The Government is on the brink of shutting down. How will that directly affect you?

We are in the process of getting an FHA loan to purchase our new home. The government shuts down, FHA stops processing loans, our home loan application goes into limbo.

I will be indirectly affected. But if the Fed stops, then the President’s and Congress’s paychecks should stop as well, I think. It’s not as if any of those people are living paycheck to paycheck.

>:(

Well, my daughter and I have applied for passports so that would be delayed. My AD USMC spouse would not get paid, but I guess that is what the savings we have is for. My father and brother-in-law will not get paid.

I agree with @aprilsimnel. The President and Congress should not get paid either.

I live in the Washington DC area where many people who are federal workers and many businesses that depend on federal workers (including restaurants, child care providers, etc.) will be affected.

1. Rush hour traffic will really decrease.

My husband won’t get the last of his active duty pay (he is getting out of active duty at the end of this month). He has the possibility of being activated here in MD to protect DC is things get crazy (since he starts with his NG unit in May). Our possible trip to the last day of the Cherry Blossom Festival could be ruined. The opportunity to take our son to the museums (like the Smithsonian) anytime soon could be ruined.

I also imagine traffic in this area and around the area where I have to go to the doctor’s for my OB appointments could pick up (if people decide to come down this way for protesting or anything else). Though as @marinelife points out, rush hour may decrease.

A large part of my job is dealing with a federal agency on an almost daily basis (I submit filings for approval under Federal law). My work will continue, but it will get backed up, and it takes three times as long for them to process when they get back to work.

Last year, this agency closed for four days in a row in February because of snow. They used it as an excuse through the end of April.

I work as a contractor for the Air Force. I, luckily, am not affected, but some government employees I work with won’t be coming to work next week if it is still not resolved.

Well, frankly, very little.

Ok, the national park thing is a bit of a hit, as I enjoy the whole camping/outdoorsy thing. However, for the most part I think our federal government is a giant hulking bloated monstrosity that could stand to be drastically reduced in size and scope.

Depends how long it goes for. My company does most of its business with public schools and libraries.

Affects me only to the extent that it makes me angry.
If I could mobilize enough people, I would march on Washington and at least throw rotten tomatoes at every single Representative and Senator, regardless of party, as they left the Capital building. They have not passed a budget for LAST year, and that was when one party held both chambers!

They have a fiduciary responsibility-it is MY (and your) money they are being careless with.

I sit on a couple of boards of directors, and if we mismanaged the organizations money this way, we would be sued at best and arrested at worst.

In history, dictators, desposts and kings have been chased into exile, hanged, shot etc. for worse than this level of incompetence and malfeasance.

Shame on them all. There is no Hell, but there should be.

@josie High five. I’ll bring more tomatoes.

I think it would affect people more than they really think it will. Our governement has their dirty fingers in so many pies that everyone would suffer if things really began to shut down.

It won’t affect me personally, but it will affect where I live, as the paper ran a story yesterday that the Federal Government is the biggest employer in San Diego. I also have friends who work for the US in jobs that would probably be furloughed, such as one who works for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

It sounds like I won’t get paid

This will never happen.

If it does, this could be the last traw that broke the camels back of the United States.

This happened 15 years ago and lasted 21 days. It’s not the first time, and unfortunately, it may not be the last. It can very well happen. Thinking it can’t seems a bit foolish at this point.

Hopefully some good news will come out of DC before the end of the week.

@crisw The Federal Government is the single largest employer in the country…1.8 Billion people could be sitting on their hands next week.

@Cruiser The majority won’t be sitting on their hands. They just won’t be getting paid until this is fixed.

I don’t actually know. According to what I’ve seen, the VA will still provide inpatient care and outpatient emergency care, but I don’t do either of those. The VA does have an appropriations budget that is passed two years ahead of time, so we may be okay in terms of getting paid.

@optimisticpessimist Perhaps and we will see how many do get furloughed if and when and it will take an act of Congress to decide if they receive back pay.

@Cruiser I was just going by the numbers I read. 1.8 million employees… 800,000 furloughed. The numbers could be wrong or I could have misread them.

