possible," said Swift.

How Can Credit Cards Protect You?

Many credit cards offer travel insurance in the case of sickness or serious weather. While it's unlikely that a government shutdown would qualify as an event triggering trip delay or cancellation insurance, it may be worth submitting a claim if your travel plans are legitimately affected by the shutdown. For example, you may have booked a campsite in a national park with your credit card, but you find next week that the park's entrances are shut and your campsite is inaccessible.

The 2013 shutdown also provided issues for credit card applications, as a small percentage of applications that required IRS income verification were slowed down, since the IRS's income verification office was closed.
Featured image by Scott Olson/Getty Images. This story has been updated to include details about the temporary closure of the JFK Global Entry Enrollment office.

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How Would a Government Shutdown Affect Travel?

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This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertising Policy, visit this page. Five years after the 2013 government shutdown, the US is on the verge of another closure, because Congress can't agree on a budget.

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What is a government shutdown, what are the effects, who is affected by this shutdown.
Isabella Mejia.

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DEFINITION of 'Government Shutdown'

A government shutdown is the closure of nonessential offices of the government due to lack of approval on the federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Approval is reached if Congress passes all of the spending bills regarding the federal budget. If an agreement is not achieved, a government shutdown will close many federally run operations, and halt work for federal employees unless they are considered essential. Some organizations still stay open by running on cash reserves, but once these run out, if a solution is not found, they will also close. The shutdown stays in effect until a compromise is reached and a budget bill is passed.

BREAKING DOWN 'Government Shutdown'

Government shutdowns have happened in the past and could affect any government processing functions such as passport applications, law enforcement recruitment and testing, or Social Security card applications. National parks and monuments close if there is a shutdown. Administrative departments and agency affected would also include the Small Business Administration, which would not be permitted to process any new loan applications while the shutdown is in effect.

What a Government Shutdown Affects

The private sector might be affected by a government shutdown and the economy can lose money as a result of the disruption in operations. Banks, while not government-controlled, would not be able to access information they need such as income tax records that are typically reviewed during the loan application process. The disbursement of payments from government sources to citizens for veterans' benefits or unemployment insurance may be halted. The collateral effects may be felt across the business sector, including among companies that do indirect business with the government. When substantial numbers of federal workers are furloughed and not spending money as expected, the businesses that typically serve them may see a drop off revenue. Hotels, restaurants, and other hospitality services that cater to visitors to national parks and monuments will lose notable business during a shutdown. The overall cost and last impact on the economy may vary, yet there have been shutdowns where an estimated $20 billion was lost.

Any office that does not receive funding from Congress would continue functioning. For example the Federal Reserve would continue operating, and the Post Office, being owned but not operated by the federal government, would also continue to run. Essential employees that typically continue working might include security, such as police and firefighters, and intelligence agencies. Active military, prison guards, border patrol agents, and air traffic controllers also remain on the job in the event of a shutdown.

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A government shutdown is the closure of nonessential offices of the government due to lack of approval on the federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Approval is reached if Congress passes all of the spending bills regarding the federal budget.

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The groups that will be most affected are those who have a lot of employees and those who rely on grants such as, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), and the Administration for Community Living (ACL)

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Short term- the government shut down lasts a few days so there should not be a noticeable affect on your own tax refund.
Long term- the IRS will retain less than half of its workforce, little more than 35,000 people.

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It's tax filing season. But the federal government is now shut down after a debate over immigration got in the way of Congress passing a spending deal. So how will this affect your tax returns and refunds?

The short version: You can still mail in your tax returns or submit them online. And if the federal government shutdown only lasts a few days (and ends, specifically, before January 29), there shouldn't be a noticeable effect on getting your tax refund or any other processing. That's because the IRS wasn't planning to accept tax returns until January 29, anyway.

But if the shutdown drags on longer, there could be delays and other serious problems at the IRS. So if you plan to rely on your tax refund for a big January or February purchase, you may want to hold off.

The long version: As part of the federal government shutdown, the IRS will retain less than half of its workforce - or a little more than 35,000 people, according to a contingency plan.

That will let the IRS continue some operations in the short term. Some examples: processing electronic returns, processing returns with payments, mailing tax forms, appeals, civil and criminal cases, criminal investigations, and some technical work to make sure computer systems remain up and running.

So you will be able to mail in your tax returns or submit them online - whatever you prefer.

But depending on how long the shutdown lasts, there could be some problems.

First, tax refunds will stop being issued. Now, this shouldn't affect most taxpayers unless the shutdown drags on. Although the IRS considers tax filing season to run between January 1 and April 30, it wasn't planning to accept 2017 tax returns until January 29, according to CNN.

So if the shutdown ends before then, there shouldn't be a big impact on getting people's 2017 tax refunds issued. If the shutdown lasts beyond January 29, expect delays on those refunds (since, after all, the government will be running out of cash).

One group that could be affected: those still waiting on tax refunds from before 2017. As long as the government remains closed down, don't expect to get those refunds.

Meanwhile, the IRS will also stop several other functions: audits, return examinations, non-automated collections, and 1040X processing, among other operations. (For a full list, check out the IRS's contingency plan.)

One other area in which the IRS may have problems is implementing the 2017 tax plan passed by Republicans in Congress and signed by President Donald Trump. National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson had already told Congress earlier this year that the IRS needed more money to implement the law. A shutdown will likely make the problem worse, though, as with other possible problems, it shouldn't get too bad unless the shutdown continues for long.

That's the big caveat to all of this: The longer the shutdown goes on for, the worse problems will get. In particular, the IRS has indicated that if the shutdown lasts longer than five days, there could be changes in its plan.

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The government shutdown's effect on tax returns and refunds, explained

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It's tax filing season. But the federal government is now shut down after a debate over immigration got in the way of Congress passing a spending deal. So how will this affect your tax returns and refunds? The short version: You can still mail in your tax returns or submit them online.

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Congress managed to pull off the least disruptive shutdown in recent memory -launched on a Friday night, ended late Monday. Despite weeks of arguing and days of negotiating, the whole thing amounts to little more than a one-day vacation for a half million federal employees who will almost certainly be reimbursed for their forced day off.

Beyond that, here are the top takeaways from the Lost Weekend.

Democrats lost the argument

For Republicans, this was an easy messaging moment: Democrats are holding up pay for the military in order to protect immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally. Of course, this is not the whole story and military pay was not affected, but it is a clear and simple message that everyone could parrot.

For Democrats it was more complicated. Saturday morning, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi made the case that her party was demanding a broad budget deal covering an array of domestic programs. But by Monday, Democrats in the Senate were basically confirming it was all about immigration. They were now willing to vote for a 3-week funding bill they had rejected Friday because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to get moving on an immigration bill to reinstate DACA, the Obama-era protections for immigrants bought illegally to the U.S. as children.

So, as usual, the winning message is the one that fits better on a bumper sticker.

Democrats got a win they forgot to mention

The 3-week spending bill also, oddly, includes a 6-year extension of the federal Children's Health Insurance Program. Democrats have been furious that Republicans let this program expire in September and they have been demanding that it be restored. Republicans added the CHIP extension to the short-term funding bill as a sweetener to attract Democratic votes, but it didn't work last week. Monday, the bill passed with the CHIP provision attached, but Democrats did not leap to the podiums to cheer their great victory.

'Shutdown' is a more malleable word than we thought

This shutdown was not nearly as disruptive as prior shutdowns in part because it was really short and in part because the White House chose not to let it be disruptive. Gone were the images of the 2013 shutdown (under former president Barack Obama) of tourists staring through the locked doors of the museums and veterans barred from walking on to the open-air World War II memorial.

Instead, the last images of the 2018 shutdown are tweets from the Smithsonian and other federal agencies saying, basically "We found some extra money lying around and will keep our doors open for a while."

It is a reminder that in Washington there is always a way, when there is a will.

Don't forget about the House

Don't expect Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and the House Freedom Caucus that he leads, to just roll over for any bipartisan agreement the Senate can reach on immigration. (Photo: Win McNamee, Getty Images)

It is all well and good for senators agree to have a bipartisan discussion about immigration, long-term spending and other major topics. But the fact of the matter is that any deal Senate Republicans work out with Senate Democrats is likely to be a very hard sell among the overwhelmingly conservative House Republican caucus, which still controls the agenda in that chamber.

Clear your calendar for Feb. 8

It is important to remember that the deal the Senate brokered Monday is just a 3-week extension - a week shorter than one that the House offered last week. The government has been operating since Oct. 1 under a series of short-term budget bills because Congress has been unable to agree on a year-long spending package. There is no reason to believe that the next spending deadline Feb. 8 will arrive with any less acrimony than the last one. That's not saying there is going to be another government shutdown Feb. 9. But there certainly could be.

More: Trump declares victory after senators strike deal to lift government shutdown

What now?: Congress solved the shutdown but deep spending and immigration disputes remain

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Democrats lost the argument and other top takeaways from Washington's lost weekend

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CLOSE Congress managed to pull off the least disruptive shutdown in recent memory -launched on a Friday night, ended late Monday. Despite weeks of arguing and days of negotiating, the whole thing amounts to little more than a one-day vacation for a half million federal employees who will almost certainly be reimbursed for their forced day off.

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Aimee Hou

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J. Scott Applewhite/AP Images

The deal to reopen the federal government, passed Monday, will fund the government through February 8.

The Senate's deal to end the shutdown included a commitment from Republicans to try to codify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program into law.

Just a day after Congress struck the deal, negotiations over DACA are not looking promising.

Congress voted to reopen the government on Monday, ending the partial shutdown of federal services after just 69 hours. But in doing so, lawmakers set up another shutdown deadline just over two weeks away.

The two parties have just 15 days, until February 8, to resolve the differences over immigration, defense funding, and social programs that helped prompt the shutdown last weekend. And the chances of avoiding a second shutdown already look grim.

"A sequel seems likely given absolutely no policy resolution," said Chris Krueger, an analyst at Cowen Washington Research Group.

DACA is the central fight

The main policy issue that could push Washington to the brink of a second shutdown is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields from deportation about 700,000 unauthorized immigrants who came to the US as minors.

As part of the deal to end a shutdown, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to hold a vote to codify the program into law. President Donald Trump in September announced plans to end the program, but he gave Congress until March 5 to work out a permanent solution for it.

The key sticking point in the February shutdown negotiations won't be formulating a bill that is acceptable to most senators. Rather, it will come in finding a deal that both the House of Representatives and the White House support.

The White House has already poured cold water on a bipartisan bill from GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin.

"The Graham-Durbin proposal is not a proposal the president can sign," the White House deputy press secretary, Raj Shah, said.

The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, reiterated the position Tuesday, saying the Graham-Durbin bill "should be declared dead on arrival."

Trump also addressed the coming fight over DACA in a statement applauding the end of the government shutdown.

"As I have always said, once the government is funded, my administration will work toward solving the problem of very unfair illegal immigration," Trump said. "We will make a long-term deal on immigration if, and only if, it is good for our country."

Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

House Republicans have already declared themselves not privy to any deal between McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

"There were no commitments made in the House," Rep. Steve Scalise, the House majority whip, said Tuesday.

In fact, to help secure votes from the conservative House Freedom Caucus to pass a spending bill last week, House leadership agreed to support a staunchly conservative immigration bill. That legislation would be dead on arrival in the Senate, and it shows the massive gap between the two chambers.

"We believe that you need to start in the House and it has been my position consistently, you start in the House with the most conservative bill, you send it to the Senate, it gets moderated in the Senate, and then comes back," Rep. Mark Meadows, the Freedom Caucus chair, told reporters last weekend. "And perhaps a bill that I vote on to start the process in the House is not one I vote for in final passage, but it's the way that it's supposed to work."

It's not only Republicans rejecting ideas to solve the impasse on DACA. Schumer said his offer to Trump to partially fund the president's long-promised wall on the Mexican border, made during a negotiation on Friday, was no longer valid.

But that's not all

DACA represents the central issue of the next shutdown fight, but it won't the only policy problem Congress must resolve before February 8.

Also high on the list is funding for the 2018 fiscal year. The bill passed Monday was a short-term funding vehicle known as a continuing resolution, and it is the fourth such stopgap measure Congress has used to fund the government since September.

Members of both parties have criticized the use of continuing resolutions, which provide little long-term certainty for federal agencies. Before the next deadline, congressional leaders must agree on funding levels for defense and nondefense programs over the next year and a half.

Reaching an agreement is harder than it sounds. Republicans want to bump military spending by twice as much as nondefense spending, while Democrats want those two sides to rise in equal measure.

Given the ramifications, the funding issue could become nearly as contentious as the DACA fight.

Lawmakers must also come to agreements on additional funds for disaster relief, extensions of certain Medicare provisions, funds for programs to combat the opioid crisis, policies to stabilize the individual health-insurance marketplaces, and more.

While none of these issues are as politically divisive as DACA, they could complicate negotiations over the next two-plus weeks.

Perhaps best summarizing how far lawmakers have to go, Cowen's Krueger described the agreement that ended the shutdown as a deal "to maybe do a Senate deal later" with "no agreements from the House or White House."

He added: "It is literally a deal that hinges on a nonbinding promise for the Senate to begin talking about immigration later this month on the floor."

SEE ALSO: Congress just set up another government shutdown deadline - and the next fight could get even nastier

NOW WATCH: Here's how the map of the United States has changed in 200 years

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The fight over the next government shutdown - just 15 days away - already looks like a disaster

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The deal to reopen the federal government, passed Monday, will fund the government through February 8. The Senate's deal to end the shutdown included a commitment from Republicans to try to codify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program into law. Just a day after Congress struck the deal, negotiations over DACA are not looking promising.

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Getty Images

More than 48 hours after the 69-hour weekend government shutdown, party leaders and members of Congress continue to spin and assign blame. Who won the shutdown is mostly irrelevant to the weeks ahead, but the debate itself highlights more fundamental problems in American politics.

The deeper issue is what this brief and soon-forgotten episode says about the broken legislative practices inside the halls of Congress. From immigration to health care, privacy to national security, there are bipartisan majorities on Capitol Hill willing to debate any number of important bills. The problem is they aren't getting a say in what Congress debates. Congressional leaders care more about spin than deliberation. As a result, Congress has morphed from a democratic arena weighing important policy differences to a debate-stunted PR firm. This is not exactly new, but the 115th Congress is reaching new levels of dysfunction. And as long as leaders seek brinkmanship over debate, shutdowns will become only more common.

Story Continued Below

One reason is the growing power of hard-line activist groups, on both sides, to set the political agenda. Neither party really wanted a shutdown, but they valued other priorities more than keeping the government open. Democrats wanted to stand firm to protect from deportation the undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, under a program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA; Republicans would rather risk a shutdown than make any concessions that might accentuate their party's internal divisions on immigration.

Strategically, Democrats got nothing of value from shuttering the government. They gained no leverage they didn't already have. It didn't make a DACA bill more likely to pass. If anything, it may have slightly weakened their hand in the short term.

Democrats do, however, still have significant leverage on several spending and fiscal issues coming up over the next several weeks. Congress will soon turn to raising the Budget Control Act caps, increasing the debt limit and drafting an omnibus spending package. Since Republicans took control of the House in 2011, they have averaged fewer than 160 Republican "yes" votes on budget, spending and debt limit legislation. If that history is any indicator, Democrats will be needed to pass these routine governing bills and can rightly demand policy concessions in exchange for their support to keep the government running. So Democrats did not need to filibuster the short-term spending bill on Friday to get leverage for passing DACA. They already have it.

Further, McConnell's promise does not give Senate Democrats what they really need: the ability to push a DACA bill through the House. McConnell's pledge is valuable only if you pretend the lower chamber does not exist, as Houes Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) reminded everyone yesterday. Immigration is a notoriously difficult issue for House Republicans. For years, it has divided their majority, incentivizing speakers to ignore the subject altogether. For example, a bipartisan immigration reform bill sailed through the Senate in 2013 but never even moved out of committee in the House. A barrage of public pressure by activists and Democrats, and threats of a discharge petition were not enough to overcome Republican fissures on the issue.

The House is in a similar place today. Speaker Paul Ryan would need to overcome significant agitation in his own conference, and likely risk his political career, to bring a bipartisan immigration bill to the House floor on its own. To say nothing of the fact that Republicans in both chambers are looking to President Donald Trump for guidance. He hasn't clarified what kind of Democratic concessions he's willing to accept in exchange for a deal on DACA-so Republican lawmakers remain paralyzed.

Many observers rightly point out that Democrats lost no leverage by reopening the government after a three-day shutdown. This brings into focus a larger strategic question: Was it necessary to filibuster a functioning majority when Democrats hold more leverage over the spending bills Congress will take up over the next two months?

The short answer is no. Democrats essentially shut down the government in exchange for a promise they didn't need and that won't ensure passage of a DACA bill. The only plausible reason for the shutdown was to appease those on the left looking to secure a DACA fix immediately. The blowback Schumer is receiving from progressives suggests they may not have accomplished that goal, either.

