People hold placards during a rally to protest against the partial government shutdown at Federal Plaza in Chicago, the United States, Jan. 18, 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Ping)
by Xinhua writers Sun Ding, Xiong Maoling, Liu Yang
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- Federal employees are queuing up for free food handouts in Washington D.C., goods for sale cannot be shipped without federally approved labels, and delayed corporate investments could be called off.
These represent the ripple effects of a partial U.S. federal government shutdown, which enters its 35th day on Friday. The U.S. political impasse, with so far no end in sight, is expected to inflict mounting damage on the broader economy.
ANGER OVER SHUTDOWN
There are fewer pedestrians or tourists in Washington D.C. due to the record-long government shutdown coupled with wintry weather. What is noticeable are people lining up at a corner of the U.S. Navy Memorial Plaza facing Pennsylvania Avenue that connects the White House and Capitol Hill.
The people belong to the quarter of the U.S. government either forced to work without pay or furloughed. The queue is for hot meals or grocery items offered by World Central Kitchen, an organization that usual responds to natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes.
It is "a disaster nonetheless" for them, said Nate Mook, the nonprofit's executive director. He told Xinhua that his organization has set up an "emergency kitchen" and a "resource center."
Since the government shutdown began on Dec. 22, some 800,000 federal employees have missed one paycheck and are about to miss a second this Friday.
Shavon Givens, a mother of two, said she has called her creditors to ask for a delay in paying her bills. At the resource center, she received some diapers for her 19-month-old son. "We all want to go back to work," said the furloughed employee at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
In less than a week, the emergency kitchen has served about 27,000 meals and is prepared to meet more needs. On the first day of opening, the resource center, which offers raw food materials, drinking water and hygiene products among other things, received about 1,500 people.
Similar aid programs are being run in U.S. cities from Los Angeles to Boston.
"For the first time in their lives, many of them have to stand in line for a plate of food. They are hardworking Americans who serve their government but now they are not able to provide for themselves or their families," Mook said.
Frustration, anxiety, and discontent have turned into anger. Hundreds of federal employees and contractors and union representatives gathered inside Hart Senate Office Building earlier this week to protest.
In silence, many of them held plates reading "End Shutdown," "Let Us Work," or "Do Your Job So I Can Do Mine," and finished the rally in chanting "No more fund banks, they need pay checks."
"We don't want our people standing in line for free handouts," Venorica Tucker, a female protester, told Xinhua. "That's not what we want. We want to work. We want to earn our living."
David Hendrick, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, Local 2463, which represents Smithsonian Institution employees, urged politicians to put people's interests first and make a reasonable deal so that the federal employees affected by the shutdown could return to work.
BUSINESSES FEEL PAIN
Without federally approved labels, kegs of apricot-flavored India Pale Ale have piled up in Justin Cox's craft brewery in northeast Washington D.C., unable to be shipped for sale.
The newly brewed seasonable beer, scheduled to be released on Feb. 1, still awaits a keg label approval by the Treasury Department's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which has halted most of its operations.
"The clock is ticking on this beer now ... With the very extreme version of that being, it goes down the drain," Cox, founder and CEO of Atlas Brew Works, told Xinhua. The fermentation of the beer was done about 10 days ago, and it will lose its flavor in 120 days.
"Every day the shutdown continues, the losses multiply," Cox said.
In addition to labels and permits being delayed by the government shutdown is financing for small businesses like Cox's. They cannot proceed with loan applications to a bank or credit union without necessary information from the federal government and neither have access to federal loans due to the closure of the Small Business Administration.
Big companies, including airlines, suffer from the shutdown too. Southwest Airlines said Thursday that it lost up to 15 million U.S. dollars so far this month, and Delta Air Lines last week said the shutdown could cost it 25 million dollars in revenue.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday that "workers and businesses are bearing the brunt" of the shutdown. "The simple reality is individuals and businesses depend in many ways on the federal government to facilitate commerce," wrote J.D. Foster, senior vice president and chief economist of the group.
J.P. Morgan Asset & Wealth Management Chief Executive Mary Callahan Erdoes warned Thursday that American CEOs would soon start to cancel investments that had already been postponed if the shutdown impasse remains unsolved. She said the shutdown is causing a weekly loss of about 1.5 billion dollars in the U.S. gross domestic product.
The preliminary reading of the index of consumer sentiment in January plunged to 90.7 from 98.3 in the previous month, the lowest since October 2016, showed a survey published by University of Michigan last week. The sharp decline could signal weaker consumer spending and economic growth in the months ahead.
Kevin Hassett, chairman of White House Council of Economic Advisers, told CNN in an interview Wednesday that U.S. economic growth in the first quarter could be "very close to zero" if the shutdown extends until the end of March.
On Thursday, the Senate blocked two bills attempting to reopen the federal government, as Republicans and Democrats struggle to reach a consensus to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
Blame has once again been lobbed between the two sides for failing to adopt the Republican-backed bill calling for appropriating 5.7 billion dollars to fund a border wall with Mexico, long demanded by President Donald Trump, or of the Democrat-backed bill calling for temporarily resuming government until Feb. 8 without money for the border wall.
The votes were the first major showdown between the two parties in the Senate. Analysts nevertheless call it a step forward, providing a clearer direction in negotiations as well as an incentive for lawmakers to make concessions in hopes of a deal.
(Xinhua reporters Gao Pan, Liu Jie, Jin Yuelei, Hu Yousong contributed to the story.)
(Video reporter: Hu Yousong; Video editor: Cao Ying)