They could just print some more money and call it money.
We’ll still keep jumping through hoops for it.

I don’t think it’s going to affect me directly. According to that article, it sounds like a lot of the services are going to remain active, but (aside from those that are “excepted”) employees won’t be paid (and may face furloughs) until everything is back up and running. What exactly is at risk of being ’shut down’?
All I can say is they’d better not shut down Disneyland. I’ve been looking forward to my trip.

I don’t think it will affect me directly. Unless they extend the deadline for tax returns.

@Allie The link I have on top gives a pretty good overview at what is at stake here!

@Cruiser Yeah, I read that. Nice find.

@cruser said: “The Federal Government is the single largest employer in the country…”

Doesn’t anyone else find that appalling? We are a country based on entrepreneurship and free enterprise, yet our federal government is the single largest employer.

Isn’t one of the core principals of socialism that everyone works for the state rather than private enterprise?

It might cause my Social Security check to be deposited in my account late, but since I don’t use that money anyway, I won’t be personally affected.

@YoBob “appalling” is a ridiculous overstatement.

Let’s think about this. Is there some corporation that you feel is so important that it needs to employ more workers than the entire federal government? (You know, the employer that we democratically elect and the single entity authorized to use force and collect taxes?)

By the way, according to this (which I haven’t bothered to verify but seems reasonable) less than 8% of workers are federal employees. OMG 8 percent is SOCIALIZM!

“Even as the total number of federal employees rises, the ratio of employees to Americans has declined steadily, from one employee for every 78 residents in 1953 to one employee for every 110 residents in 1988 to one employee for every 155 residents in 2008. ” Taken from this article from Feb 2010.

@Qingu – The term “appalling” is an opinion, and last I checked we all have a right to one. I, for one, find it appalling that in a country based on entrepreneurship and free enterprise that our federal government, a body who’s original charter was to oversee matters of interstate commerce and provide for the common defense, has grown in size and scope to become our single largest employer.

And no, I don’t think there is a single corporation out there that should be employing more workers than the federal government. I think that there should be several of them. However, that being said, it is not the large corporation as the primary driver of employment that I am most concerned with, but rather the small mom and pop shop that has been all but squeezed out of existence by over regulation/taxation.

@YoBob
“but rather the small mom and pop shop that has been all but squeezed out of existence by over regulation/taxation.”

Really? You don’t think Wal-Mart and the like had something to do with it? :>/

@crisw I think Wal-Mart, being large enough to hire an army of accountants and lawyers, is in a much better position to deal with tax codes and regulatory nonsense than is your basic mom and pop shop.

@YoBob, last I checked I never denied you your right to have an opinion. I simply criticized your opinion. Which I also have a right to do.

And your response is incoherent. You’re shocked and appalled that the fed is the biggest employer… and yet you don’t think a corporation should be the biggest employer?

@Qingu – Your opinion of my opinion has no bearing what so ever on the fact that I find the U.S federal government being our single biggest employer to be appalling.

As for coherency, perhaps you should go back and re-read my previous response What I stated is that there should be several large corporations with more employees than the federal government (although I did fail to mention that I believe military personnel should be excluded in that count). I, for one, believe that the federal government has grown in size and scope far beyond its original intent.

@YoBob, there are “several” companies that, taken together, have more employees than the US government. Especially if you exclude military.

Walmart alone has 2 million employees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_employees

@Qingu – So, what’s your point? The assertion by @Cruiser is that the federal government is our single largest employer. I have stated that I find that appalling. I would be quite happy to see our federal government reduced in size to a point where Home Depot, Kroger, Citigroup, General Electric, General Motors, Target, Sears, IBM, UPS, McDonalds, and Wal Mart each individually employ more people than our federal government (excluding the military, of course).

@YoBob my point is that you are being hysterical and not paying attention to actual facts.

Let’s retrace this argument. You started by saying you were appalled that the fed employs more people than any private corporation.

Then I asked why this is so appalling; why would you want a single corp to employ more people than the entire government we elect?

Then you said it would be okay if a few corps were bigger, together than the whole fed.