This has implications beyond an unmemorable shutdown. As many Democrats argued in 2013, shutting down the government to force debate on broader policy issues is irresponsible governance, a waste of taxpayer dollars and damaging to the economy. It is simply too high a price to exact on what should be a routine legislative debate in the chambers of Congress. But on Friday, they helped normalize shutdown threats, a tactic they derided just four years ago.

Unfortunately, it won't get better. The weekend shutdown only reminded us that congressional leaders in both parties care more about public relations than proper deliberation. By nearly every deliberative standard-open debate, amendments, committee debate and markup-this is among the least democratic Congresses in our history. Media outlets are filled with takes on who won the shutdown. Republicans are doing victory laps, seemingly unaware their party remains in a horrifically bad negotiating position for Feb. 8, when they will likely get rolled on several fronts. Democratic spinmeisters are claiming they didn't get rolled over the weekend. It's a vapid debate congressional leaders want, but it glosses over the institution's fundamental problem.

Congress was envisioned as the hub of American debate. Yet today, it evidently requires a government shutdown just to begin serious policy discussions on the floor of either chamber. Brinkmanship has replaced deliberation. And because of that, we'll be hearing about all this again in 15 days.

Josh Huder is senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University. He is writing a book about congressional development.

This article tagged under:

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The Real Takeaway from the Shutdown: Congress Is Broken

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More than 48 hours after the 69-hour weekend government shutdown, party leaders and members of Congress continue to spin and assign blame. Who won the shutdown is mostly irrelevant to the weeks ahead, but the debate itself highlights more fundamental problems in American politics.

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Health and Human Services Department affected

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Health and Human Services Department affected

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WASHINGTON -- The federal government stopped operating at midnight, halting all but essential services, after the Senate came 10 votes short of reaching a temporary, last-minute funding deal that would have kept the government open through February 16. The shutdown comes on the anniversary of President Trump's inauguration, and with the GOP in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House.

Mr. Trump is placing blame on Senate Democrats. However, five Democrats broke with their party to back the measure, while five Republicans voted against it. Democrats were holding out for a comprehensive bill and a deal to protect DACA recipients - immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

If Republican leaders get their way, the shutdown will not last long, CBS News' Nancy Cordes reported. They were hoping that Democrats would join them later Saturday in passing a bill to keep the government open for 2.5 weeks. The Senate adjourned early Saturday and reconvened at noon.

But longer the shutdown continues, the more likely its impact will be felt.

U.S. troops will stay at their posts and mail will get delivered, but almost half of the 2 million civilian federal workers will be barred from doing their jobs if the shutdown extends into Monday.

Here is how key parts of the federal government would be affected by a shutdown:

Internal Revenue Service

A shutdown plan posted on the Treasury Department's website shows that nearly 44 percent of the IRS' 80,565 employees will be exempt from being furloughed during a shutdown. That would mean nearly 45,500 IRS employees will be sent home just as the agency is preparing for the start of the tax filing season and ingesting the sweeping changes made by the new GOP tax law.

The Republican architects of the tax law have promised that millions of working Americans will see heftier paychecks next month, with less money withheld by employers in anticipation of lower income taxes. The IRS recently issued new withholding tables for employers.

But Marcus Owens, who for 10 years headed the IRS division dealing with charities and political organizations, said it's a "virtual certainty" that the larger paychecks will be delayed if there's a lengthy government shutdown.

Health and Human Services Department

Half of the more than 80,000 employees will be sent home. Key programs will continue to function because their funding has ongoing authorization and doesn't depend on annual approval by Congress. But critical disruptions could occur across the vast jurisdiction of HHS programs -- including the seasonal flu program.

Medicare, which insures nearly 59 million seniors and disabled people, will keep going. And so will Medicaid, which covers more than 74 million low-income and disabled people, including most nursing home residents.

States will continue to receive payments for the Children's Health Insurance Program, which covers about 9 million kids. However, long-term funding for the program will run out soon unless Congress acts to renew it.

Deep into a tough flu season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be unable to support the government's annual seasonal flu program. And CDC's ability to respond to disease outbreaks will be significantly reduced.

Justice Department

Many of the nearly 115,000 Justice Department employees have national security and public safety responsibilities that allow them to keep working during a shutdown. Special counsel Robert Mueller's team investigating Russian meddling in the presidential election will also continue working. His office is paid for indefinitely.

The more than 95,000 employees who are "exempted" include most of the members of the national security division, U.S. attorneys, and most of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Marshals Service and federal prison employees. Criminal cases will continue, but civil cases will be postponed as long as doing so doesn't compromise public safety. Most law enforcement training will be canceled, per the department's contingency plan.

State Department

Many State Department operations will continue in a shutdown. Passport and visa processing, which are largely self-funded by consumer fees, will not shut down. The agency's main headquarters in Washington, in consultation with the nearly 300 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions around the world, will draw up lists of nonessential employees who will be furloughed.

Department operations will continue through the weekend and staffers will be instructed to report for work as usual on Monday to find out whether they have been furloughed.

Defense Department

The U.S. military will continue to fight wars and conduct missions around the world, including in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. And members of the military will report to work, though they won't get paid until Congress approves funding.

"The military will still go to work," said Mick Mulvaney, Office of Management and Budget director. "They will not get paid."

"The border will still be patrolled, they will not get paid," said Mulvaney. "Fire folks will still be fighting the fires out West, they will not get paid."

But Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warned Friday that a shutdown will have far-reaching effects.

"Our maintenance activities will probably pretty much shut down," he said during remarks at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. "We do a lot of intelligence operations around the world, and they cost money. Those, obviously, would stop. And I would just tell you that training for almost our entire reserve force will stop."

And, while ships will remain at sea and airstrikes against enemy fighters will continue, any National Guard forces heading out to do weekend training duty around the country will arrive at armories and be told to go home.

