Government shutdown primer: What would and wouldn't happen

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

The threat of a government shutdown looms larger every minute. But that doesn't mean the entire government will close its doors if Congress fails to pass a budget bill in time for the new fiscal year that begins Tuesday.

 

Up to 800,000 federal employees could be furloughed as services deemed "non-essential," such as national parks, passport offices and most regulatory agencies -- including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission -- are closed.

 

But in short, the full impact of a shutdown is not clear, at least for now. If the federal government closes for business Tuesday, non-essential employees would be furloughed without pay. "Essential" workers-- such as military personnel, border security officials and air traffic controllers -- would be told to report to work. They wouldn't receive paychecks during the shutdown but would be paid retroactively after Congress passes a government funding bill.

Since it's up to each federal agency and department to determine which of its employees are essential and nonessential -- which the government now prefers to call "excepted" and "non-excepted" -- it's uncertain exactly how many employees, and which ones, would be furloughed. But the two most recent prolonged shutdowns in the mid-1990s give a clue.