Then I pointed out that a few corps are in fact bigger, together, than the whole fed. Walmart is nearly as big as the whole fed by itself.

But you are still appalled. For some reason. And you haven’t even explained why you think this is important in the first place. Why is it a good thing if Walmart has more employees than the government we elect?

@Qingu – Nope, being appalled is quite a different thing from being hysterical. I remain appalled at how large our federal government has grown.

Why do I find it appalling? Because I believe in a bottom up governmental structure beginning at the local level with progressively less and less power as the governmental body moves further away from the individual. As previously stated, our federal government was originally intended to regulate matters of inter state commerce and provide for common defense. In the beginning it didn’t even have taxing authority. It has grown from that small function into the great hulking monstrosity that we currently enjoy and I, for one, would like to see it reduced in both size and scope. No, that does not make me an anarchist nor does it imply that I do not believe that there are some functions that are best handled at the federal level. It simply means that I believe our federal government has grown too large, hardly a position that can be classified as hysterical.

You still seem to be misunderstanding what I have said about the size of individual corporations in relation to the size of the federal government. What I have said more than once (although you don’t seem to be grasping it) is that I have no problem with individual corporations being large enough to have more employees than the fed. I find the fact that our federal government currently employs more people than the largest U.S. corporate employer (WalMart, according to your link) to be a sign that our federal government is simply too large.

Yes, you did point out that if you add the number of people employed by multiple top corporations the number is larger than those employed by the federal government, and I must once again ask: what’s your point?

I will once again re-state my opinion, just in case you have missed it the last several times. I find the fact that the federal government employs more people than the biggest single US employer as well as employs more people than the #2, 3, 4, & 5 US employer combined (according to your link) to be appalling and believe that we would benefit from a federal government with a greatly reduced size and scope.

@Qingu My comment that the Fed Gov is the single largest employer is fact…as of 2009…2,823,777 and since then I’m positive it has grown by quite a bit since this census figure. This number does not include dept of homeland security and part-time workers either. Toss in state and local and we have quite a few people who depend on my taxes to get a paycheck….IMO WAY too many!

@YoBob, no, you really are being hysterical… because your claims are nonsense.

You keep on talking about the federal government “growing.” Federal workers per capita of the workforce has shrunk drastically since the 50’s, as @optimisticpessimist pointed out.

Moreover, I just don’t see why any sane person would give a shit that the fed employs slightly more people than Walmart. I guess I don’t share your bizarre worldview that private corporations that answer solely to greedy stockholders should have more influence and power than the organization in charge of our tax dollars, military, education, and police force that we democratically elect. I guess this is just a fundamental disagreement between us, but frankly I don’t think you’ve really thought this through. I think you’re just pantomiming some conservative talking point you heard.

@Qingu As I have previously stated, I am not claiming anything, I am stating the opinion that our federal government is too large and could stand to be reduced in size and scope. Not quite sure why that statement of opinion has you so riled up (dare I say hysterical), but you are certainly free to disagree.

Just as you don’t see why any sane person would be concerned about the trend towards governmental bloat, I don’t see how any sane person could fail to be concerned about the size of our federal government, especially given current economic concerns.

Great thing about this country is that it’s ok for us to have differing opinions.

It riles me up that someone thinks Walmart should have more employees than the US government.

@YoBob

can you give us some examples of exactly which government jobs you would eliminate?

@Qingu – So, are you saying that successful private enterprises make you hysterical?

@crisw – Sure, I’d be happy to. I’d start by killing two birds with one stone. As discussed in other questions, I believe we should move from an income tax to a consumption tax. Not only would it drive the great underground economy to the surface, it would give us the opportunity to eliminate a sizable chunk of the 12 billion we currently spend on strong arming those who have the audacity to produce income.

I would also re-vamp our current social security system by privatizing it. According to this interactive chart we currently spend 738 billion on our social security program. That is equal to the amount we spend on our entire military budget. Am I saying that we should just cut out social security and kick old ladies out in the street. Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. What I am saying is that we should give younger workers the option to opt out of the system and allow them to use the money that is currently garnished from their wages to fund their own personal retirement plans.

