Government shutdown: Round 1 winners and losers

What is likely to only be the first half of the highly partisan government shutdown was a real wake up call for many Americans. For most, it showed that the government being shut down didn’t make much, if any, a difference in their lives. For others, it was a daily struggle and a realization that the government has way too much control over people’s lives when government gridlock strikes. Now to be fair, the government has never been shut down for 35 days like it was this past month, so this was an unusual circumstance. But nonetheless, it’s important to understand that this could happen again and has the potential to be even worse.

So who was affected by this shutdown, and what was the impact that it had on them? One of the largest groups was the roughly 800,000 non-essential government employees who went that 35 days with no paycheck. With many Americans living paycheck to paycheck (78% according to a poll conducted by CareerBuilder), it is likely many government employees were included in that 78%. But that previous statistic isn’t surprising given that 2/3s of Americans couldn’t pass a basic financial literacy test. The shutdown was fair to them in the sense that they would all be paid as soon as the shutdown ended. However, not having that money for over a month was likely devastating.

Another group of losers in this fight (at least for now) are the border patrol agents who have been requesting proper funding from the government for years now. Why did Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi refuse to work with Trump? For many reasons, but two stick out to me. First, this was the symbol of the Trump campaign, and if he got this, every American who voted for him in 2016 would do it again in 2020. Second, the Democratic leaders would have lost the progressive base of their party, particularly in the House, where there are many extreme left-leaning freshman Representatives already causing headaches. If they lost that base, the Democratic Party would be doomed forever. So in that way, Nancy and Chuck won the first round, though according to one poll, Nancy now has a lower approval rating than Trump. My guess is that this is due to her obstructionist position during the shutdown because she never sought a compromise. To be fair, a different poll has shown that more people thought she “won” the shutdown, which is technically true because she got what she wanted, but her approval rating still took a big hit.

For now, Trump is both a winner and a loser. He lost in the sense that he didn’t get what he initially wanted. However, he called Nancy’s bluff and reopened the government to see if she would actually negotiate. As of now, she has taken a back seat in the search for compromise and at the time of this writing has not met with Trump to negotiate. If Nancy doesn’t talk with Trump, she will prove that she was not in this for the government workers, but rather for partisan reasons.

It’s also important to remember how the many American people who rely on government-insured loans, national parks, food inspection agencies, and even research grants were affected, including some at Stevens. So all of these people lose during a shutdown, and this all has a grand effect of a $1.5 billion per week loss on the overall economy (though this isn’t much in the U.S. economy).

The worst part is that this was just round one if lawmakers can’t reach a deal before the deadline of February 15. But why should they care? They still get a regular paycheck during the shutdown, unlike the thousands of people they represent. Even the “new face of the Democratic Party” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez promised to defer her check, but that never actually happened according to left-leaning CNN). Now to be fair, CNN found that a bipartisan group of 102 Representatives and Senators went without pay and even donated it in some cases. So most Congress members were still winners while their constituents were losers. And they still struggle to wonder why the Congressional Approval rating is only 18.3%.