You know, I can't remember the last time a year went by without threats of a government shutdown. It's never happened yet. I know this is an unusual year in many ways, but I can't get too worked up.
UPDATE:
Jean says we had a shutdown in 2013. I don't know what I was doing. Obviously I wasn't employed by the government.
Like I said, I don't know what I was doing.
Nearly 800,000 federal employees were out of work without pay. In addition, more than a million other working employees had their paychecks delayed. On day five of the shutdown, Congress voted to give the furloughed government employees retroactive pay. Meanwhile, some members of Congress kept collecting their paychecks, while others voluntarily gave theirs up.
Nonessential departments and employees were furloughed. National parks, the National Zoo and NASA were all closed. The National Park Service lost more than 700,000 daily visitors, who typically add about $76 million to the national economy each day.
[...]
V.A. financial benefits were disrupted. Millions of veterans and their families almost did not receive their benefits. The Veterans Affairs secretary at the time, Eric Shinseki, warned that if the shutdown continued through late October, the agency would not be able to send out compensation checks to 5.1 million veterans.
[...]
It cost the country $24 billion. According to estimates by the financial services company Standards & Poor’s, the government shutdown cost America a whopping $24 billion, or $1.5 billion a day.
ABC
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