Further, as a general philosophical approach to our federal budget, I would remove federal involvement from a host of items too numerous to list in the few minutes I have to write this post that have little or nothing to do with the basic function and charter of the organization, that being the regulation of inter state commerce and providing for our collective common defense.

Here is a great poster showing a break down of our federal budget for those interested.

@YoBob Just curious. What would happen when some of those who opted out of social security ended up destitute when they were elderly? Would there be some other program they could opt into at that time or would they be SOL at that point? I am not being sarcastic.

@optimisticpessimist By extension, we all know the uproar when a fire department let a house burn down because the residents hadn’t paid their protection fee. I think everyone wants to spend the money that is deducted from Social Security, and still be covered when they are too old to work.

I would like to see an option to put our Social Security into a secure investment of our own choosing. We have that option on the insurance and taxes on our house. My husband and I get a fairly good rate of interest on the money we set aside for the I & T part of our house payment, rather than giving it to the mortgage company to hold.

@YARNLADY I really wasn’t trying to be argumentative. I seriously want to know how that would play out. Inevitably some people’s investment would not be enough to support them after retirement until death whether it be because of the small investment amount, bad investments or longevity.

Well, @optimisticpessimist, I guess they would have a lousy retirement. I am not saying that we should not offer a minimal safety net. However, I do believe that we should not expect our government to play the role of mommy.

As it stands our government is garnishing our wages and holding that money with the promise that they will give it back when we are old enough. Unfortunately, the government has proven quite untrustworthy in this regard, turning our current social security system into what amounts to a Ponzi scheme that is highly likely to collapse before the tail end of the boomers see a dime.

I think @YARNLADY has it right. I think the option of moving our Social Security money out of the hands of the federal government and into investments that we have control over would be a good thing.

@YoBob please tell us how this “minimal social safety net” you like would deal with people who fail to invest wisely in their future and thus end up poor and dying from lack of medical care. Or, more troubling, to people whose wise savings are ruined by market fluctuations which your beloved successful private enterprises seem so prone to causing.

Just let them die? So they’ll learn their lesson?

@Qingu Please tell us how having a significant chunk of our paychecks removed before we even have a chance to see it over the course of our entire working lives to fund a system that is nothing less than a government run Ponzi scheme in exchange for the promise of a (woefully inadequate) monthly government stipend on retirement is preferable to having the ability to use those funds to plan for one’s own future?

@YoBob

You didn’t answer @Qingu‘s very good question. What is your answer? I want to know as well.

I will also add my favorite question to those of a libertarian stripe- how, in the type of government that you envision, would you protect endangered species and habitats, especially if those species were not “cute and cuddly” and the habitats were in demand as land for construction?

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened. We just didn’t know about it.

@YoBob, that’s an easy question to answer. Because people often do not plan for their future well, and exigencies often occur that ruin those plans. Like, for example, the financial crisis last year, which would have completely destroyed the savings that millions of elderly people depended on to live had SS been privatized.

Also, taking money out of paychecks for SS does not prevent people from saving up on their own either, so presenting this as an either/or is disingenuous.

Now answer my question. What’s your plan to deal with people who either don’t save, or whose savings are ruined by financial crises?

As stated previously, I don’t think it is the role of the federal government to be your mommy. Minimal safety net means exactly that, the current equivalent of welfare.

If you want to put your money in a government backed investment vehicle, purchase bonds. In fact, most financial pundits advocate a shift towards less risk as one approaches retirement age. If you are willing to take higher risks, that’s your choice. But the bottom line is that it is not the role of government to pat you on the head and make everything all better if you make bad choices.

And yes, removing money from peoples paychecks does keep them from investing. If your take home pay is barely enough to meet the bills after the government helps themselves to your money then you don’t have a whole heck of a lot to invest. If, OTOH, the social security administration would keep their grubby paws off or your earnings, then you would have those funds to put away for your future use. Even with the most conservative of investments in government bonds you are much more likely to have a heck of a lot more available when you retire than you will ever see from a monthly social security check.

@YoBob I really don’t advocate the federal government playing mommy either, but nor will America let the elderly starve to death due to lack of personal planning. If you remove social security, what would take its place? Would the elderly who have no retirement funds just go on welfare?

