He'll MAKE it a national emergency

And I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's his aim.

[T]he agriculture industry, real estate sector, oil drillers and global investors are all bracing for years of cascading setbacks spurred by the pause in government loans, permitting and deal-making approval. The enduring pain will extend across the quarter of the U.S. government now largely shuttered.

“Even if the shutdown were resolved tomorrow, the fallout is going to last months, if not years,” said former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

[...]

The shutdown — which Trump says is “a very small price to pay” for increased border security and national security — has stopped all Border Patrol training, except for the classes to get new workers in the field.

[...]

“Freezing the training process — it reverberates for well over a year,” said Gil Kerlikowske, who headed Customs and Border Protection during the Obama administration and served as the nation’s “Drug Czar” during the 16-day shutdown in 2013.

Thousands of emergency responders, including local volunteers and FEMA reservists, are also missing courses in firefighting and emergency response at centers in Georgia, Maryland and Alabama right now.

[...]

At TSA, hundreds of airport security screeners who were supposed to go through advanced training in Georgia this month can’t move into management positions. Already, several airports throughout the country have had to close screening lanes because of TSA absences, adding to the crunch on the aviation industry, which is expected to face a post-shutdown training backlog for air traffic controllers and pilots.

Most DHS employees who handle hiring and recruitment are furloughed — a major problem for a department that hemorrhages workers more quickly than it can replace them. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told lawmakers in October that, for the first time in many years, the department is now hiring Border Patrol agents faster than it is losing them.

[...]

For the IRS, another workplace already plagued by staffing and funding shortages, former officials and union leaders warn that the government is both at risk of losing skilled workers and scaring off prospective hires. Audits, which have already become rare, could drop even further and more fraudulent returns could go undetected.

[...]

It’s a similar scene at the Treasury Department, where many employees are already filling more than one role. They will return to work after the shutdown facing a backlog of reviews for investments that would give foreign entities a stake in U.S. companies, as well as grant applications from financial institutions that support community development.

[...]

Tom Vilsack, who served as agriculture secretary from 2009 to 2017, said some effects of the shutdown could take months or years to realize — like the ramifications of pausing Forest Service efforts to reduce fire hazards.

“You may not see the consequences of this until August of next year, when there is a worse fire than we would have had,” Vilsack said. “It’s difficult to draw that direct line. But a month or two can make a difference in the scale of a fire.”

For the USDA, the closure of farm and rural development offices across the country means farmers and ranchers trying to secure financing ahead of spring planting, or rural families hoping to buy a new home, are left in limbo — sending a “ripple effect throughout the rural economy,” Vilsack said.

[...]

“Every day the government isn’t servicing industry is a day lost forever,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican whose state is a major oil and gas producer. “All of it creates uncertainty that is always an enemy to investment.”

In the private sector, the losses will likely be greatest for the government contractors whose cash flow has been cut off since the Dec. 22 start of the shutdown. Coast Guard officials said this week that the agency is running so low on cash that it must freeze all “non-essential” missions and won’t be able to pay outside vendors until the shutdown concludes.

[...]

[G]overnment contractors have started to increase prices to account for funding unpredictability.

  Politico

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.