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[MB TRUMPET STING]
[SFX: COINS CLANGING]
RYAN: 1, 2, 3, 4–
BRIDGET: What are you doing?
RYAN: I’m counting how many pennies it takes to equal the weight of a gold bar.
BRIDGET: Why are we doing this again?
RYAN: It’s for an episode, Bridget! Come on!
BRIDGET: (SIGHS) It’s gonna be a lot of pennies.
[SFX DOOR OPENS]
MARISSA: Hey, you two …
BRIDGET: Oh, it’s Marissa, our senior producer! Usually you’re behind the scenes, making everything sound amazing. . What brings you on mic?
MARISSA: We just got a new question … and I think you’re going to want to hear it …
BRIDGET: Thank goodness. Let’s hear it!
ESME: My name is Esme, and I live in Denver. I'm five years old. I have a question, and my question is, what is a government shutdown?
MARISSA: Esme’s dad is a federal worker and he’s been sent home because of the government shutdown.
ESME: I've noticed that my dad hasn't been going to work, and I don't know when the government shutdown will stop and my dad can go back to work.
MOM: So we actually don't know when he's going to go back to work
MARISSA: [KINDA WHISPERING] That’s Esme’s mom.
MOM: that depends on the elected officials in Washington and when they can come to an agreement to get the government reopened.
ESME: Oh, that's what makes sense, not really.
RYAN: Yeah, I’m with Esme on this…
BRIDGET:: [LAUGHING/ATTENTIVE TO TONE]: Well Esme’s mom’s right, it all depends on these elected officials and what they do next. But the real question is, how’d we get into this mess in the first place, what IS a government shutdown?
RYAN: Does it mean we can, like, get away with crimes right now?
BRIDGET: No no no, definitely not. Well, here’s the thing … the entire government isn’t literally shutdown. But here’s what I learned from the last time this happened
[EXPLAINER MUSIC– CUTS OFF]
RYAN: Wait, this has happened before?
BRIDGET: Yes, I’ll get to that.
[EXPLAINER MUSIC]
BRIDGET: The federal government is like a big team that helps run the country. It is responsible for things like, paying for your grandma’s healthcare, for running the military, for keeping National parks clean, and for running the mail service. To do all that, the government needs money. It gets money from taxes.
RYAN: Ah, taxes, for more on that, check out season two, episode two.
BRIDGET: On this team, different parts of the government have different jobs, especially when it comes to spending money. Take Congress.
RYAN: Congress is what we call the group of lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives. They work in that Capitol building!
BRIDGET: They are in charge of deciding HOW the government spends money on all of these services. And every year, they have to agree on a spending plan or a budget before October 1st … But guess what happened this year?
RYAN: Lemme guess. They overslept.
BRIDGET: Close enough. They missed the October 1st deadline because they couldn’t come to an agreement on which services to spend on and how much.
RYAN: That was gonna be my second guess. It’s like the old joke- congress is the opposite of progress.
BRIDGET: So now, the rest of the government doesn’t have permission to spend money on a bunch of these services. So some of those services just have to…stop. Until a plan for spending this money is in place. And that’s the government shutdown.
[END EXPLAINER MUSIC]
RYAN: This is starting to sound a lot like a family movie night.
BRIDGET: How so?
RYAN: It’s like when your one sibling really wants to watch Moana 2!
KID 1: [SCREAMING/SINGING] Can I get a chee-hoo!
RYAN: But your other sibling really wants to watch Karate Kid!
KID 2: Wax on, wax off!
RYAN: And then there’s mom, all like, [IN MOM VOICE] “movie night is on hold until you both agree” and she would “shut down”“ the TV until everyone agrees on a compromise.
BRIDGET: That’s a great example! Movie night will begin when the movie is chosen. Just like the government will go back to its regularly scheduled programming, when Congress decides on a budget.
RYAN: But life so far seems…pretty normal. My mail is getting delivered. Banks are open. Schools are open. Isn’t that a little surprising if the whole government has shut down?
BRIDGET: Good point. Well the mail service pays for itself. And schools aren’t run by the federal government. The shutdown might be more or less noticeable depending on where you live. And then some federal services are considered “essential.” They are too important to stop. So things related to safety and defense, or to help during a natural disaster.
RYAN: Or collecting our taxes, I’m sure the government is remembering to do that just fine.
BRIDGET: Some things are kinda open and working, with limits, like National Parks. Some have money to run for a few days but then they’ll run out.
RYAN: And then there are the many hundreds of thousands of workers who were sent home or furloughed, on day one. So all those services, the work they did for us, they just stopped. .
BRIDGET: Correct, and that’s the group Esme’s dad is in. And all these workers have to keep checking, did Congress come up with a spending plan? Am I going back to work tomorrow? It’s like a grown up version of a snow day. But less fun, because a lot of these folks aren’t getting paid.
RYAN: That doesn’t sound fair at all.
BRIDGET: The hope is they will get paid the money they’re owed AFTER the shut down ends.
RYAN: Okay so how long is this going to go on anyway?
BRIDGET: Nobody really knows. It could be days … weeks … or even longer. Remember when you asked about this happening before? In 1995, the government shut down for 21 days. In 2013, they shut down for 16 days. And in 2018, they shut down for the longest time on record. 35 days!
RYAN: 35 DAYS! That’s a long time to go without a paycheck.
BRIDGET: It is, though usually shutdowns just last a few days.
RYAN: Wait, so you mean, this happens like, a lot?
BRIDGET: Maybe not a lot, but it DOES happen. The longer the shutdown lasts, the more consequences there are for the economy and individual families.
RYAN: Man, I can’t believe countries all over the world have to go through this every year when they come up with their budget!
BRIDGET: Ummm…actually, this is kinda something that the US does, but most other countries don’t have to shut down when they don’t have a budget. They just keep things going until they come up with a spending plan.
RYAN: Wow. America. These colors don’t run. Literally, they don’t run right now. They’re shut down. So what happens now?
BRIDGET: We just have to wait and see what happens next.
RYAN: Ok, well might as well kill some time weighing these coins until then…
(SFX: COIN COUNTING)
RYAN: And we’ll see you soon for the next full episode of Million Bazillion. 1, 2, 3, 4 5, 6, 7, 8…
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