More Q&A As the Shutdown Becomes Inevitable
Q: Is there really going to be a shutdown?
A: Today and over the weekend, there will be strenuous efforts to find Congressional agreement on short-term funding to avoid a government shutdown. The situation is fluid and we hope for a speedy agreement. However, immediate resolution is highly unlikely and a shutdown seems inevitable.
Even if an agreement is reached quickly (unlikely) it would likely be early to mid-week before it could be adopted by Congress and signed by the President.
Q: What is the most frequent question the Alliance has received about the possibility of a shutdown?
A: Understandably, everyone wants to know whether specific offices and personnel will be working during a shutdown. Some functions are clearly covered by FDA’s statement Summary of Activities that Continue.
However, there is not a lot of granularity in shutdown information that has been released thus far. So it is harder to answer very specific questions about who will be working.
Q: There seem to be lots of bits of information about the shutdown, but no cohesive sense of how it will work out. Is that correct?
A: About 80% of FDA’s existing staff will be working if there is a shutdown. FDA’s leadership will be responsible for triaging available personnel and funds to ensure that the highest priority activities continue to be supported for as long as possible. The Alliance trusts in their judgment and so should the American public.
Q: When does the shutdown start and how long will it take to have an impact?
A: Because dissenting Members of Congress have great power to slow the movement of legislation, we have already reached the point that no agreement–even if universally accepted–could pass before the shutdown starts at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday morning.
The next “deadline” would be about 4 a.m. on Monday, October 3, when the Office of Personnel Management must tell federal employees whether to come to work. Since a substantial number of furloughed employees will still come to work Monday to initiate shutdown activities, the next deadline would come at 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Once Tuesday comes, the shutdown will be in full force.
The President does have some leeway to bring furloughed federal workers back to work if a deal is near. While the level of proof is unknown, it would not be credible unless there was a clear path forward (which there certainly isn’t at this time).
Q: What happens after the shutdown is over?
A: While it is appropriate to focus on what doesn’t get done during a shutdown; it is a further concern that those returning to work at the end of a shutdown are likely to face a significant backlog of items to be done.
Editorial Note:
The Analysis and Commentary section is written by Steven Grossman, Executive Director of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA.