The US Government Shutdown
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At what point will the standoff in Washington DC start doing serious harm to the US economy?
Vishala Sri-Pathma speaks to two victims of the shutdown. As a prison officer, Eric Young is currently not getting paid by the government, even though he is still legally required to turn up for work. He is also a national union representative, and is calling on the government to start planning for a lockdown of jails as staffing numbers dwindle. Meanwhile Bob Pease, head of the Brewers Association, says that small craft beer makers could be facing real a crisis if the government doesn't start issuing licences again soon.
So how much longer can this all go on for? We ask Megan Greene, chief economist at US asset managers Manulife, and the BBC's North America reporter Anthony Zurcher.
Producer: Laurence Knight
(Picture: A signs says the Renwick Gallery museum is closed because of the US federal government shutdown; Credit: Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Vashalas Sripathma. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:07.6 | Coming up, we meet the faces of the US government shutdown, the people whose livelihoods depend on their government being open for business. |
| 0:16.5 | To not be able to pay for basic things, our utilities, the gas in your car, to pay for the |
| 0:24.2 | Little League baseball program, you know, for your son. That has a dramatic effect, |
| 0:29.7 | not only on me, but also my family. And it's not just federal employees that have been |
| 0:34.8 | affected. Businesses large and small are struggling to make ends |
| 0:39.2 | meet in the most unlikely of places. One of our board of directors members has a brewery in Vermont |
| 0:46.1 | and he has been planning to open a second facility. They've spent hundreds of thousands of |
| 0:53.2 | dollars on equipment and now they |
| 0:56.0 | can't. That's all in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:03.6 | Consider this. Prison guards reporting to work every day protecting the public from some of the |
| 1:09.7 | worst criminals on the planet are not |
| 1:12.2 | getting paid. At least they aren't in the US and that's because of the government shutdown, |
| 1:17.4 | now the longest in history. At the centre of the shutdown, the bone of contention which has led |
| 1:23.7 | to a long-running standoff between US President Donald Trump and US Democrats |
| 1:28.8 | is a proposed border wall with Mexico. The president says the wall is essential to protect |
| 1:35.2 | American lives and jobs. The Democrats say he is holding America hostage over an exaggerated |
| 1:41.7 | threat and refuses to pass a bill to release funds for the DeWal. |
| 1:47.6 | Some 800,000 federal employees are currently not getting paid because of the shutdown. Of those, some |
| 1:54.0 | 420,000 are still required to work, including thousands of prison officers. They can't strike, they can't refuse to go to work, |
| 2:03.6 | and yet life goes on for these workers, |
| 2:05.9 | and they still have to pay bills and their rent. |
... |
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