Right now a government shutdown is happening. It started on Dec.22 and so far it seems neverending. As of Jan.10, it is in its 20th day. So what is a government shutdown and what’s going down in this 2019 government shutdown? A government shutdown is basically when the government ceases to function. In the 1995-1996 shutdown (which lasted 21 days) over 280,000 federal employees were laid off. In a government shutdown, federal employees go without pay and most of them quit. Because of this pretty much all the tourist sites in Wahington D.C. are closed. The FDA is closed, the FBI, CIA etc. This is a lot worse than it sounds though. Due to the lack of tourism in the capital hotels cut staff, Taxi drivers cruise around for hours empty, and businesses that cater to Federal employees coming during lunch break get record low sales. When a crime happens, the U.S. government can’t investigate it. One final example is that all flights are stopped. As TFA employees quit due to no pay.

Sometimes/usually president fun the key departments to keep them functioning and having the employees in that department paid. But something different about this one is that the sitting president has decided to not fund ANY government departments. That means basically any federal service like social security or medicare is gone.

However, the bottom line is that right now this current government shutdown is the second longest in U.S. history. In one day it will surpass the 1995-1996 government shutdown. So when is it going to end? For the foreseeable future never. Democrats blame Trump for causing it while Trump blames the Democrats for intentionally stopping every reform his party comes up with. So as the days go on businesses are going to go bankrupt, car crashes will not be able to be investigated, and federal employees will go hungry.