US Government shutdown

On September 30, the US government will run out of money for the next fiscal year. That means that, unless a compromise is reached in Washington, there will be a government shutdown. For us, this comes all of a sudden, we had heard about this a couple of days ago. We weren't even sure what this means and what is going to happen. After a bit of documentation, I'll try to summarize for you what the government shutdown is, why it happened and what the consequences are.

According to the definition in Wikipedia, a government shutdown is a situation where the government stops providing all but "essential" services. As "essential" is understood police services, fire fighting, medical care, armed forces, traffic management and similar activities that provide national security. The non essential federal employees will then be furloughed (non paid leave).

The reason for such shutdown is a disagreement of a legislative body for a budget financing its government program for the next fiscal year. In other words, it is known that there is no budget for the next fiscal year (starting October 1), so the non essential services can't be provided any longer. This shutdown can only be avoided if the lawmakers reach a compromise on a federal spending measure. 

There has been national shutdowns in the past, the last one was in 1995 and lasted 21 days. Since then there has been several threats of shutdowns, being the last one in 2011.

Like everything in politics, several issues are linked together, and it is all about the interests of the different parties what really moves the decisions made. The reason why the Congress doesn't reach an agreement is the new Health Care Act, also known as "Obamacare". Ever since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 was made law, there have been those in Congress trying to figure out how to get rid of it. For me it is not very clear why exactly Republicans try so hard to avoid public health care, (other than the hate to any public service that might threaten the capitalist system) but the fact is that this disagreement will potentially force the shutdown. As I understood, the republicans are pushing to  avoid this health care Act, and the democrats want to move forth with this measure, even though this could mean billions of loss due to the shutdown. 

But what does it mean for the everyday life? 

- The non essential government employees are vulnerable for furlough or unpaid leave. 

- The essential employees will be paid retroactively when the shutdown is over. 

- The U.S. judicial branch is likely to continue to operate for a period of time using various fees it receives. 

- Passport service workers are not considered essential, so passports and Visas will not be processed.

- All the national parks will close during the shutdown --> this is especially important for us, since we are traveling to Vegas to do a 2-week roundtrip visiting the National Parks... You might think we couldn't have chosen better dates :)
- All public museums, zoos etc, will remain closed to the public.

To be honest, it seems somehow extreme that this happens in a country like this, but apparently every government has this kind of disagreements; no matter how big and powerful, there are always two forces that use their power to sabotage their opponent's attempts for change.

As for our vacation, as you can imagine, we are continuously trying to get the latest news on that topic, hoping not to change our plans. But surely it will be great, no matter how it turns, vacation is always great :)

We'll keep you updated. Lots of love

Lita & Andres