The government shutdown, which started on Oct. 1, led to 800,000 government workers being furloughed. It was the second longest shutdown since 1980, but was the most significant when measured in terms of furlough days. When combined, the Federal government employees were furloughed for 6.6 million days in total.
The situation began with the discussion of the 2010 Affordable Care Act—more widely known as Obamacare—and more specifically, the discussion of how it fits into the federal budget. On Sept. 20, the Republican-led House voted to keep the government funded until Dec. 15. That vote was based on the terms that President Barack Obama would agree to defund Obamacare. This was followed on Sept. 24 by 21 hour long filibuster speech made by Senator Ted Cruz advocating a shutdown of the government unless the Democratic party agreed to compromise on the healthcare plan. Cruz is the Republican junior United States Senator for Texas.
According to a report by the Office of Management and Budget on the costs and impacts of the shutdown, the sixteen day period is hypothesized to have cost the economy somewhere between $2 billion and $6 billion in lost economic output. These estimates are only based on models that focus on the shutdown’s effects on government spending flow.
While the Republican-led House and the Democratic-led Senate negotiated Obamacare for more than two weeks after the beginning of the shutdown, administrations such as the National Park Service (NPS), the Small Business Administration (SBA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), among others, could not function as usual. This brought tourist visiting to a halt, and delayed FDA approved food and medical products from reaching shelves.
A concern in Virginia was the temporary halt of processing disability claims for veterans. Before the shutdown began, processors were working 20 hours of overtime every month, which reduced the backlog of claims by more than 190,000 in the month of October. This inconvenience for the veterans could not be dealt with until Nov. 1, when approximately 5 million veterans received the benefits checks they had been waiting for.
After more than two weeks, a deal was announced to reopen the government until Jan. 15, at which point the shutdown will commence. The deal also included extending the debt limit to Feb. 7, and was signed by President Obama shortly after midnight on Oct. 17, bringing an end to the shutdown for now.