Apparently Trump didn’t bother to consider the impact of a government shutdown on those who have nothing to do with his silly wall idea. The House and Senate passed a budget Trump had agreed to. Rush Limbaugh then had a fit, causing Trump to break his word and refuse to sign the bill. Trump consulted no one, and since he is pathologically self-centered and amoral, gave no consideration to what the impact would be.
He really gave it no consideration. The map shows which states will be affected the most based on percentage of federal employees in their population. Red states generally get impacted the hardest.
Did I mention the wall is a gimmick aides came up with to keep Trump focused? And of course, there is no border crisis that is any worse than what has existed for years, even as alleged human and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen “Let’s Put More Kids in Cages” Nielsen says otherwise. But hey, let’s shutdown the government anyway.
Blowback
Apparently HUD is now so incompetently run that no one there realized rent funding for HUD tenants expired on Jan 1. Or they didn’t care. Now HUD is sending letters to landlords asking them not to evict tenants whose rent is partly covered by HUD. Instead, they tell landlords to use their reserve account money. This of course presumes landlords have reserve money to use. Meanwhile, HUD is scurrying around trying to find funding now.
The IRS says tax refunds may not go out next month as they are prohibited from doing so during shutdowns. Even if the shutdown ends soon, payments will almost certainly be delayed. The IRS also is calling back workers on an unpaid basis now to process presumably tens of millions quarterly payments due on Jan 15.
National park are using entrance fee money earmarked for other purposes to clean up messes, empty trash cans and chemical toilets, and maybe do rudimentary policing. The longer Trump’s tantrum lasts, the worse conditions will get in the parks.
Cities like Odgen Utah, which has a major IRS office, are getting collateral damage from the shutdown. Local stores and restaurants are closing or have limited hours. Federal employees will almost certainly get full back pay when the shutdown is over. Contractors do not. A shutdown hurts them badly. There are thousands of other cities like Odgen that rely on income generated by federal employees and contractors.