Shutdown basically means that US is at the edge of money it can legally borrow. So all non-essential agencies will be closed temporarily. Essential ones will be required to come to work and paid whenever government gets back up.

There are exceptions to that, self-funded agencies will keep going since they aren't even part of the budget in any meaningful way. There are also mandatory payments that US cannot stop paying (e.g. Social Security), but the major issue is this - we have never breached the debt ceiling, so if that happens you'll have a huge conflict between laws where one law says you have to pay this, and a second one that voids any payment over debt ceiling.

In 2013 we came very close to breaching it, at that point treasury was basically put in red alert and was cutting down everything to buy time. What happens if we hit it? US will default on its debts, think Greece and their financial fuckery. There will be a lot of old fucks out there pissed that their social security check is late.

So this ceiling will come, December or March, doesn't matter how many piggy banks can treasury break to keep the lights on a little longer. It will come and it will not be pretty.


Again, problem is not the budget, you can roll year to year on continuing resolutions and not pass a proper budget for years. Debt ceiling - well that thing isn't going anywhere, it's there at 19.8 trillion and it will take an act of congress to raise it. You think the deficit hawks are going to do that, probably not, and those D votes will be very costly come the vote, and I don't think that'd be immune to the filibuster.

So what do you say Mitch, Dream Act, no fucking wall, you leave ACA the fuck alone, and the government doesn't collapse on your head.