​Government shutdown ends, but at what cost?

By Bryce Vincent Haugen

For the first nine months, the dysfunction of the Trump administration and Congress was a four-time-zone-away abstraction for a Moorhead native living in Alaska’s interior. But it became all too real when the federal government shut down on Oct. 1. Bureau of Land Management records specialist ML, granted anonymity for fear of reprisal, joined about 700,000 federal workers furloughed without pay. Another 700,000 workers, those considered essential, were required to show up to work despite also not getting paid.

“It’s quite depressing,” said ML, a mother of three. “My mental health has not been good during this process … It almost feels like COVID for me, cut off from the social aspect of work and having a lack of freedom to go out and do things without being very conscientious of what it’s costing.”

ML had to pull from savings to cover her mortgage and has been closely watching her grocery spending. She agrees with a plurality of Americans, directing her ire toward Republicans as more responsible for the the longest shutdown in American history, according to a late October Quinnipiac poll (45 percent to 39 percent).

“There’s issues in each party,” ML said, “But I blame the current administration.”

Shutdown ends

The shutdown had a broad reach into the alphabet soup of the federal bureaucracy, from the TSA (Transportation Security Administration), IRS (Internal Revenue Service), and EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), to IHS (Indian Health Service), USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) and NIH (National Institutes of Health), among myriad other agencies. The missed paychecks added up to $16 billion in lost wages. The pain is temporary: There will be back pay.

No one was hit harder than recipients of food stamps — Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP ) —who, in many states, had to wait more than two weeks to receive their benefit, stressing food banks coast to coast. Air traffic controllers, working without pay, retired in droves and called in sick, leading to thousands of canceled or delayed flights at 40 major airports, including Minneapolis-St. Paul, but not Fargo’s Hector International.

Forty-three days after the government closed, Trump signed a package of bills to reopen it on Nov. 13. Most non-essential services are now funded through Jan. 30 and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is among the programs funded for a full year.

The backstory: On Sept. 19, the House of Representatives passed a stopgap measure, extending funding at existing levels through November. Then reps skipped town for more than six weeks. When the Senate failed to pass that bill by Oct. 1, the shutdown began.

More than a dozen times, all but a couple of Democrats refused to vote “yes” on a procedural motion to advance the spending bill, because they were making their support contingent on extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies. These subsidies, first passed in 2021 during the pandemic and set to expire on Dec. 31, support the majority of 24 million enrollees in the form of tax credits. Without extension, affected people can expect to be charged an average of $1,000 more annually in premiums, with middle-income families seeing an even steeper spike — 50 to 100 percent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Dems held firm on the subsidies until late in a rare Sunday session, Nov. 9, when, in a 60-40 vote, eight members of their caucus sided with all but one Republican to break the filibuster and send the proposal on to a full vote.

Democrats were promised a standalone vote on the enhanced subsidies in December, but House Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to pledge a corresponding vote and it remains unlikely that Trump, long an Obamacare foe, would sign it. The Senate gave final approval to the deal Nov. 10 and the House followed suit on Nov. 12, with the president signing the measures within the same hour.

Lawmakers react

North Dakota’s Republican senators sent reactions to the High Plains Reader shortly following the procedural vote victory.

“After a record-breaking shutdown, we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Sen. Kevin Cramer said in a statement. “Advancing this appropriations package gets us one step closer to paying the troops, the border patrol agents and all the other federal workers who were inexcusably used as leverage by Democrats.”

Sen. John Hoeven called for swift action.

“We worked to negotiate a path forward to reopen the government with a short-term (stopgap funding bill) through January 30 and passage of three of the full-year appropriations bills,” he said. “These three bills, including the Agriculture Appropriations bill, will help get us back to regular order.”

On the other side of the aisle — and the river — Minnesota’s Democratic senators saw the deal as more of a capitulation than a compromise. In a statement, Sen. Amy Klobuchar lambasted the outcome, pointing to the 200,000 Minnesota families that would be affected.

“This is a short-sighted surrender that kicks the can on health care while families suffer,” she said. “We fought for Minnesotans’ access to affordable care, and caving now betrays that.”

On the Senate floor, during debate Nov. 10, Sen. Tina Smith said: “We’ve endured 41 days of chaos — furloughs, delayed veterans’ benefits, halted research at the U of M — all because Republicans won’t extend subsidies that save Minnesotans $700 a year on premiums. A vague promise of a vote isn’t leadership; it’s abdication.”

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates about 60,000-80,000 Minnesotans would lose coverage without an extension of the enhanced subsidies. In North Dakota, the estimate is 8,000-12,000.

Kate Roberts, spokeswoman for freshman Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND), said it’s important to note a couple of things. One, these subsidies were always meant to be temporary; otherwise, in 2021, the Democratic House, Senate and president wouldn’t have set them to expire. And two, the subsidies are not sent to people, but rather to insurance companies directly, which drives up healthcare costs.

“The Affordable Care Act is anything but affordable,” Roberts said. “It is not working as intended. Everyone agrees that healthcare is not affordable. Most Americans, if they had all this information, would say ‘no,’ we should not be subsidizing these insurance companies.”

SNAP

On a recent Thursday, the line for the Emergency Food Pantry just west of downtown was out the door, while the parking lot and adjacent streets were packed with traffic. In November, for the first time in the history of the food stamp program, over 41 million Americans, including 16 million children, did not get their SNAP benefit on time. That’s 440,000 Minnesotans and more than 50,000 North Dakotans — an estimated 14,000 Fargo-Moorhead residents.

After a federal judge ordered the benefits to be paid in full, some states (such as Minnesota) proceeded right away. Others, like North Dakota, only issued partial payments to some beneficiaries. Then the Supreme Court stepped in with an injunction the following day and the feds ordered Minnesota to claw back the benefits, which it refused.

The confusion and uncertainty is “stupid and it sucks,” said CC, a woman in line at the pantry. “It’s hard on me for sure because I don’t have much money.”

At the Olivet Lutheran Church Food Pop-Up in South Fargo on November 3, there was a 55 percent increase in participation compared to the previous month. Darby Njos, communications manager for Great Plains Food Bank, said she’s grateful for the nearly $1 million in contingency funds from the state.

With only one in 10 meals coming from food shelves (and the rest from SNAP) “our team is doing everything we can to stretch resources and keep food access stable for as long as possible,” said Njos. “Ongoing federal guidance around SNAP benefits continues to create confusion and uncertainty for families, and we are still waiting for clarity when full benefits will resume. These ongoing disruptions are leaving families with difficult choices.”

‘Disheartening’

The North Dakota Farmers Union, an organization representing more than 70,000 farmers and ranchers throughout the state, donated $500,000 to the Great Plains Food Bank in mid-November. With the end of the government shutdown, operations at Farm Service Agency offices and other USDA programs can resume immediately. But all is not well for NDFU’s members, said Lance Gaebe, agricultural strategist for the group.

The expiring tax credits, he said, will disproportionately affect farmers and other small businesses that purchase their own health insurance. “Because many purchase through the ACA marketplace, we estimate that 70 percent of North Dakota farm families will see their insurance premiums double in cost if the subsidies are not extended,” Gaebe explained.

ML, the BLM records specialist, said even though she’s going back to work — and getting a paycheck — the developments in DC are “disheartening.”

“Initially, my reaction was that the Democrats should have held the line,” she said. “Then I listened to stories about people trying to stay warm using their dryer vents. This administration is getting their way because they are bullies; they do not care about the greater majority of people in this country.” 

brycevincenthaugen@gmail.com