EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — For the 21st time in U.S. history, a political disagreement has shut down the federal government and resulted in the immediate furloughing of thousands of workers throughout the country, including El Paso.
Senate Democrats and Republicans are battling over passing a GOP-backed funding bill that would significantly impact healthcare for thousands of Americans.
“Under the big beautiful bill and under the cuts are being proposed, close to 50,000 people could lose health care coverage. There’s also additional subsidies for people who perhaps they make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but they do qualify to get some offset, some subsidies for health care… Under the Republican proposal, that would also remove those subsidies for the people who aren’t on Medicaid, who probably make too much money but who still can’t afford health care,” Texas State Representative Vince Perez, D-El Paso, who oversees District 77, said.
After failing to negotiate and receive the 60 votes needed to prevent a shutdown, Wednesday marked the first day of a pause for many services.
“The shutdowns always cause the closure of federal agencies, and it delays the provision of those services. It affects literally millions of Americans. Some of the essential services continue, but a lot of the discretionary programs have to halt,” Tom Fullerton, an economics professor at UTEP, said.
Fullerton said the El Paso and Las Cruces areas will be affected substantially, with both cities having higher-than-average federal employment, something Perez echoed.
“In El Paso, there are close to 20,000 federal employees that are going to be affected. Border Patrol, customs agents, you know, ICE agents, anybody in the military or the VA, all of those are considered essential personnel. They still have to show up to work but won’t have a paycheck,” Perez said.
The last time the federal government shut down was in 2018 and lasted for 34 days, spanning into 2019. This was also the longest shutdown in the nation’s history. Should this recent shutdown last a similar timespan, Fullerton said it could have negative impacts on the U.S. economy.
“It’s a real disruption to all of the families whose workers get furloughed. The next thing that happens is that consumer confidence is impacted, and that in turn impacts consumer spending because of all the uncertainty. A lot of consumers and households justifiably elect to hold off on a lot of expenditures that all otherwise would make, and that has a ripple effect throughout the entire economy,” Fullerton said.
As the nation waits to see what happens next, there is no signal of compromise from either party.
El Paso’s GOP Party continues to stand with leaders in Washington. Michael Aboud, the party’s chairman, telling KTSM:
“This federal government shutdown was caused by the Democrats in the U.S. Legislature. President Trump was just asking for a continuing resolution, which had been done throughout Joe Biden’s administration. Let’s look at the crazy reasoning they used to force this shutdown, as stated by Democrat leader Chuck Schumer. Schumer stated the Democrats want a trillion tax dollars to be used to give illegal aliens free health care. This silliness shows how much more the Democrat Party cares about people who disregard our country and our national laws and how little they care about the American people. Basically, Democrats want to take money out of American taxpayers’ pockets and give it to people who break the law. Didn’t they use to say, “No one is above the law.” So, again, the Democrats don’t care about America or the citizens and how they will harm the average person, as long as they can help foreigners.”
“When we talk about people on Medicaid, when we talk about people receiving the subsidies for health care under Obamacare, these are all American citizens. These aren’t undocumented residents. Undocumented residents do not qualify for Medicaid. They do not qualify for the subsidies under Obamacare that were passed in 2010. They pay taxes. You know, they pay into these systems, they pay into Social Security, but undocumented residents do not receive any benefits,” Perez said.
“We’ve known for weeks that some compromise and some negotiation would be necessary. Hopefully. Let’s see, by next week, those negotiations will actually be taking place and we can emerge from this period of uncertainty,” Fullerton said.
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