How the Government Shutdown Over the Border Wall Is Putting Americans in Real Danger

Jay Willis
We might not realize what the federal government isn't doing anymore until it's too late.

The Great Border Wall Shutdown of 2018-19 enters its 16th day on Monday, and while federal employees have known all along that they won't be paid until its conclusion, this is the week when that abstract understanding becomes grim reality: Unless the impasse is resolved by midnight on Tuesday, says White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Friday's payroll won't process as scheduled. Given that President Trump recently threatened to extend the shutdown for "months or even years" unless taxpayers fund construction of the wall for which he promised Mexico would pay, a happy resolution sometime in the next 12 hours seems unlikely.

Already, this debacle is having serious consequences that go beyond the regular distribution of paychecks. The Air Line Pilots Association, which represents some 61,000 pilots worldwide, wrote a letter pleading with President Trump to end the shutdown which, it says, "is adversely affecting the safety, security and efficiency of our national airspace system." Rank-and-file TSA employees, who are responsible for keeping weapons off airplanes, have all been asked to work for free for the indeterminate future, and have responded by calling in sick in record numbers. Without them, and without the usual number of FAA safety inspectors quietly doing their jobs at airports and aircraft manufacturing facilities, the chances of an entirely-preventable catastrophe creep a bit higher with each passing day.

Presidents usually close national parks when the federal government closes; the Trump administration, for whatever reason, decided to keep them open. Within just a few days, images of overflowing garbage cans and/or restroom facilities began to appear, which served as an apt metaphor for the discord in Washington. Since the shutdown began, three people have died in national parks, including a 14-year-old girl who fell from an overlook while spending Christmas Eve at Arizona's Glen Canyon National Park. It is impossible to say with certainty whether having thousands of currently-furloughed rangers on the job could have prevented these tragedies. Again, however: As this thing drags on, reliance on anything the federal government does will become a riskier choice.

Food stamps are the next element of the social safety net that is slated for disappearance. Even after dipping into emergency funds, Congress has not allocated enough money for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—which distributed benefits to over 40 million lower-income people in 2017—to meet demand after this month. Similar entities that serve reservations and families with small children are limited to the cash they have on hand; when the money is gone, so will be the food those entities provide.

Federal employees are paid once shutdowns end, and are always lauded as minor civic heroes for working in the meantime. But the prospect of a prolonged interruption like the one Trump has floated might be as dangerous as any of the shutdown's already-realized ramifications. Contrary to what Republican politicians might want you to think, most people who work for the government take home solidly middle-class salaries that lag well behind those of their private-sector peers, and the promise of future compensation does nothing to delay mortgage payments, credit card debt, utility bills, unexpected medical expenses, and student loan installments that will come due in the meantime. It isn't hard to imagine nonpartisan civil servants losing their homes, missing payments, or otherwise defaulting on their obligations in the months to come.

When asked, the president who inherited billions of dollars dismissed concerns about the plight of these hundreds of thousands of his constituents, confidently predicting that they would "make adjustments." He added: "They always do."

The federal government is so critical to the day-to-day functioning of society that even the man nominally in charge of it takes its presence for granted. Its gradual disintegration is putting Americans in real danger, all because Trump cannot deliver on the central promise of his campaign, and will not accept blame for his own failure.