The United States is headed toward a government shutdown if Congress cannot pass legislation to extend funding before Oct. 1, a scenario that could interrupt key federal services from food stamps to tax-return processing to military pay.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is locked in a battle with hard line members of his GOP caucus over a stopgap bill to keep the government open past Sept. 30, when current spending expires. The Senate would also have to pass a short-term extension, but lawmakers there are confident they have the votes if the House acts.

Basic federal services hang in the balance. If the government shuts down, national parks might remain open, but restrooms there would not. The IRS may keep some essential employees around – unpaid – but only to search for payments to the government. Veterans will receive their monthly pension payments and retain access to health care, and military funerals will continue uninterrupted, but current servicemembers won’t receive paychecks.

Here’s what you need to know about a government shutdown, and how it could affect you.

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Food assistance

Programs like SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) or WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) have contingency funds that can carry over past the government funding deadline. But that funding only lasts so long, meaning a protracted shutdown of a month or more could make some aid disbursements difficult.

WIC may be able to sustain operations only for a few days if Congress does not avoid a shutdown, said the Agriculture Department, which administers the program with state offices. The program is already contending with a budget shortfall, and the Biden administration earlier this month asked Congress for $1.4 billion in emergency aid to keep resources flowing to needy families.

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IRS and tax returns

The IRS has not released its shutdown contingency plan yet, but it has historically been among the most aggressive federal agencies in curtailing operations when federal funding lapses.

The IRS chief counsel, the official who interprets tax law for the agency, has consistently held that government workers can remain on the job during shutdowns only if their duties protect the government, as opposed to individuals. That means ordinary taxpayers could be more exposed to financial hardship.

For example, when the government shut down for 35 days in late 2018 and early 2019, employees from the Taxpayer Advocate Service, the agency’s internal consumer rights watchdog, could open mail only in search of checks payable to the government, the service reported. It could not conduct case work or help resolve taxpayer disputes, its fundamental purposes.

Furthermore, at the start of that shutdown, the roughly 12 percent of IRS employees who remained on the job couldn’t answer taxpayer phone calls, issue tax refunds, release liens and levies or complete a bevy of other taxpayer services, the service reported. As the shutdown dragged on closer to the filing season, which begins around Jan. 1 each year, the tax agency exempted more employees and returned thousands of staffers to work answering phones and disbursing refunds.

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Military and veterans

The roughly 1.3 million active-duty U.S. military service members would remain on the job without pay during a government shutdown. They would receive backpay after the shutdown ends, as would all the other federal workers forced to keep working during the period.

By contrast, veteran benefits, including health care and pensions, would continue during a government shutdown, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs contingency plan. Ninety-six percent of the agency’s nearly 414,000 employees would continue working, either because their pay doesn’t depend to annual appropriations or because they are exempt from furloughs. The National Cemetery Administration’s burials, burial scheduling, death notices and headstone and marker placements would also continue.

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Travel

Most government employees who are crucial to travel safety will continue working – albeit unpaid – during a government shutdown. All but about 4,000 of the Transportation Security Administration’s more than 59,000 employees will stay on the job, according to the agency’s most recent shutdown plan.

The Federal Aviation Administration, the agency responsible for air traffic controllers and aircraft and pilot safety certifications, would also continue most of its work. Some 16,000 of its more than 45,000 employees would be furloughed, the agency projects, but air traffic controllers, accident investigators, anti-terrorism and intelligence officials and other safety officials would stay on the job. The FAA’s hiring and training programs would temporarily shut down, and facility safety inspections would also stop.

The State Department will continue issuing passports and visas in the United States and abroad, the agency said, because the work is considered essential to national security, and most funding is covered by the fees that passport applicants typically pay.

Some passport locations, however, are located in government buildings run by agencies more deeply affected by a government shutdown. If those buildings are closed, the State Department might suspend consular and passport services, it said in its contingency plan.

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Social Security

Social Security recipients will continue to receive payments because the program is an entitlement funded by a payroll tax, not annual appropriations. Moreover, the agency will continue to issue new and replacement Social Security cards, according to its shutdown contingency plan.

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Medicare and Medicaid

Medicare and Medicaid, like Social Security, are funded separately from annual appropriations, so those benefits will continue uninterrupted. However, some services may be put on hold. For example, the Social Security Administration will not issue replacement Medicare cards during a shutdown, according to its contingency plan. The agency will also suspend benefit verifications, responses to third-party information requests and some other administrative activities.

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Postal Service

U.S. Postal Service operations would be unaffected by a government shutdown, the agency said. The Postal Service is generally funded through the sale of postage products, not taxpayer dollars, so employees’ salaries and the agency’s operations do not rely on Congress.

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National parks

The National Park Service has allowed parks, roads, trails and open-air memorials to remain open during some earlier government shutdowns as long as visitors do not need a guide or administrative support. But it suspends maintenance of those areas – including restroom cleaning, road plowing, visitor services and trash collection – during shutdown periods.

In the last government shutdown, for example, monuments and memorials on the National Mall in Washington remained open, but without restroom access and visitor services.

That said, sometimes the Park Service goes ahead and maintains some of its sites, but that risks violating federal law. That was the case in the 2018-19 shutdown, when the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog agency, found that the service used leftover funds to perform those functions.

The only Park Service employees that will remain on the job – unpaid – through a government shutdown are certain senior officials, wildland firefighters, emergency medical personnel and law enforcement officers.

(c) 2023, The Washington Post · Jacob Bogage