FROM THE EDITOR: A Shutdown at Midnight Would Be Different from Previous Events
Local leaders say that while a short shutdown could be managed, a longer shutdown coupled with mass federal firings could prove damaging to Virginia's and its localities' economies.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Email Martin
As the clock ticks toward the witching hour and a government shutdown looms, there are lots of questions about how it would impact Virginia. The answer depends on the lens one observes the shutdown through — statewide, local, or personal—and the length of time a shutdown might drag on.
Locally, the impact will start with federal workers and could eventual trickle up to local governments and nonprofits. At the state level, any shutdown will be measured in political costs as the November election heats up.
Job Cuts Could Create Long-term Damage to Localities
The most immediate impacts of a shutdown would be absorbed by government employees and active-duty military personnel who would see their paychecks stop during a shutdown.
Those without reserves could face a tough kitchen-table budget if the shutdown drags on more than a couple weeks. It’s also challenging for these people personally.
Framing lost paychecks in purely financial terms “does not speak to the human cost,” Stafford’s Commissioner of the Revenue Scott Mayausky told the Advance. In particular, “the stress caused by the uncertainty of a government shutdown.”
While government employees certainly feel the pain a shutdown causes, localities are affected more slowly.
“From a financial standpoint,” Mayausky said, “shutdowns don’t seem to have much effect on the local economy. They tend to be short-term events. Even if it results in a slowdown in consumer spending, we should see a bounce back as the holiday seasons approach.”
Spotsylvania County echoed that thought in an email to the Advance. A short-term shutdown could create “Minor delays in federal reimbursements and program operations … with limited impact if resolved quickly.”
Essential services, the email continued, “including public safety, education and core local operations will continue.”
However, Spotsylvania County Administrator Ed Petrovitch said, “The longer a shutdown continues, the more challenging it becomes for local governments to manage delayed federal funding while protecting the programs our residents rely upon.”
This would be particularly true, Mayausky said, if the OMB moves forward with large reductions in the federal workforce.
“Large layoffs,” Mayausky said, “are a different story. Those could have negative effects on the housing, market and consumption taxes, such as sales and meals.”
Stafford, he noted, didn’t realize “much impact … from the first round of DOGE cuts.” Mass firings this time, however, could “impact multiple revenue streams,” Mayausky said.
The impacts of that, especially in Stafford, Mayausky says, “could be devastating” because “Stafford’s revenues are in a very precarious position.”
Curry Roberts, executive director of the Fredericksburg Regional Alliance, shares Mayausky’s and Petrovich’s concerns. “Any lengthy shut down where federal employees and contractors don’t get paid will definitely have a negative impact on our regional economy. With King George having the 2nd highest percentage of federal workers in their civilian workforce and Stafford the 6th highest, losing those workers’ buying power will clearly be a drain for our business community.”
Local nonprofits are also susceptible should a federal shutdown become protracted.
Dan Maher, CEO of the Fredericksburg Area Food Bank told the Advance that a prolonged shutdown could potentially be felt in three areas.
The first are the monthly food orders from the government. Because these orders tend to be delivered on different days each month, a brief shutdown may not prevent October’s month’s shipment from arriving. A longer shutdown, however, “would be more impactful,” Maher said.
A second area of concern could be the distribution of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. As with food orders, a prolonged shutdown would be more damaging for SNAP beneficiaries.
Maher told the Advance that it looks like “SNAP benefits would be loaded to recipients’ EBT cards through at least October and likely beyond until appropriated funding may be exhausted should a lengthy shutdown cause that to happen.”
Finally, there is the issues of administrative dollars the food bank receives with federal commodities. These dollars are delivered “when we receive federal commodities,” Maher said, and are used to “underwrite our costs for distribution and general operations.”
Political Lines
Who gets the blame for a shutdown is a political parlor game that has little to do with the shutdown itself and everything to do with positioning for the next election. That is what played out Sunday on the talk shows. (Read the back-and-forth on Meet the Press between Sen. John Thune [R-SD] and Sen. Chuck Schumer [D-NY] over who might own a potential shutdown.)
Ultimately, the public will decide who they feel is most to blame — Republicans or Democrats. What the public decides nationally, however, may not be the way Virginia goes.
A government shutdown would likely hit the Old Dominion State hard — especially our region. A shutdown means lost paychecks for federal employees in the short run. They usually recover these lost paychecks when the shutdown ends, but that’s not guaranteed.
The OMB threat, however, raises the stakes significantly. If the government follows through with those firings, Republicans will have a more difficult time convincing Virginians a shutdown was the right play.
Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic candidate for governor who has consistently held about a 7-point lead in polling, is leaning into that message. She told The Hill recently that she sees the shutdown as just a continuation of the Trump administration’s ongoing assault on a functioning government that will have devastating impacts on Virginians’ lives.
“Given the impact of the tariffs, the impact of DOGE, the impending impact of the so-called ‘one big, beautiful bill,’ I as a candidate for governor am focused on the fact that a government shutdown is just one additional element that will create and continue to create dire circumstances for so many Virginians.”
As of this article’s publication, Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican candidate for governor, has been relatively quiet about a possible shutdown. Her comments caught on tape in April, however, about federal job cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency being overblown by the media did not sit well with many in the state.
If OMB moves forward with large numbers of firings, Earle-Sears’ apparent lack of concern for federal workers could prove a blow to her support that may prove difficult, if not impossible, to recover from.
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I find the complacency and indifference expressed by elected officials above to be more than a little disturbing.
As anyone familiar with the stock market will tell you, they have a standard disclaimer that generally goes that "past performance is no guarantee of future performance".
