If Congress doesn’t pass a bill to fund the government by Midnight Eastern Time on Tuesday, only essential government functions will continue. Those include Social Security, Medicare, and VA benefits, along with public safety services like the TSA, FBI and air traffic controllers.
The looming shutdown comes against the backdrop of an economy on a razor’s edge, both in Colorado and nationally.
The job market is cooling, inflation is rising, and businesses are pulling back investments due in large part to uncertainty over tariffs.
Gov. Jared Polis says a shutdown would increase the risk of a recession, which his budget director says there’s already a 50% chance of in Colorado.
“We’ll do everything we can in Colorado to combat that, but frankly we need a functional Congress, a functional presidency to keep the country open for business,” said Polis.
In anticipation of a shutdown, he asked the Joint Budget Committee to approve $7.5 million to help backfill WIC — a nutrition program for women, infants and children. It’s not clear if the federal government will reimburse the state, which is already $850 million in the hole for next year’s budget.
The governor also asked the Department of Interior to keep Colorado’s national parks open. Tourism is down this year, and Polis says Rocky Mountain National Park typically attracts 450,0000 visitors in October.
“They can close the gates and not allow anybody in in a shutdown,” Polis said. “Or, like in past shutdowns, they can work with us to say ‘Okay, we’ll allow some state folks to help staff it. Maybe some federal folks that we can help backfill the pay for or float the pay for.”
“We want to get creative. They’re not even willing to have those discussions on the specifics until after the government closes,” he said.
He says he’s been unable to get any answers from the federal government on what to expect: Will food stamps continue? How will infrastructure projects be impacted? How many federal employees will be furloughed and how many will be fired? President Trump has said he will use the shutdown to further shrink the federal workforce.
The state has just over 54,000 federal workers who will not be paid during the shutdown. State economists say Colorado already has the highest level of consumer debt per capita in the country.
The Colorado Department of Labor says furloughed workers will be eligible for unemployment benefits that will be deducted from their back pay after the shutdown.
“This will have damaging effect on the economy, coupled with the crippling tariffs which are costing every Colorado family already,” said Polis.
Federal contractors will also be hit hard by a shutdown. Colorado has a significant number of them in aerospace and defense.
There is also concern about the Bureau of Labor statistics closing, which means key economic data – like the monthly jobs report due Friday – will not be available as the Federal Reserve tries to steer the economy through the turmoil.
The U.S. has a long history of shutdowns.
There were eight shutdowns under President Ronald Reagan. The longest lasted only three days.
There was one brief shutdown under George H.W. Bush and two under Bill Clinton. The longest lasted twenty-one days.
Barack Obama had one shutdown lasting sixteen days.
And there were two shutdowns during President Trump’s first term, with the longest lasting 34 days.
There were no government shutdowns under George W. Bush.