U.S. intelligence agencies

The workforce at the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies will be pared down significantly, according to a person familiar with contingency procedures. The official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity, said employees who are considered essential and have to work will do so with no expectation of a regular paycheck.

While they can be kept on the job, federal workers can't be paid for days worked during a shutdown. In the past, however, they have been paid retroactively even if they were ordered to stay home.

Homeland Security Department

A department spokesman said nearly 90 percent of Homeland Security employees are considered essential and will continue to perform their duties during a government shutdown. That means most Customs and Border Protection and Transportation Security Administration workers will stay on the job, according to the department's shutdown plan, dated Friday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be staffed at about 78 percent, meaning more than 15,000 of the agency's employees will keep working. The Secret Service, also part of Homeland Security, will retain more than 5,700 employees during the shutdown.

Interior Department

The Interior Department says national parks and other public lands will remain as accessible as possible. That position is a change from previous shutdowns, when most parks were closed and became high-profile symbols of dysfunction.

Spokeswoman Heather Swift said the American public -- especially veterans who come to the nation's capital -- should find war memorials and open-air parks available to visitors. Swift said many national parks and wildlife refuges nationwide will also be open with limited access when possible.

She said public roads that already are open are likely to remain open, though services that require staffing and maintenance such as campgrounds, full-service restrooms and concessions won't be operating. Backcountry lands and culturally sensitive sites are likely to be restricted or closed, she said.

Transportation Department

More than half -- 34,600 -- of the Department of Transportation's 55,100 employees will continue working during a shutdown. The bulk of those staying on the job work for the Federal Aviation Administration, which operates the nation's air traffic control system.

Controllers and aviation, pipeline and railroad safety inspectors are among those who would continue to work. But certification of new aircraft will be limited, and processing of airport construction grants, training of new controllers, registration of planes, air traffic control modernization research and development, and issuance of new pilot licenses and medical certificates will stop.

At the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, investigations on auto safety defects will be suspended, incoming information on possible defects from manufacturers and consumers won't be reviewed and compliance testing of vehicles and equipment will be delayed.

The Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, whose operations are mostly paid for out of the Federal Highway Trust Fund, will continue most of their functions. The fund's revenue comes from federal gas and diesel taxes, which will continue to be collected. But work on issuing new regulations will stop throughout the department and its nine agencies.

National Institutes of Health

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the agency's infectious disease chief, said a government shutdown will be disruptive to research and morale at the National Institutes of Health but will not adversely affect patients already in medical studies.

"We still take care of them," he said of current NIH patients. But other types of research would be seriously harmed, Fauci said.

A shutdown could mean interrupting research that's been going on for years, Fauci said. The NIH is the government's primary agency responsible for biomedical and public health research across 27 institutes and centers. Its research ranges from cancer studies to the testing and creation of vaccines.

"You can't push the pause button on an experiment," he said.

Environmental Protection Agency

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has instructed workers there to come to work next week even with a shutdown. Pruitt said in an email to all EPA employees on Friday that the agency had "sufficient resources to remain open for a limited amount of time." He said further instructions would come if the shutdown lasts for more than a week.

The instructions from Pruitt are different from how the agency has operated during prior shutdowns and the contingency plan posted on EPA's website. A spokesman for the agency said earlier on Friday that the December 2017 plan was no longer valid.

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government shutdown in the united states

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Government shutdown: Who is affected and what's next?

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WASHINGTON -- The federal government stopped operating at midnight, halting all but essential services, after the Senate came 10 votes short of reaching a temporary, last-minute funding deal that would have kept the government open through February 16.

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https://www.vox.com/2018/1/19/16910986/government-shutdown-what-shuts-down-exempt-essential-nonessential

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How healthcare would be affected - Peyton Storch

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How healthcare would be affected - Peyton Storch

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what is affected in a government shutdown

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what agenices are affected by government shutdown

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Here's What Would Happen to U.S. Health Care If the Government Shuts Down

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An impending government shutdown would affect healthcare in many ways, hitting agencies like the CDC, the FDA, and others.

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Both houses of Congress easily approved the short-term funding bill to end the government shutdown, though the votes revealed fissures among Democrats. Credit... Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

WASHINGTON - Congress brought an end to a three-day government shutdown on Monday as Senate Democrats buckled under pressure to adopt a short-term spending bill to fund government operations without first addressing the fate of young undocumented immigrants.

The House quickly approved the measure - which will fund the government through Feb. 8 and extend funding for the popular Children's Health Insurance Program for six years - and President Trump signed it on Monday night.

The agreement also revealed fissures among Democrats, with about one-third of the party's members in the Senate and a majority in the House voting against it.

The passage of the measure ended an ugly, if short-lived, impasse that threatened to give a black eye to both major political parties. The deal, reached after a bipartisan group of senators pushed their leaders to come to terms, enables hundreds of thousands of federal employees who had been facing furloughs to go back to work.

But a key part of the deal, a pledge by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, to allow an immigration vote in the coming weeks, sets the stage for a battle over the so-called Dreamers, young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate are offering drastically different visions of how to resolve their fate. But those on both sides of the debate, as well as advocates for immigrants' rights, said that ultimately Mr. Trump would need to get involved for the immigration dispute to be settled.

Mr. Trump's intentions were hard to discern, even as he took time to jab at the Democrats.

"Big win for Republicans as Democrats cave on Shutdown," the president said on Twitter at 11:30 p.m.

The message continued: "Now I want a big win for everyone, including Republicans, Democrats and DACA," referring to the Dreamers, "but especially for our Great Military and Border Security. Should be able to get there. See you at the negotiating table!"

The vote in the Senate was lopsided: 81 senators voted to end the shutdown while 18 - two Republicans and the rest of the Democrats and an independent who caucuses with them - sided against the measure. In the House, the vote was 266 to 150, with about three-quarters of Democrats opposed.

