Facts about a government shutdown
There may not be a spending bill passed in congress by the time Friday comes along. This could mean the government would be shut down. In practice, individual employers will choose which employees are exempted from the shutdown and which ones are subject to furlough. Some employees can have to go into work still even though they will not be getting paid. Most of these employees could be in programs for instance the CIA, FBI and military. These are required for the safety of the nation.
Keeping business rolling
If the government shuts down, some federal firms will nevertheless operate relatively normally. The United States Postal service is a self-funded agency, so mail will continue to be delivered and employees can be paid. There will still be employees working for the military, Veteran's services, social security and air traffic control. They will not get paid though. A “shutdown plan” has been put together by all of the firms to decide how to proceed.
What would end
Though essential functions of the government would continue, there are many everyday interactions a lot of people have with the government that would cease. Getting a passport would be extremely hard. The offices would shut down. All auditing would stop at the Internal Revenue Service as the offices would stop causing the Internal Revenue Service helpline to end while paper returns would not be processed. There won't be a change to the April 18 deadline. It will remain the same. Any loan approvals on new homes and smaller businesses can be stopped by the FHA and Small business administration. All national parks, museums and monuments would also shut down. A budget would have to be approved before the services could return. Employee back pay would have to be approved separately. This would be something Congress would have to do.
Citations
Congressional Research Service
fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34680.pdf
Office of Management and Budget
whitehouse.gov/omb/
Source for this article - How a federal government shutdown in 2011 could affect you by Newsytype.com.
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