48 Ways a Government Shutdown Will Screw You Over

Who is affected when the government doesn’t show up for work? Poor people, people with immune systems…basically everyone.

<a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-122905690/stock-photo-portrait-of-a-man-who-is-sneezing-in-a-tissue.html?src=s39M3oQugy1O22551fzFYw-1-19">Wolfgang Zwanzger </a>/Shutterstock

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Update: The midnight deadline came and went without a deal from House Republicans and Senate Democrats (except for one small bill, on military pay). Welcome to the Shutdown.

The government will shut down at midnight unless President Obama and Congress can agree on a temporary resolution to continue funding federal agencies. (Spoiler: They probably won’t.)

Here’s a quick guide to who and what will be most affected:

Anyone who might get sick: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would lack funding to support its annual flu vaccination program.

Military personnel: Barring last-minute congressional action, members of the armed forces would have their paychecks put on hold while they continue to work.

People who use boats: The Coast Guard will cut back on routine patrols and navigation assistance.

Civilian defense employees: 400,000 Department of Defense employees will be given unpaid vacations.

Family members of fallen soldiers: Death benefits for military families will be delayed.

Gun owners: During the 1990s shutdown, applications for gun permits were delayed due to furloughs at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Trees: Hundreds of US Forest Service workers face furloughs in California during peak forest fire season.

Visa applicants: Furloughs at the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs mean tens of thousands of visa applications are put on hold.

People traveling abroad: A shutdown would cause delays in the processing of passport applications.

Sick people: The National Institutes of Health will not admit new patients unless ordered by the director.

Factory workers: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will halt regular inspections.

Hikers: All 401 National Park Service sites will be closed.

People who make money off tourists: Shuttered national parks are bad news for the hotels, restaurants, and other attractions that feed off them.

Small business loan applicants: The Small Business Administration will furlough 62 percent of its workforce.

Employers: The Department of Homeland Security’s e-Verify program will be offline for the duration of the shutdown.

Fountains: 45 of them will lose water.

People applying for mortgages: The Federal Housing Administration and the USDA won’t guarantee new loans.

Oil and gas exploration: The Bureau of Land Management will stop processing permits for oil and gas drilling on federal lands.

Chemical site facility security: Funding for Department of Homeland Security regulatory program ends October 4.

FOIA requests: The Social Security Administration says it won’t respond to Freedom of Information Act Requests during the shutdown.

Docents: All Smithsonian Institution museums in Washington, DC, will be closed.

@CuriosityRover: 98 percent of NASA’s staff will be furloughed, and the agency’s website and live-streams will go dark.

Renewable energy permits: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will stop all new offshore renewable-energy projects.

Campers: People living (or vacationing) in national parks and forests will have 48 hours to relocate.

Animal voyeurs: Watch the National Zoo’s Panda-cam while you still can.

Native Americans: The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement will suspend oversight of active and abandoned coal mines “primarily in Tennessee and on Indian lands.”

Pesticide regulators: The Environmental Protection Agency will all but shut down at midnight.

Veterans pensions: The Department of Veterans Affairs says it will run out of funding for regular payment checks after a few weeks.

US Geological Survey researchers: The agency would stop most new scientific research and water analysis.

Disability payments: Although the VA will continue to provide medical care, disability payments may also be disrupted after a few weeks.

Winery permits: Couldn’t they take the wine coolers instead?

Ponies: The Bureau of Land Management’s wild horse and burro adoption programs would cease.

Infectious disease surveillance: The CDC will be unable to track outbreaks and monitor infectious diseases at a local level.

People on food assistance: The USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) will stop making payments on October 1.

Food inspections: The Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration warned of “inability to investigate alleged violations” due to a lack of funding; food imports will also go uninspected.

Automobile recall inspectors: “Routine defects and recall information from manufacturers and consumers would not be reviewed,” according to the Department of Transportation.

Food and drug safety research: The Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, will furlough 52 percent of its staff.

ARPA-E: The Department of Energy’s cutting-edge research arm—and one of the crowning legacies of the stimulus—will shut down, putting projects such as “squirtable batteries” on hold.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission: The agency could furlough more than 92 percent of its employees next week, with much of the remaining staff handling inspections.

People without heat: If the shutdown persists, it could affect the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which funds heating assistance programs.

Consumers: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will furlough 652 of its 680 employees and maintain only a “bare minimum level of oversight and surveillance” to stop fraudulent practices.

People trying to pay taxes: The Internal Revenue Service will shutter its tax hotline, and stop processing tax payments.

College students: Cutbacks at the Department of Education could slow Pell grant and student-loan payments.

Economists: The Bureau of Economic Analysis will cut back on its data collection.

Welfare recipients: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families—welfare—runs out of funding on October 1, although individual states may pick up the tab.

Head Start: The child development program, already hammered by the effects of sequestration, will stop doling out new grants on October 1.

Air monitoring: A 94 percent reduction in staff won’t leave the EPA much room to enforce its new carbon regulations.

Golf: Courses at National Park Service sites will close for the shutdown. So at least we have that going for us.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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