Looming government shutdown could present challenges for military servicemembers

SAN ANTONIO – As the government shutdown closing date approaches, there may be rising fear concerning the monetary uncertainty provider participants and their households could face, and it continues to be observed whether or not Congress can come to an settlement and avert this attainable disaster.

Jon Taylor, a UTSA professor of political science, stated the federal government operates from a fiscal funds from Oct. 1 thru Sept. 30 of the next yr.

Federal legislation calls for Congress to move and publish the cheap to the president sooner than this month’s finish. Taylor stated a stalemate, essentially amongst Republicans, has behind schedule the method, probably resulting in a shutdown.

“And this group of about 20 or so Republicans has been really intransigent — including (Rep.) Chip Roy from San Antonio, Austin area — who have been opposed to any sort of budget compromises with the Democrats and who are willing basically to shut the government down for a time,” Taylor stated.

Taylor stated the federal government received’t totally close down, however non-essential and predominant services and products could be impacted, resulting in a ripple impact.

“Particularly if you’re getting SNAP or other social safety net benefits — Medicare, Medicaid — it could even, over time, affect pay for our military. It may take a week or two to get there, but it may eventually have a ripple effect,” Taylor stated. “It could also impact border security, border safety, immigration, passports, a variety of things that we tend not to think of and, over time, even potentially delivery of the mail.”

Taylor stated a shutdown could pass on for as low as only some hours, days or perhaps weeks. In 2018-2019, the longest government shutdown in U.S. historical past lasted so long as 34 days.

“Then we have a real problem because now we’re talking about weeks, and this is San Antonio. Let’s think about our armed forces personnel living here in San Antonio,” stated Taylor.

It would impact our military body of workers who need to pay hire and mortgages and put meals at the desk for their households, a lot of whom are already experiencing meals lack of confidence.

“Now you’re talking about the stress that it puts on, not just the state and local safety net but also on nonprofits and non-government services to try to assist people who might be facing this,” stated Taylor.

Those nonprofit services and products come with the San Antonio Food Bank, whose leaders say they’ve already been assembly for weeks in this matter.

Michael Guerra, leader sustainability officer for the San Antonio Food Bank, says they’ve been getting ready their messaging on their web site and their well being groups and fascinated with individuals who lend their lend a hand and the individuals who want the lend a hand.

“We’re hearing estimates from 100,000 to 175,000 people that could be at risk financially, and that’s from an employer. What that means is if you took the percentage of people that are food insecure, that might be another 20,000 individuals,” Guerra stated. “Now, we potentially could be seeing that in the San Antonio Food Bank lines needing support from all parts of our work.”

The San Antonio Food Bank is these days operating on a $1.7 million fundraising objective for October in efforts of a hunger-free November for our aged.

Guerra stated they should upload effort to their hunger-free November marketing campaign for seniors and glance out for our provider participants with a imaginable government shutdown.

“We’re going to push head-on until we have a hunger-free November for seniors and just trusting our community that if there is a government shutdown, that the incredible generosity of this community will come through, that they’ll come through financially, come through as volunteers and with food in a way that we’ve seen them do time and time again from the pandemic and otherwise,” stated Guerra.

Joint Base San Antonio spokesperson Angelina Casarez issued the next observation:

“We are currently evaluating the impacts a government shutdown would have at Joint Base San Antonio, but we will not speculate on the situation. We will share information via JBSA.mil and on our social media platforms. Due to operational security, we will not provide personnel details.”

Congress has till Oct. 1 to achieve the cheap solution.

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