On January 13, 2019, the TSA reported that unscheduled absences had more than doubled as officers worked without pay, forcing longer lines and delays at major airports.⁴ Days later, the unions representing controllers, pilots, and flight attendants issued a joint warning: “In our risk averse industry, we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break. It is unprecedented.”⁵
“We cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break.”— Air traffic, pilot, and flight attendant unions, January 2019⁵
Even the military wasn’t spared. In January 2019, Admiral Karl Schultz, Commandant of the Coast Guard, noted with dismay: “To the best of my knowledge, this marks the first time … that servicemembers in a U.S. Armed Force have not been paid during a lapse in appropriations.”⁶
Three outcomes lie ahead:
Short-Term Lifeline. Most likely: a CR that punts the fight to winter. ACA subsidies survive, Medicaid cuts are delayed. Government stays open—barely.
The Hard Stop. Talks collapse. October 1 arrives. Pay halts. Services freeze. Pressure spikes.
Democrats’ Unlikely Win. Republicans fold under market or donor pressure. Full concessions on health care. Rare, but possible.
Past shutdowns fought over expansion; this one fights over survival. Democrats are asking to preserve. Republicans are refusing optics. The outcome is disruption for its own sake.
Other democracies negotiate budgets under pressure. In parliamentary systems, failure to fund government often triggers elections.⁷ In authoritarian states, funding is dictated. Only in the United States has failure to fund government become routine—a weaponized ritual in a system where destruction is easier than deliberation.⁸
Each shutdown ends eventually. Workers return, paychecks arrive, services resume. But trust erodes. As Jenny Brown warned a decade ago, even stable careers begin to look precarious. The more shutdowns become ritual, the more government becomes something its own employees brace against. A republic that treats collapse as default eventually convinces its citizens that collapse is the pattern.⁹
“A republic that treats collapse as default eventually convinces its citizens that collapse is the pattern.”
What lingers isn’t just the smell of stale coffee in Capitol corridors. It’s the deeper scent of a republic rehearsing its own collapse.¹⁰
Bibliography
1. Lizza, Ryan. “Business as Usual.” The New Yorker, October 28, 2013. Profile of IRS employee Jenny Brown during the 2013 shutdown, noting federal staff turning to food banks.
2. “Party Division.” United States Senate: History. Accessed September 2025. Official record showing Republicans control both chambers in the 119th Congress but lack 60 Senate votes.
3. U.S. House Committee on Oversight. Shutdown Stories: Federal Workers Speak Out. January 2019. Contains testimony from Nurel Storey, IRS officer, on effects of the 2018–2019 shutdown.
4. Bilello, Michael. “TSA Absentee Data Release.” ABC News, January 13, 2019. TSA report showing unscheduled absences doubled during the 2018–2019 shutdown.