I would posit that one reason for this indifference, is that though many were fired/resigned earlier in the year - the vast majority were given buyouts that ran through September 30th (yesterday), so they will just now begin feeling the results of that financial change - whether it be through working at reduced wages, fleeing the area in search of work, retiring, drawing unemployment, or suffering in place.
Likewise, tariffs (taxes paid by Americans, at a disproportionate rate by those earning the least), though long threatened - are also just now being implemented. At historically high rates (taxes that were ~2% before Republicans gained control - now are lucky if they are in the 20% range, if Trump dislikes another country's government, Americans pay 50% more on things like coffee).
Also, the de minimus loophole has just been closed, so that plastic toy a company ordered from China for Christmas just jumped in price as well.
Housing starts are down, though the need in most areas is growing (though again, around here - not so sure - since it looks like these local Republicans may have managed to kill the golden goose - you might be sitting on your house a while - though many need it, they can't afford it).
So the gap between the haves and have nots grows ever wider.
A recent report indicates that ~50% of spending is coming from those earning more than $250k/year, buoyed by the stock market, rentier investments, tax credits. A people who live in another world from those earning minimum wage, gouged by landlords, juggling health/food/transportation/rent - while those poorest among us are now being told their homes will be training grounds for military occupations by the Department of War and faceless federal agents with little oversight, and as they see their children lose their lunches, fresh produce, and health care.
Farmers haven't sold 1 soybean to China, so expect Republicans to blow up the deficit even more to pay off those Republican special interest millionaires and billionaires soon as they get through this little exercise in government destruction.
And if Republicans get their way, the promised hikes in healthcare and subsequent removals from insurance will also be showing up at the end of November, when many folks who haven't aged into Medicare like many of the most ardent Republicans are once again forced to go thru the annual ritual of deciding how much care they can afford, if any.
Historically, the end of October is when the stock market gets a reality check. We'll then see what Wall Street thinks of all of this. They might like it. After all, if anyone wins short term, it is them. They might not.
As they see their businesses getting shaken down by an ever more openly corrupt group whose only principle seems to be to hold onto power and enrich themselves.
As they see research they've depended upon being corrupted, suppressed, denied.
Data such as labor statistics, weather reports, climate data manipulated or discontinued.
Interest rates, the economy, the law, and the markets manipulated based upon the whims of a tyrant.
The illegal labor force they've long enjoyed haphazardly suppressed with no rhyme or reason beyond racism and terrorism. Rights denied by the Supreme Court with less and less need for justification, open and arbitrary killings on the high seas with no oversight.
Hardly an atmosphere an honest business can hope to thrive in.
Finally, this latest action.
A government shutdown, which Republicans have gleefully stated they intend to use to further destroy the government of the United States that they have been entrusted to run.
That they will use it as an opportunity to permanently get rid of things they despise. Such as consumer protections, environmental protections, rule of law, civil liberties. Protections long enacted after previous ages found that businesses could not be entrusted to police themselves.
For over 40 years, every day Republicans have increasingly joined them in this demand.
Based upon a fervent belief that our government and rule of law is our enemy. That the promotion and support of civil liberties and human life, both here and abroad, is not only none of our business - that those things are antithetical to our true business - which is greed and power.
Over those decades, they have increasingly been emboldened, as they've repeatedly run towards the edge of the cliff - only to turn back at the last minute. Yet inching ever closer. While doing more damage to our faith in our institutions, protections, and laws with each exercise. To the point it must be admitted that damaging that faith and belief IS the point.
To where it has now morphed into them seeing not only our government as their enemy, to be destroyed - but also any of US who do not share their dream.
Our cities are to be occupied, the Department of War is ordered to destroy us should we protest. The Department of "Justice" is ordered to designate us terrorists if we are against their brand of fascism, and to charge us with crimes even when there is no probable cause. That's just been what's happened in the last 60 days.
So maybe this shutdown SHOULD be different.
There is a growing disconnect in this country - between those who want a government with rule of law, civil liberties, based upon reason and logic. And those who yearn for a tyrant to lead us, as long as it is their tyrant.
It is not the 1st time such a thing has happened (see the history of Charles I in 17th century England) though it is the 1st time we've seen it here.
So maybe we should give them what they want and recognize it is better to stand up for those things we say that we believe, rather than to once again cave in.
Since every time we bend the knee, no matter what we've gained in return - we've still lost in that our rights are a little less secure, people's faith in our way of life is lost a little more, and fear is increased.
Which has, in and of itself, been the goal of Republicans for a long, long time. For a people who scream the loudest of how they love this country, they sure do hate the way we govern ourselves.
Maybe when these things are lost, people will then realize how valuable they were, and be willing to again defend them. That all life has value. That rule of law applies to everyone. That life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness are endowed not by the leave of a billionaire or tyrant, but by our Creator at the moment of our creation.
Because the way we have been defending those principles has not been working. There is a complacency. An expectation that we will once again back down. That this is merely a negotiating tool, rather than the culmination of a long term strategy from the remnants of the John Birch society, Koch brothers, etc. who have long seen things like social security, health care, rule of law, civil liberties for all to be antithetical to their personal goals. Though they've even written books telling us that, and we see their party openly telling us that is their intent.
Personally, I do hope these Democratic Congress members stand their ground. We need something more than Chuck Schumer moving his glasses an inch up and down his nose while reading a statement written more to get donations than to defend our liberty.
Smug complacency and indifference may not be the best plan, either short term, nor long.
If not now, then when?
If not for this, for what?
Enough.
This far and no further.