The measure also shored up the Children's Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, which insures nearly nine million children. States had warned that they were on the verge of having to end coverage after Congress allowed funding for the program, which had been created and sustained for two decades with bipartisan support, to expire in September.

The votes came after a weekend of fevered negotiations by a bipartisan group that eventually grew to include about 25 senators, who helped put together a framework in which Democrats would vote to reopen the government in exchange for the promise from Mr. McConnell.

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Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, announced that he would ensure a "level playing field" on immigration, language that some Democrats interpreted as going further than he had before. Credit... Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

An apparent turning point came when Mr. McConnell took the Senate floor on Monday morning to announce that he would ensure a "level playing field" on immigration - language that some Democrats interpreted as going further than he had before. Mr. McConnell said he would have the Senate take up immigration legislation by mid-February if the issue had not been resolved by then.

"I sat on the floor and listened to him very intently, somewhat holding my breath," said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats. "I think the majority leader has made a public commitment that it would be very hard for him not to meet."

But Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, was unconvinced, and voted against the bill. She suggested that she did not trust Mr. McConnell.

"I refuse to put the lives of nearly 700,000 young people in the hands of someone who has repeatedly gone back on his word," she said.

Immigrants' rights activists were crushed.

"Last week, I was moved to tears of joy when Democrats stood up and fought for progressive values and for Dreamers," said Frank Sharry, the executive director of America's Voice, an immigrants' rights group. "Today, I am moved to tears of disappointment and anger that Democrats blinked."

Hundreds of thousands of young immigrants have been protected from deportation under an Obama-era initiative, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Mr. Trump rescinded the program in September and gave Congress six months, until March 5, to come up with a replacement.

But the president has demanded that border security - including money for the "big, beautiful wall" he has promised at the southern border with Mexico - be included in any package. Mr. Trump also wants limits on what critics call "chain migration," in which immigrants can sponsor their relatives, and an end to the diversity visa lottery, which fosters immigration from countries that are underrepresented.

A bipartisan group of six senators, led by Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, has proposed the backbone of an immigration deal that backers hope could garner 60 votes, enough to break a filibuster.

But Mr. Trump has rejected that plan. And the measure is almost certainly a nonstarter in the House, where Speaker Paul D. Ryan has promised a vote on a conservative immigration measure championed by the chairmen of the Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees, if it has the support to pass.

"If we are hoping that Paul Ryan is going to have courage and that the House Republicans are going to be fair and decent and that a bill could emerge, we're smoking something," Mr. Sharry said.

Monday's Senate vote exposed a rift between moderate Democrats who are up for re-election this year in states won by Mr. Trump and their more liberal counterparts.

One of those Trump-state Democrats, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, characterized the vote as a "big win for the Dreamers," adding that if the Senate passes a measure with more than 60 votes, it would "put a lot of pressure" on the House to act.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, has helped propose the backbone of an immigration bill that backers hope could garner 60 votes, enough to break a filibuster. Credit... Pete Marovich for The New York Times

But more liberal Democrats, including Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who voted against the spending measure, disagreed.

"The lesson to me is that a promise here is far less meaningful when there is no involvement by the House, not to mention the White House," he said, adding that he has "no confidence, zero, that Paul Ryan will bring a measure to the floor, in fact on the contrary."

Mr. Graham said it was critical that the Senate's eventual immigration bill have the support of a broad bipartisan majority of perhaps 70 senators.

"A partisan product doesn't get you to where you want to go," he said. "If you're going to make the play of trying to pick off a handful of the other side, it's going to crash and burn."

The shutdown crisis began Friday, after talks between Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, and Mr. Trump to keep the government open broke down when the president and his chief of staff demanded more concessions on immigration.

According to one person familiar with that day's discussion, Mr. Schumer agreed to more military spending and discussed fully funding the president's request for a border wall in exchange for an agreement from the president to support legalizing the Dreamers.

Late that night, an overwhelming majority of Democrats, joined by a handful of Republicans, voted to block consideration of a spending bill very much like the measure that passed Monday. The only difference is that the initial bill would have funded the government for four weeks, not three.

A round of partisan finger-pointing ensued, with Democrats calling the impasse the "Trump Shutdown" and Republicans branding it the "Schumer Shutdown."

At the White House on Monday, Mr. Trump's press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, insisted that Monday's deal was not "drastically different" than what was discussed on Friday between the president and Mr. Schumer.

Despite what was characterized by both parties as Mr. Trump's invisibility this weekend, Ms. Sanders insisted that he was responsible for making a deal happen.

"What the president did clearly worked," she said, adding, "The president stayed firm, Republicans stayed firm, and Democrats, I think, realized that they had to move past that piece of legislation" to discuss immigration going forward.

But Ms. Sanders declined to clarify precisely what the parameters of an immigration deal would look like. That worried Democrats like Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

"The problem with all of this is the problem it's been from the beginning," Mr. Menendez said. "You got no guarantees from the House. You got no guarantees from the president. So you have two-thirds of the equation that are just not there."

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Government Shutdown Ends After 3 Days of Recriminations (Published 2018)

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WASHINGTON - Congress brought an end to a three-day government shutdown on Monday as Senate Democrats buckled under pressure to adopt a short-term spending bill to fund government operations without first addressing the fate of young undocumented immigrants. The House quickly approved the measure - which will fund the government through Feb.

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Affect Health

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https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/01/20/us/politics/ap-us-government-shutdown-impact-glance.html

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How the Military is effected-Addison Davis

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How the Military is effected-Addison Davis

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The military continues to fight around the world, but they are not getting paid. This is insane because they are fighting for our freedom and safety but won't get paid until Congress approves of its funding.

