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Despite the looming Oct. 1 deadline, federal lawmakers don’t appear to be any closer to passing a resolution that would avert a government shutdown.
Tomorrow, funding for the government will stop unless Congress passes legislation authorizing more spending. But with a divided Congress struggling to agree on a plan to continue that funding, experts said a shutdown is looking more likely, putting government employees at risk.
A government shutdown could further inflame the partisan divide in Congress and cause a deluge of temporary furloughs for federal government jobs, but it’s unlikely to jeopardize university and research grant funding, at least in the short term. It would primarily affect federal workers, such as employees at national parks or contractors at the Defense Department.
When it comes to research grants or student loans, “the funds have already been allocated,” said Tony McCann, a public policy professor. “Not one single employee of the education department as part of his or her daily work actually teaches a student.”
In a contingency plan released Friday, Education Department officials said the biggest impact will fall on its own staff, which will absorb furloughs of more than 90 percent of its workers.
The plan is temporary, though. If the shutdown lasts longer than a week, the education department would bring in previously furloughed employees to oversee operations related to federal grants and loans, but in the event of a prolonged shutdown, the details are hazy.
“A protracted delay in Department obligations and payments beyond one week would severely curtail the cash flow to school districts, colleges and universities,” the report said.
The battle over the federal budget underscores the highly partisan nature of Congress, particularly when it comes to President Obama’s signature health care legislation, the Affordable Care Act. Republicans have rallied behind a plan that would keep the government funded while repealing a medical device tax and delaying the health care law a year, while Democrats have opposed efforts to undermine the 2010 law.
The conservative-dominated House voted on Saturday to delay implementing the Affordable Care Act and repeal the device tax.
“It’s up to the Senate to pass this bill without delay to stop a government shutdown,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.
But liberal Senate leaders have pledged not to support a plan that guts the health care law, and polls have shown a majority of the public opposes defunding the law in the face of a government shutdown. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said in a statement that Republicans are voting to appease a “radical” wing of the party and trying to put forth a plan that has no chance of passing in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
“The Senate will never pass nor will President Obama sign a bill that guts the Affordable Care Act and denies millions of Americans access to lifesaving health care,” Reid said. “Tea party Republicans have demanded the impossible and vowed to shut down the government unless they get it.”
It would be very difficult for Republican leadership to pass any funding measure that doesn’t include a provision cutting into the Affordable Care Act, McCann said. Without Senate or presidential support, this makes the prospect of a government shutdown all the more likely, he said.
“The speaker [Boehner] cannot generate 218 votes for anything that doesn’t severely restrict the Affordable Care Act,” McCann said. “I don’t see any way immediately that he can pass something short-term or long-term that the Senate will agree to and the president will sign.”
