Government shutdown's impact on the Lowcountry (update: deal, but S.C. GOP reps vote no deal)

Image by Flickr user paigeh

Update April 10: Here's your political fodder for this one: While more Democrat House member voted against the budget compromise than Republicans (42 v. 28), all five of South Carolina's GOP Reps voted no.

That is, in their eyes it would have been better to let the government shut down than compromise. Whether or not they thought voting "no" was a true act or symbolic is, of course, impossible to know.

Get some insight into how folks voted at The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Update April 9: Turns out we didn't get to see the ball drop for all those government shutdown clocks after all — a deal was reach late last night.

The Senate passed an interim budget just be fore midnight and the House just after until the full agreed on budget compromise can be passed next week.

In all, the lynchpin matters of funding for abortions and environmental regulations were ignored for a deal of more general federal spending cuts, to total $38 billion this year — The New York Times has a nice write-up here on the deal.

But the big story here is probably how though the dollars ultimately didn't stop, a lot of chaos was created in personal and business lives by the stalemate — and that's some the paper also has a nice report on; read it here.

- Update by Ken Hawkins.

Update February 8, 1 a.m.: Though there are talks of a last-minute deal, a few billion dollars in differences between Democrats and Republicans still has the federal budget stalled out.

For the latest, I'll point you to The New York Times for a story posted at 11:33 p.m. last night; read it here.

Live 5 News has a brief video report about how the shutdown is adding another level of stress for local servicemen and women and their families; watch that here.

The Times also has a nice story on how immediately (and not) a shutdown would affect various types of employees linked to the federal government and how a short shutdown would not probably have any lasting affect of the nation's overall economy; read that report here.

Along those same lines the paper has another report on just how vague the line is between who is an "essential" federal worker and would work through any government shutdown; read that report here.

- Update by Ken Hawkins.

First reporting: Tuesday's spending summit in the nation's capital failed to make any progress in figuring out a way to fund the government through September 30th, and it's looking more and more likely that the federal government will be shut down by the weekend.

So how could this potential shutdown affect life in the Lowcountry? Well, for starters, we can kiss the events scheduled to take place on land owned by the National Park Service goodbye. Events commemorating the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, and Fort Johnson would be cancelled. If there is a shutdown, plans will move forward to re-enact the bombardment on Fort Sumter with about 30 cannons ringing the harbor from sites not on federal land.

The IRS would also be shut down, so if you haven't sent in those taxes yet, you may be in luck. However, if you have already sent them in, it would mean a delayed refund check - not cool.

The Washington Post has more on the effects of the possible shutdown and the wrenches it could throw into daily life. As for the potential impacts on the Charleston area, this wire report is your best bet.

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