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WASHINGTON -- The federal government stopped operating at midnight, halting all but essential services, after the Senate came 10 votes short of reaching a temporary, last-minute funding deal that would have kept the government open through February 16. The shutdown comes on the anniversary of President Trump's inauguration, and with the GOP in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House.

Mr. Trump is placing blame on Senate Democrats. However, five Democrats broke with their party to back the measure, while five Republicans voted against it. Democrats were holding out for a comprehensive bill and a deal to protect DACA recipients - immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

If Republican leaders get their way, the shutdown will not last long, CBS News' Nancy Cordes reported. They were hoping that Democrats would join them later Saturday in passing a bill to keep the government open for 2.5 weeks. The Senate adjourned early Saturday and reconvened at noon.

But longer the shutdown continues, the more likely its impact will be felt.

U.S. troops will stay at their posts and mail will get delivered, but almost half of the 2 million civilian federal workers will be barred from doing their jobs if the shutdown extends into Monday.

Here is how key parts of the federal government would be affected by a shutdown:

Internal Revenue Service

A shutdown plan posted on the Treasury Department's website shows that nearly 44 percent of the IRS' 80,565 employees will be exempt from being furloughed during a shutdown. That would mean nearly 45,500 IRS employees will be sent home just as the agency is preparing for the start of the tax filing season and ingesting the sweeping changes made by the new GOP tax law.

The Republican architects of the tax law have promised that millions of working Americans will see heftier paychecks next month, with less money withheld by employers in anticipation of lower income taxes. The IRS recently issued new withholding tables for employers.

But Marcus Owens, who for 10 years headed the IRS division dealing with charities and political organizations, said it's a "virtual certainty" that the larger paychecks will be delayed if there's a lengthy government shutdown.

Health and Human Services Department

Half of the more than 80,000 employees will be sent home. Key programs will continue to function because their funding has ongoing authorization and doesn't depend on annual approval by Congress. But critical disruptions could occur across the vast jurisdiction of HHS programs -- including the seasonal flu program.

Medicare, which insures nearly 59 million seniors and disabled people, will keep going. And so will Medicaid, which covers more than 74 million low-income and disabled people, including most nursing home residents.

States will continue to receive payments for the Children's Health Insurance Program, which covers about 9 million kids. However, long-term funding for the program will run out soon unless Congress acts to renew it.

Deep into a tough flu season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be unable to support the government's annual seasonal flu program. And CDC's ability to respond to disease outbreaks will be significantly reduced.

Justice Department

Many of the nearly 115,000 Justice Department employees have national security and public safety responsibilities that allow them to keep working during a shutdown. Special counsel Robert Mueller's team investigating Russian meddling in the presidential election will also continue working. His office is paid for indefinitely.

The more than 95,000 employees who are "exempted" include most of the members of the national security division, U.S. attorneys, and most of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Marshals Service and federal prison employees. Criminal cases will continue, but civil cases will be postponed as long as doing so doesn't compromise public safety. Most law enforcement training will be canceled, per the department's contingency plan.

State Department

Many State Department operations will continue in a shutdown. Passport and visa processing, which are largely self-funded by consumer fees, will not shut down. The agency's main headquarters in Washington, in consultation with the nearly 300 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions around the world, will draw up lists of nonessential employees who will be furloughed.

Department operations will continue through the weekend and staffers will be instructed to report for work as usual on Monday to find out whether they have been furloughed.

Defense Department

The U.S. military will continue to fight wars and conduct missions around the world, including in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. And members of the military will report to work, though they won't get paid until Congress approves funding.

"The military will still go to work," said Mick Mulvaney, Office of Management and Budget director. "They will not get paid."

"The border will still be patrolled, they will not get paid," said Mulvaney. "Fire folks will still be fighting the fires out West, they will not get paid."

But Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warned Friday that a shutdown will have far-reaching effects.

"Our maintenance activities will probably pretty much shut down," he said during remarks at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. "We do a lot of intelligence operations around the world, and they cost money. Those, obviously, would stop. And I would just tell you that training for almost our entire reserve force will stop."

And, while ships will remain at sea and airstrikes against enemy fighters will continue, any National Guard forces heading out to do weekend training duty around the country will arrive at armories and be told to go home.

U.S. intelligence agencies

The workforce at the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies will be pared down significantly, according to a person familiar with contingency procedures. The official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity, said employees who are considered essential and have to work will do so with no expectation of a regular paycheck.

While they can be kept on the job, federal workers can't be paid for days worked during a shutdown. In the past, however, they have been paid retroactively even if they were ordered to stay home.

Homeland Security Department

A department spokesman said nearly 90 percent of Homeland Security employees are considered essential and will continue to perform their duties during a government shutdown. That means most Customs and Border Protection and Transportation Security Administration workers will stay on the job, according to the department's shutdown plan, dated Friday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be staffed at about 78 percent, meaning more than 15,000 of the agency's employees will keep working. The Secret Service, also part of Homeland Security, will retain more than 5,700 employees during the shutdown.

Interior Department

The Interior Department says national parks and other public lands will remain as accessible as possible. That position is a change from previous shutdowns, when most parks were closed and became high-profile symbols of dysfunction.

Spokeswoman Heather Swift said the American public -- especially veterans who come to the nation's capital -- should find war memorials and open-air parks available to visitors. Swift said many national parks and wildlife refuges nationwide will also be open with limited access when possible.

She said public roads that already are open are likely to remain open, though services that require staffing and maintenance such as campgrounds, full-service restrooms and concessions won't be operating. Backcountry lands and culturally sensitive sites are likely to be restricted or closed, she said.

Transportation Department

More than half -- 34,600 -- of the Department of Transportation's 55,100 employees will continue working during a shutdown. The bulk of those staying on the job work for the Federal Aviation Administration, which operates the nation's air traffic control system.

