Karyn Gattermann: Effects of a government shutdown would be devastating, as in 2013

To The Daily Sun,

I want to commend Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan for doing their jobs to represent the best interests of people of New Hampshire as two of the 10 Democrats in the Senate who voted to keep the government open. Contrary to claims of $880 billion being cut from Medicare and Medicaid, the bill actually extended a number of expiring programs in these areas. In addition, it increased funding in programs such as WIC, SNAP. The only mention I can find of an impact on veterans was the elimination of an advanced funding of the Toxic Exposures Fund for 2026. What that means is that the budget does not reserve or include funding now for anticipated money needed in 2026. Congress can certainly address this by the time the money is needed. Lastly, references to benefitting billionaires I assume to be talking about the extension of the tax cuts that were put in place in President Donald Trump’s first term. At the time those tax cuts were first enacted, I did an analysis to understand who benefited from the cuts (or not). Anyone with taxable income of $200,000 or less saw a decrease in taxes of 3% to 4%. For incomes over $200,000, whether they paid less or more taxes was more complicated and depended on their actual deductions. If these tax cuts expired, anyone with incomes less than $200,000 would have increased income taxes (3% of $200,000 is $6,000 for example). The effects of a government shutdown would be devastating. Federal workers would stop receiving paychecks and nonessential services would be shut down. The last time a shutdown occurred, food banks were opened for federal workers so they could feed their families. The economy would take a huge hit, the estimate for the Oct. 1-17 shutdown in 2013 was $24 billion.

Karyn Gattermann

New Hampton