Using the federal minimum wage of $7.25. If someone put 7.5% in investments per month, it is $94.25. This assumes 52 weeks of 40 hours so no vacation time. This also assumes that someone working for minimum wage would put or be forced to put money aside for retirement. Another factor I used was 5% interest. Yes, that could be low but with market fluctuations, I figured it was a safe number to use.

After working for 50 years (at minimum wage – no increases, but I also did not account for cost of living increases over the course of 50 years.) The total amount available would be $252,568. The annual yield after that would be $12,628 at 5% unless you started using the principal.

I do not know how much someone who works for minimum wage their entire life would receive in SS. But I am going to guess that if they lived at least ten years past retirement age, they would be better off on SS. However, that does not account for the millions and millions of people who earn well over minimum wage. So, I think it depends on which income level you are and will be whether one or the other would work out better.

@YoBob, I’m confused. You want to eliminate social security. But you want government to provide welfare for the people who would inevitably be effected by the elimination of social security.

Wouldn’t the government still need to get their “grubby paws” on your earnings to pay for this huge additional influx of welfare?

I mean, I get the basic sentiment here: personal responsibility! Actions have consequences! The problem is this tidy little ideology doesn’t really take into account how ignorant human beings generally are, and what sort of suffering that leads to in the real world.

So please make clear to what extent you think the government should let people suffer and die for not managing their investment risks well.

@Qingu – I’m not sure what there is to be confused about. I think the whole specter of a great influx of welfare cases is alarmist nonsense. As stated above, I do not advocate just shutting down social security and kicking old ladies out in the street. I advocate a graceful move from the current Ponzi scheme to a system in which one is able to take charge of their own financial future by opting out of Social Security in favor of investments of their choosing. True, by opting out, they take the risk of making poor financial choices, but those are their choices to make. You asked what would become of those who make poor choices. Well, (as stated) that is what the minimum safety net is for, it is known as welfare. Yes, inevitably some will make poor choices. However, apparently I have a bit more faith in humanity than you do. After having made a conscious decision to opt out in favor of providing for themselves I believe that most will be relatively diligent in those endeavors and will be better off in the end. Alas, it is not a perfect world and some will encounter unfortunate circumstances, but hey, that happens now. Much as we would like guarantees in life, there are none, with or without big daddy government intervention.

While it is true that in folks like @optimisticpessimist case who have spent an entire career working for minimum wage that current Social Security may pay out almost as much as they were able to save over the course of their career (provided they live long enough to collect), that is not the case for the vast majority of American workers. The current pittance paid out each month in benefits generally pails in comparison to the amount of funds paid in.

The possibility of market fluctuations wiping out one’s savings is a very real thing. However, as I have pointed out, if you want government backed stability over higher returns, then invest in bonds. But bottom line is that is your decision, not uncle sugars, and you must take responsibility for the consequences.

@YoBob, it’s not just that you have more faith in humanity than I do, you also appear to have more faith in the markets than I do… and than reality would seem to dictate.

My dad is a responsible and intelligent investor and he lost more than half of his retirement savings recently.

And your “faith in humanity” is a basic, fundamental problem with conservative economic doctrine. Conservative economics is predicated on the assumption that humans are rational actors whose behavior can be predicted almost mechanistcally. They’re not. They never have been, they never will be. There will always be stupid people. There will always be gullible people who fall prey to mischievious investment schemes. Every serious economist has to acknowledge “noise” in trading and investment—i.e., “there are stupid investors.” Failing to acknowledge this doesn’t make you “optimist,” it makes you naive and dangerously unqualified to proscribe large-scale economic reforms.

@Qingu – As I said, if you don’t trust publicly traded securities, you can always invest in government backed bonds. Further, if you would rather let uncle sugar hold your money for you with the promise he will give it back when you are old enough, that’s fine too.

The fact that there are stupid investors out there has nothing at all to do the opinion that even stupid people have a right to direct their own lives, and it is not, IMHO, the role of the federal government to make sure that everyone out there is wearing their helmet.

