The lapse is sure to drag on for at least a dozen days, and likely far longer, since the Senate has shut its doors until Wednesday afternoon. | Win McNamee/Getty Images) Government Shutdown How the shutdown is reaching a breaking point Many of the departments and agencies hit by the partial shutdown are running out of carryover cash and time to prep checks for the midmonth pay period.

Nine federal departments haven’t received a cent in federal funding for almost two weeks.

They've limped along on leftover money, coasted through the quiet days of the holidays and paid staff with checks already prepped before the lapse. But now the shutdown is getting real.


Even though House Democrats passed legislation Thursday that would end the partial shutdown, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has warned that the proposal "is a total non-starter" in the Senate. What's more, President Donald Trump told congressional leaders on Wednesday that he would look "foolish" signing off on the House's plan to fund agencies outside the Department of Homeland Security through the end of the fiscal year while still keeping DHS unfunded as leverage to get more money for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Many of the departments and agencies hit by the shutdown, which began Dec. 22, have reached a breaking point in their ability to go on with minimal disruption. They are running out of carryover cash and time to prep checks for the mid-month pay period during the lapse McConnell predicts could drag on for "weeks" still.

In recent days new problems emerged. The Federal Communications Commission ran out of money Thursday and will no longer be able to respond to consumer complaints. An anti-opioid campaign slowed with key staff on furlough. National parks saw trash pile up and bathrooms go uncleaned. Companies that had expected to enter the stock market for the first time this month couldn't launch initial public offerings.

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All the while, federal workers are left wondering whether they will get their next check on Jan. 11. While paychecks for federal employees went out last week after a pay period ended on Dec. 22, the pay period for that next check ends Saturday, and pay processing time varies from agency to agency.

The Office of Management and Budget said in recent guidance that no federal employee, including those still working without pay, can be compensated for the pay period spanning Dec. 23 to Jan. 5 until the shutdown ends, meaning lawmakers have just over a week to jump-start federal funding before hundreds of thousands of federal employees miss their paychecks.

Adding insult to injury, Trump issued an executive order on Dec. 28freezing salaries for civilian employees in 2019 — halting a 2.1 percent raise that was scheduled to take effect in January. Congress, however, could include a pay raise in a spending package to break the budget impasse.

Bracing for a prolonged period without appropriations for much of the federal government, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser directed several District offices to stay open longer to receive the hundreds of unemployment claims rolling in.

The Office of Personnel Management has provided sample letters federal employees can give to landlords, mortgage companies and creditors to explain late payments.

The departments of Agriculture, Justice, Treasury, Commerce, Interior, State, Transportation, Homeland Security and Housing and Urban Development are all hit by the partial shutdown, as well as agencies like EPA, the FDA and the IRS.

How it's getting harder:



— Home sales: Even the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s own contingency plan acknowledges that “with each day the shutdown continues," effects on "the entire housing market" will worsen, including a decline in home sales and reversal of the trend toward a stronger national real estate market. Of HUD’s roughly 7,500 employees, about 340 are allowed to show up for work and another 980 can be recalled on any given day for specific tasks. HUD is still closing on loans for multi-family projects with firm commitments, however, and the Federal Housing Administration can still endorse single-family loans other than reverse mortgages, although staff limitations may lengthen the time it takes to get an endorsement.

— Agriculture assistance: The USDA offices that offer loans to farmers were able to stay open for the first six days of the shutdown by using leftover funding. But offices across the country are now closed.

As of Tuesday, the USDA was no longer able to issue new loans for rural development or grants for housing, community facilities and utility companies. Payments stopped being processed for agricultural research and education projects. Statistics routinely published on commodity and livestock production, as well as economic projections, have ceased. And Forest Service work to prevent wildfires has halted, along with staffing for ranger stations and other facilities at the agency’s public recreation sites.

Farmers affected by retaliatory tariffs now have to wait until after the shutdown to receive aid if they have yet to apply for that relief.

— Federal Communications Commission: The FCC has run out of leftover money and began shutting down Thursday afternoon. That means the agency won’t enforce consumer protection and local competition rules, and won’t handle any consumer complaints. About 1,200 employees, or 83 percent of the agency’s workforce, is now furloughed, with the chairman and commissioners remaining on the job.

