The shutdown is over — for now — perhaps better stated, it’s on pause, certainly so on the political front, as the new February deadline looms. But the economic and social costs have yet to be fully tallied or analyzed.
Early work suggests pervasive effects and consequences will be felt. And, deeply divisive legislative and policy wrangling is likely to persist, even if the government remains open. This is a tendency that must be challenged through self and community education, witness and solidarity, and especially through advocacy.
We who are justice seekers and champions of tolerance and compassion must be clear-eyed and informed about what happened — what was placed in jeopardy with this shutdown. We then need to be strategic and targeted as we confront the continued and persistent new norm.
On the dimension of education, during the last week of the shutdown, and following days, the interfaith social justice advocacy community, of which UUSJ is a participant, circulated disturbing figures as they began to accumulate and were vetted by news outlets and secular policy shops. I’ve offered some items in this piece and I’ve included some of the links, at the end.
One effect was on display which is emblematic of why I work for social justice with UUSJ at the intersection of community organizing, education, witness and advocacy.
As seekers of justice, we had a near miss on a legislative catastrophe for immigration causes, when the Senate rejected, with fewer than the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster, both a “bad” bill and the “less-bad” bill to reopen the Government. The less-bad bill effectively sought to pause the shutdown as a clean Continuing Resolution (CR). And, six Senators crossed party lines to make that happen, which gives me hope for our system. While the less-bad bill wouldn’t have solved the problem, it would at least have mitigated some of the ongoing damage and harm (see list below). For example, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the shutdown reduced gross domestic product (GDP) in the fourth quarter of 2018 by $3 billion (in 2019 dollars) in comparison to what was expected.
The bad bill is deeply worrisome. The proposal looked to open the government with $5.7 billion to construct the wall in addition to setting very harmful provisions for asylum seekers and some narrow, temporary protections for Dreamers and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients. Josh Leach of UUSC said in a related email-post:
“Buried at the end of the Senate’s 1300-page proposal is a section cruelly misnamed the “Central American Minors Protection Act.” This section would make the vast majority of Central American refugee children categorically ineligible for asylum in the U.S. It would require them to apply for asylum through a heavily restricted new mechanism in their home countries. This is not a viable option.”
After the votes, our own UUSJ Immigration Task Group discussed how so many of the priorities our volunteers have framed on immigration would have been horribly impacted. And our group vowed to monitor the unfolding shutdown since it hinges politically on immigration issues. But we also agreed that the work they do for social justice–the work UUSJ does–needs to be set to a course that is not buffeted easily.
Perhaps examining the broader consequences of the shutdown will emerge as a topic for all UUSJ priority areas, including the newly forming priority area of “Defending Our Democracy.” Read more about that elsewhere in this February 2019 eNews.
As justice seekers, we can advocate for solutions by engaging with UUSJ. Please know, our talents and passions in doing good for social justice have been needed, and continue to be needed, for all those who have been unnecessarily denied paychecks, had services jeopardized, had their housing destabilized or communities stressed and undermined.
So, I urge you to join us. Donate or volunteer on our web page.
Join in fellowship with other UUs and similarly minded faith-driven advocates, our voices can be heard and make impact. We will be heard in the halls of power. Let our voices ring out for values towards a peaceful, just, and environmentally sustainable world. Let us transform our nation for the better through acts of love and justice.
This brings me to some key points on the shutdown shared by interfaith parties:
In aggregate, federal employees missed out on $2 billion per pay period. An estimated 800,000 federal employees and more contractors and support staff missed paychecks. Moreover 470,000 employees were required to work without pay, and another 330,000 were sent home without pay. Anecdotally, many UUs were affected in this. So, quite literally, our neighbors may feel lingering effects despite the “pause.”
What about the communities supported by the federal programs which were affected? How were they impacted?
Regarding food assistance, millions of low-income children, seniors, and people with disabilities were put in jeopardy. Key front line programs, defenses against hunger in America, will now be evaluated for cuts or delays in disbursement of benefits. Programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which UUSJ worked diligently to protect during 2018 are included. SNAP alone helps 40 million low-income individuals (2017). Seven million are helped by the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) (2017), and 30 million kids are served by the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), while 4.2 million are assisted by the Children and Adult Food Care Program (CAFCP). (Forgive the alphabet soup.) These numbers suggest that a huge swath of our poorest and neediest neighbors may feel lingering effects despite the “pause.”
Further, the security and affordability of homes was destabilized during the shutdown. Certainly, it created anxiety for the more than 5 million low-income households—nearly 90 percent of which contain seniors, families with children, or people with disabilities—living in facilities utilizing federal rental assistance. And lest we think rural households were spared, in those areas, the shutdown jeopardized rent payments for more than 250,000 low-income renter households, largely comprised of seniors and people with disabilities. So that the youngest and eldest of our neighbors may feel lingering effects despite the “pause.”
Stress to local economies also increased by risking local services and support, such as: those that were previously struggling and less than robust; lower-income and geographically isolated economies; communities where the U.S. Department of Transportation, one of the agencies most directly susceptible to shutdown effects, plays a significant role off setting struggling infrastructure. And, locations where federal support for built environments, the energy and water systems, parks, and public transportation buoy local economies. Thus the least resilient economic communities will perhaps feel lingering effects despite the “pause.”
Prudent public safety programing was undermined. Much of the domestic violence and sexual assault programing in the US relies heavily on federal funds through the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) – a program lifted up by UUSJ commentator Alicia Sanchez Gill Freemyn in Nov 2018 – the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). During the shutdown reports began to emerge of service providers preparing to trim services or having difficulty accessing HUD funds. Again, those endangered among us were further threatened and may feel lingering effects despite the “pause.”
And so, we have it within our power to be a generation of UUs who have impact for social justice. We can be a community of justice seekers engaged, not only in the moment, but also the movement. That is what is needed.
The struggle continues!
Pablo DeJesús
Executive Director
UUSJ
All Souls Member
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(Pablo) Pavel DeJesús came to Unitarian Universalism as an adult, and is a member of All Souls Church, Unitarian in Washington, DC. He holds a Masters in Social Policy from the Univ. of Maryland, School of Public Policy, and a B.A. from Oberlin College. He is also a Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Fellow. His free time is spent as a first time father and making a pivot to healthier lifestyle. DeJesús is a tested public policy advocate with over 15 years of experience in government affairs, advocacy, voter mobilizations, and development work with small nonprofits.
Note: Here is a list of links that were shared by UUSJ’s interfaith partners and others which sourced the above commentary:
- The proposal with problematic language see DIVISION L—PROTECTION OF CENTRAL AMERICAN MINORS, in particular
- Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) items on:
- The Hill on the 6 senators that crossed party lines
- Congressional Budget Office on The Effects of the Partial Shutdown Ending in January 2019
- USA Today on the economic costs of the shutdown
- Center for American Progress (CAP) items on:
- A summary of shutdown harms with state by state analysis of cuts to services
- Federal paychecks and a state-by-state breakdown specific to government workers
- A Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) on possible delay in SNAP benefits.
- A British Broadcasting Channel (BBC) item on the shutdown impact
- The Balance has a simple piece on the 2019 shutdown in context of the 2018 and 2013
- Politico on the: