Government Shutdown In The United States

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In U.S. politics, a government shutdown is the name for the process the Executive Branch must enter into, when the Congress creates a "funding gap*" by choosing not to or failing to pass legislation funding government operations and agencies. What causes a shutdown? Under the US Constitution, both the Senate and the House of representatives have to pass a law renewing the government's authority to spend money every year. If the bill isn't passed by the end of the fiscal year, which falls on 30 September, that authority elapses and many government services are suspended. The United States federal government shutdown of 2013 ran from September 30 to October 16, 2013. The primary issue of dispute between the Republican-controlled House of Representatives…show more content…
Key government functions, such as air traffic control, stay active under emergency funding statutes, though other related functions (such as training and support of these services) are suspended. Some agencies and departments—such as the United States Department of Veterans Affairs and Social Security Administration—are funded by long-term or mandatory appropriations and are also largely unaffected. The United States Postal Service is self-funded and continued normal operations. On October 5, the House unanimously passed a bill that would provide back pay to all furloughed federal employees after the shutdown is resolved, and Obama stated that he would sign the bill into law. Internal Revenue Service delays, due to the shutdown, the IRS will processing of returns and issuing refunds were scheduled to be delayed by one week in January 2014. Taxpayer audits were postponed by the IRS during the shutdown. Because of the 16-day federal government closure, "to allow adequate time to program and test tax processing systems", the IRS 2014 filing season, for accepting and processing 2013 individual tax returns, won’t start before January 28, 2014 and no later than February 4, 2014. Effects on non-profit organizations, The 2013 ArtPrize in Michigan was affected by the shutdown due to several entries being displayed in and…show more content…
Europe, in which also On October 4, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman announced that a scheduled meeting with EU diplomats regarding the proposed Transatlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA) would be postponed as U.S. officials could not travel to Brussels. Finally, the economic effect, in which Moody's Analytics estimated that a shutdown of three to four weeks would cost the economy about $55 billion. Lost wages of Federal employees will amount to about $1 billion a week. Goldman Sachs estimated that a three-week shutdown would reduce the Gross Domestic Product of the United States by 0.9%. The negative economic effect of the shutdown will specifically be severe in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Approximately 700,000 D.C. area jobs could be affected at a cost of $200 million a day. The State of Maryland predicted that it would lose approximately $5 million a day in tax revenue. Local communities across the country also saw a significant negative economic effect, particularly those communities that are heavily dependent on the Federal government. A press release from the National Park Service said the shutdown of national parks would result
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