Controllers and aviation, pipeline and railroad safety inspectors are among those who would continue to work. But certification of new aircraft will be limited, and processing of airport construction grants, training of new controllers, registration of planes, air traffic control modernization research and development, and issuance of new pilot licenses and medical certificates will stop.

At the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, investigations on auto safety defects will be suspended, incoming information on possible defects from manufacturers and consumers won't be reviewed and compliance testing of vehicles and equipment will be delayed.

The Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, whose operations are mostly paid for out of the Federal Highway Trust Fund, will continue most of their functions. The fund's revenue comes from federal gas and diesel taxes, which will continue to be collected. But work on issuing new regulations will stop throughout the department and its nine agencies.

National Institutes of Health

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the agency's infectious disease chief, said a government shutdown will be disruptive to research and morale at the National Institutes of Health but will not adversely affect patients already in medical studies.

"We still take care of them," he said of current NIH patients. But other types of research would be seriously harmed, Fauci said.

A shutdown could mean interrupting research that's been going on for years, Fauci said. The NIH is the government's primary agency responsible for biomedical and public health research across 27 institutes and centers. Its research ranges from cancer studies to the testing and creation of vaccines.

"You can't push the pause button on an experiment," he said.

Environmental Protection Agency

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has instructed workers there to come to work next week even with a shutdown. Pruitt said in an email to all EPA employees on Friday that the agency had "sufficient resources to remain open for a limited amount of time." He said further instructions would come if the shutdown lasts for more than a week.

The instructions from Pruitt are different from how the agency has operated during prior shutdowns and the contingency plan posted on EPA's website. A spokesman for the agency said earlier on Friday that the December 2017 plan was no longer valid.

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government shutdown in the united states

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Government shutdown: Who is affected and what's next?

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WASHINGTON -- The federal government stopped operating at midnight, halting all but essential services, after the Senate came 10 votes short of reaching a temporary, last-minute funding deal that would have kept the government open through February 16.

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"The shutdown, however, doesn't mean every federally funded agency, program and service will grind to a halt. Whoever works for agencies and departments that are considered nonessential, including agencies that pay out small business loans and process passport requests, will cease to work until Congress is able to agree on a bill for the federal budget. "

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Lawmakers had a similar deadline last month, but they passed a continuing resolution December 21 to keep the federal government funded for another month.

Democrats had been pushing a solution for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and insisted that it be addressed before the Friday deadline -- and the two parties were unable to reach an agreement.

The House voted Thursday night to avert a government shutdown, sending the bill on to the Senate, where it failed, 50-49.

Shortly before the House vote, the Freedom Caucus said a majority of its members would vote to support a stopgap spending measure, a key sign that holdout conservatives who had been undecided earlier had come on board.

The Senate measure needed 60 votes to pass the chamber to break a filibuster, which meant that Republican leaders needed as many as more than a dozen Democrats.

The shutdown, however, doesn't mean every federally funded agency, program and service will grind to a halt. Whoever works for agencies and departments that are considered nonessential, including agencies that pay out small business loans and process passport requests,will cease to work until Congress is able to agree on a bill for the federal budget.

The employees in these departments will be placed on "furlough." In previous shutdowns, everyone who stayed home was paid retroactively after an agreement was reached in Washington.

At the peak of the 2013 government shutdown, about 850,000 employees were furloughed per day, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

But what is considered essential and nonessential?

President Donald Trump tweeted last week, "The Dems will threaten 'shutdown,' but what they are really doing is shutting down our military, at a time we need it most."

And on Tuesday he tweeted, "The Democrats want to shut down the Government over Amnesty for all and Border Security. The biggest loser will be our rapidly rebuilding Military, at a time we need it more than ever. We need a merit based system of immigration, and we need it now! No more dangerous Lottery."

During a shutdown,the military is considered essential and would still report for duty. However, the troops -- including those in combat -- will potentially not be paid during a shutdown. In addition, many civilian Department of Defense employees will not be working during a shutdown, including instructors at military academies and maintenance contractors.

If the shutdown goes on for weeks, about 1.3 million active-duty military will be expected to work potentially without pay. The military is currently paid through February 1.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team will continue to operate, a Justice Department spokesperson told CNN.

"All employees with the Special Counsel's Office are considered exempt and would continue their operations in the case of a lapse in appropriations," the spokesperson said.

But if you had plans for a vacation to visit any national parks, zoos or museums, those will be closed.

The shutdown will also affect the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, meaning if you wanted a gun permit, you'll have to wait until the shutdown is over.

Essential services, such as Social Security, air traffic control and the Transportation Security Administration, will continue to be funded even if some employees of those agencies are not.

And the US Postal Service won't stop serving residents -- you'll still get your mail.

Members of Congress will continue to receive paychecks because it's written into law.

In 2013, the shutdown especially affected residents of Washington. But this time around, Mayor Muriel Bowser vowed that services in the city will continue, unlike last time.

"Washington, DC, is open," Bowser said in a statement publishedFriday. "DC government will continue to provide services to our residents, the services they expect and deserve, uninterrupted."

She also said the city plans to help the federal government maintain the National Mall.

"I've called on my agencies, where we are able, to step in for the federal government," she said during the press conference. "The National Mall is operated by the National Park Service, and there are many other National Service Park properties throughout Washington, DC ... we will step in and ensure litter and trash are picked up along the National Mall to keep nation's front yard clean of debris."

This story has been updated to reflect new information from the District of Columbia.

CNN's Vaughn Sterling, Laura Jarrett and Ryan Browne contributed to this report.

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this is what happens during a us government shutdown - cnnpolitics

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Lawmakers had a similar deadline last month, but they passed a continuing resolution December 21 to keep the federal government funded for another month. Democrats had been pushing a solution for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and insisted that it be addressed before the Friday deadline -- and the two parties were unable to reach an agreement.

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While criminal litigation will dontinue without fail, civil litigations will be postponed or curtailed.