Just hours before ceasing most agency operations, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai outlined a tentative agenda Thursday for the agency's Jan. 30 meeting, during which the commission is expected to consider changes to how broadband subsidies are handled and proposed rules for combating the use of spoofed caller-ID information. It’s unclear, however, how the agency would handle that next meeting if the government is still shut down at month’s end.

—Trade pact analysis grinds to a halt: The U.S. International Trade Commission will remain shuttered for the length of the partial government shutdown, raising the possibility that it could delay the release of a highly anticipated report on the economic impact of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The commission is required to submit the report, which many lawmakers will look toward to inform their positions on the deal, by March 15.

— Launching IPOs: Companies that had expected to enter the stock market for the first time this month have been blocked from launching initial public offerings since the Securities and Exchange Commission has only a handful of staff available solely for emergency situations involving market integrity and investor protection. Those companies will now have to wait until the shutdown is over, potentially causing their agency filings to go stale and making them miss a window for offering their first stock sales.

— Coast Guard: The shutdown has begun to curtail Coast Guard efforts like mariner licensing, boating safety checks and patrolling to ensure fishing laws are enforced. Maintenance for navigational aids is also delayed, as well as training and ship maintenance. “The longer the shutdown lasts, the more difficult it will become for the Coast Guard to maintain mission readiness,” said Coast Guard spokesperson Chad Saylor.

The Trump administration announced a change in policy late Friday, however, ensuring active duty members of the Coast Guard were paid Monday. But checks are not guaranteed for those workers on the service's Jan. 15 payday.

— DHS investigations: While the majority of workers at DHS are kept on during shutdowns, only about a third of the nearly 800 employees in the inspector general’s office are slated to stay on the job. That means far less support staff as the internal watchdog investigates incidents like the deaths of two migrant children in DHS custody this month.

A department official who spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity said those furloughed workers are needed to round up records and interview witnesses to prevent “the investigative trail” from “going stale.”

— The Smithsonian: Nineteen Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo closed to the public on Wednesday, adding thousands more workers to the pool of furloughed federal employees. The shutdown also means that live camera feeds the public uses to watch giant pandas and other animals from afar will go dark.

— Immigration status checks: The E-Verify system DHS runs to help businesses determine whether employees are eligible to work in the U.S. is no longer available due to the shutdown.

— Anti-opioids campaign: Many key staff in charge of coordinating the Trump administration’s response to the opioid crisis have been furloughed, slowing momentum on key projects at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, including the anti-drug campaign the president has touted as one of his main strategies for tackle the epidemic that is killing an average of 115 Americans a day.

— Tax filing season: The extended lapse comes at a particularly awkward time for the IRS, which will likely have to redo its shutdown plan this week to prepare for the upcoming filing season — the first in which both taxpayers and the agency will need tonavigate the changes from the tax law Republicans enacted a year ago. Top agency officials predicted even before the shutdown began that the start of the filing season could slip into February, after starting in mid-to-late January in recent years.

About 7 in 8 IRS employees are currently furloughed. But Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said last week that the agency would have to call back many more workers, without pay, for filing season.

— D.C. marriages: Couples planning to marry in Washington D.C. can’t get a marriage license since the local court system is funded by Congress and Marriage License Bureau employees were furloughed.

— The EPA: The Environmental Protection Agency, which had enough extra money to operate as usual through the first week of the funding lapse, began shutdown procedures on Monday.

— University research: The shutdown is increasingly complicating the lives of university researchers, who can no longer communicate with affected agencies like the National Science Foundation. Research proposal reviews have ground to a halt.

— FAA training: The union that represents air traffic controllers has complained that a freeze in FAA hiring and closure of the training academy in Oklahoma City is exacerbatingthe yearslong backlog in a field that is already plagued with staffing shortages.

— Justice system: Federal courts are only expected to be able to operate through Jan. 11 by tapping into court fees and other funds not subject to annual appropriations. If the shutdown drags on past that date, each court and federal defender’s office is allowed to determine the staffing resources necessary to support ongoing work.

Margaret Harding McGill, Brianna Ehley, Bernie Becker, Catherine Boudreau, Ted Hesson, Doug Palmer, Tanya Snyder, Jacqueline Klimas, Patrick Temple-West, Rebecca Rainey, Steven Overly, Kimberly Hefling and Adam Behsudi contributed to this report.

