How government closure would affect Charlestown

“We have to destroy the country in order to save it from Obamacare,” say Congressional Republicans

For more cartoons by Mike Luckovich, click here

By Will Collette

If House Republicans, enabled by their colleagues in the Senate, continue to hold America hostage to bring about their incredible demands, the US government will go into partial shut-down on the morning of October 1. 

Already, countless hours have been spent – and taxpayer money wasted – to prepare contingency plans if this should happen. As a result, there is a lot of available information on what will, as well as what won’t, happen if the shut-down takes place.

First, let me set your minds at ease – Charlestown’s most renowned G-Man, town councilor Dan Slattery (CCA Party), will get his federal pension check, just like everyone else in town who draws a federal retirement pension. Federal pension payments, as well as Social Security payments, will not be affected by the shut-down.

The last time soldiers were paid in scrip, at least you could use 
it to buy stuff at the PX

However, if you are a military family, you will be without income for the duration. US troops will be expected to continue to carry out their normal duties, except they will not get paid. Instead, military personnel will be issued non-negotiable “IOUs,” which doesn't come close to measuring up to the usual promise of “the check’s in the mail.”

If you are a civilian worker at a military facility, such as Newport’s Undersea Warfare Center, you will be expected to stay home, without pay, unless you are deemed to be an “essential” worker. 

The terms for who is essential and who isn’t are complicated. Generally, you are considered essential if your absence puts lives and public safety at risk. Thus, air traffic controllers at T.F. Green and federal food inspectors are considered “essential.” So are IRS workers.

Go figure.

The Department of Defense expects that it will lay off 400,000 civilian employees for the duration of the shut-down. At least half of the nearly 3 million federal workers throughout the government will be laid-off on Tuesday morning if the government is shut-down. 

The last time this happened, a two-fer that took place between November 1995 and January 1996, the government was closed for a total of 28 days. This was the big showdown between President Bill Clinton and then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Four weeks it took then at a time when House Republicans were a lot less crazy than the House Republicans today.

Click here to read the official US Office of Personnel Management's "Guide to Shutdown Furloughs."

If you are on Medicare, your coverage will be unaffected since its funding comes not from general tax revenue, but from the Medicare payroll tax. Doctors and medical providers expect the payments to continue to flow. However, the federal workers and contractors who process the paperwork are funded from general revenue. While there may be money available to make Medicare payments to health care providers, there probably won't be the people in place to actually make it happen.

Kettle Pond visitor center, Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge
Closed if the Republicans shut down the government

If you have federal paperwork in the works - an FHA mortgage or Small Business Administration loan, a passport application or renewal, or if you are filing for Social Security, Disability or Medicare benefits - you may also get jammed up by the shut-down since, again, the federal workers who push those papers through the system won't be there. 

And when this crisis is over, there will be a backlog of paperwork that will take time to unravel.

Expect federal facilities such as our five National Wildlife Refuges including Ninigret to be closed. Local NWS supervisor Charlie Vandemoer and his staff will be laid off for the duration of the shut-down.

DEM is planning to hold a fly-fishing workshop at the Ninigret Kettle Pond Visitor Center on October 5. If the shut-down occurs, and is not resolved before October 5, expect that workshop to be cancelled, since Kettle Pond will be locked up.

If you work as a federal contractor, your situation under the shut-down contingency plan is complicated. Electric Boat, for example, probably will not be closed, at least for a while as it receives funds from already approved Navy budgets. However, the federal contract officers that oversee and service those contracts will be laid off. So if there are any problems that require their intervention, they ain’t gonna be there.

New research grants as well as grant renewals and
extensions won't happen during the shut-down

In general, if you are working under an existing federal contract or grant, you’re OK for now, although if there are any problems with your contract or grant, your federal contracting officer or grant officer will probably be at home catching up on DVRed episodes of Breaking Bad.

But no new grants or contracts will be issued. No renewals or extensions will be processed (no grant or contract officers, remember?). The only exceptions are those that involve emergencies, pretty using the same criteria that defines “essential” employees. 

However, not all emergencies will be covered – disaster relief funding probably won’t be processed. Let’s hope there are no natural or manmade disasters, aside from the shut-down itself, for the duration of the shut-down.

Research grants, like those that fund so many programs at URI, that expire on October 1 will not be renewed until the shut-down is over. Depending on the length of the shut-down, lots of normal government business may be tied up by backlogs caused by this unscheduled, not to mention assinine, government shut-down.

Funding that is in the pipeline – to Charlestown, to RI-CAN, Chariho, etc. – may or may not be processed, depending on where the payments are in the process. If the payments haven’t left the building, the odds are that the people responsible for processing that payment will not be there to finish processing them.

If the check really has been put in the mail, it will be delivered since the US Postal Service with its woefully inadequate though separate budget is not affected by the shut-down. They have their own and equally dire problems, but this Tea Party-inflicted bit of economic terrorism isn’t one of them.

Charlestown's own civilian helicopter gun ship (Charlestown Police
Department photo)

For Charlestown gun fanciers, of which we have many, if you want some new weaponry to fire from a helicopter or use to hunt down bears and need any permitting involvement from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to get your exotic weaponry, faggeddaboudit. They’ll be closed during the shut-down.

You won't be able to get a new FAA pilot's license or renew an expired one.

There won't be any federal licensing authority to issue salt-water fishing licenses. On the other hand, there won’t be any feds from NOAA around to enforce the rules. But you will still need your Rhode Island license since, in Rhode Island, you need both a state and federal license. I'm sure the DEM Environmental Police will pick up the slack.

Local roads slated for repair if the federal funding comes through.
Approved at the Sept 9 Council meeting, the feds would pay for the
road repairs and Charlestown commits to maintain the roads later.

Charlestown just recently found out it's likely to get federal funding to repair eight local roads under the federal High Risk Rural Roads Systemic Improvement Project. Unless the check is already in the mail, this too is likely going to get jammed up in the shut-down. 

Federal funding, large and small, for all manner of local needs such as transportation, infrastructure, education, health care, etc. will all be tied up for the duration of the shut-down.

If the shut-down does happen, as now seems likely, it will be a mess but not one that everyone will see at first. Nor will the effects be felt equally. Federal workers, families with someone in military service and people whose jobs are dependent on federal funding  will be among the first to be harmed. They will take the brunt of it in lost earnings. 

But very shortly, the shut-down will affect everyone because this will also cause a jolt to the economy.

The threat of a shut-down, and coming shortly after that on October 17, hitting the debt ceiling and potentially defaulting, is already costing all of us who have retirement or investment savings. The stock market has been giving up a lot of the gains it has made over the past few months with day after day of losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 300 points (around 2%) in the past two weeks, based almost entirely on investor worries over the nonsense in Congress.

Who ya gonna trust? President Obama or this guy?

The event that triggered the Republicans to hit the “self-destruct” button for the United States is the October 1 start-up of the latest phase “Obamacare” (a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act). 

Starting Oct. 1, uninsured people will be able to get affordable health insurance. Budget projections – including those used by the Republicans – show that “Obamacare” will actually reduce the cost of government and the deficit, and boost the economy.

Ironically, the Republican decision to force this shut-down will have no effect on progress to put "Obamacare" into action. It will not stop the new health care exchanges from going on line on October 1. 

I wish there was an affordable health care solution for the deep-seated illness that infects our national government. Even if the Tea Party-driven fairy tale about Obamacare was true, is inflicting such pain on so many people and so much damage on the country the way to address it? How much longer must we suffer from their insanity?