So… which does your dad expect to get more money from during his retirement, Social Security, or his investments? If the answer is his investments (in spite of the market downturn), then I can’t help but wonder how much better he would be positioned if he had used all of the money that was taken from his check over his entire career and invested it in a slow growth stable investment.

While it is quite probably true that neither of us is qualified to proscribe large-scale economic reforms, (once again, as stated previously) I am quite qualified to have and express an opinion, as are you.

There is no qualification to expressing an opinion.

I don’t know why you continually bring up your right to express an opinion. At first I just dismissed this as a sort of knee-jerk reaction to criticism. But now you’ve started using the language of rights in your argument. “Even stupid people have the right to direct their own lives,” you said.

Yes, they do.

Now explain to me how taxation is equivalent to taking one’s rights away. Do you think people have the right to live in a country without paying taxes? Because that’s what it seems. It also seems like you don’t know what a right is.

@Qingu Depending on whose figures you use anywhere from 38–50% of Americans think they have a right to live here without paying income tax….

Although these are 2006 figures…for the record:
During 2006, Tax Foundation economists estimate that roughly 43.4 million tax returns, representing 91 million individuals, will face a zero or negative tax liability. That’s out of a total of 136 million federal tax returns that will be filed. Adding to this figure the 15 million households and individuals who file no tax return at all, roughly 121 million Americans—or 41 percent of the U.S. population—will be completely outside the federal income tax system in 2006.

Fact Check

1. Those 38–50% of Americans who think that must be imbeciles.

2. That’s federal income tax. We’ve been over this. Most of those people still pay payroll taxes. They aren’t getting away with not paying taxes. This is completely disengenuous to bring up, and I thought you were better than that.

@Qingu – Once again you are straying from the issue at hand. I stated the opinion that our government has grown too large. I was asked how I would reduce the size of the government and I responded with my opinions regarding moving from an income to a consumption tax, a way to gracefully transition the largest non-military chunk of our budget (which BTW happens to be the same size as our military budget), and further suggested that we should ask ourselves exactly how each of the numerous offices in our vast federal web contribute to the core federal governmental charter. Further, I went on to state the opinion that I have no problem with private entities employing more people than the federal government, which seems to have sent you into a hysterical rant.

Now you are accusing me of equating taxation with removal of ones rights and asking if I believe that taxes should be completely eliminated when I have quite clearly stated my opinion on taxation philosophy (consumption rather than income).

Frankly, I have no more time to waste on this thread.

@Qingu Where do you think the bulk of our behemoth Federal Governments funding comes from?? INCOME TAX! Medicare and Social Security that these “imbeciles” as you characterized them that they do pay into is a pyramid scheme and most of us will never tap into these programs as there will be nothing left when we need them. Fact is 38–50% of Americans are getting a “free ride” while the rest of us pay for the crappy service and representation we are getting yet these same 38–50% bitch the loudest when things don’t favor them!

You’re going to have to help me wade through your logic there, @Cruiser, because I can’t make any sense of what you just wrote.

Most of the federal government’s spending is on SS and Medicare.

Those are payroll taxes.

@Qingu Sorry you slept through civics class….what about Health and Human Services, defense, foreign aid, education, roads and highways, etc. Remember all the pretty green signs with Obama’s name on it proudly extolling the virtues of build America? Think pork, think wasteful spending, think bridges to nowhere and my favorite to get upset about…the US Tresury.

Here is what 38–50% of Americans are not paying for.

@Cruiser Very good link, thanks.

@Cruiser Thank you for the link. It was very informative.

@Cruiser, again… what the hell are you talking about.

First, all of the programs you mentioned do not even constitute a majority of the US budget. Medicare and SS, together, do.

Second, I have no idea how this even applies. 38–50% of Americans do pay for those things through their withheld income tax. For example, I’m one of those people: I don’t pay a federal income tax at the end of the year (I get a return). That’s because I’ve been paying that income tax all year, through my payroll tax.

Again, this is a very disingenuous argument. Chill out and think a minute.

For a more thorough explanation, @Cruiser, read this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/economy/14leonhardt.html