By Michael Shepherd - Sept. 29, 2023
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A federal government shutdown looms at midnight Saturday, and it looks like we will have one. The bigger question for Mainers is how long it will take for Congress to solve its major spending divides and reopen government.

There is no easy way out for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-California, who got four spending bills through the chamber overnight but still remains paralyzed between a right-wing bloc in his own caucus that wants deep cuts and a Senate that wants a budget more like the status quo.

Two members of Maine's delegation are at the center of this, but only the imperiled McCarthy can solve it. At the state level, officials are beginning to grapple with the effects of a shutdown. It may take a few weeks to see major fallout here from it. Here's what you need to know.

Maine politicians embody the effort to pressure McCarthy and give him options. Sen. Susan Collins is the top Republican appropriator in the upper chamber. She is a centrist who favors high levels of government spending in relation to her caucus, but she also shares the sentiment that a shutdown will do nothing to further House Republicans' goals.

Collins is a working on a border security amendment aimed at winning House support for a bill to avert a shutdown. She told Maine Public that the message from her House counterparts changes by the hour, also musing that some Republicans in the lower chamber do not know how harmful shutdowns are.

A wide majority of the Senate earlier this week endorsed a framework from leaders that includes Ukraine spending opposed by House conservatives. McCarthy has rejected that bill in favor of another proposal that is unlikely to pass in the Senate. If he takes help from Democrats in solving the impasse, he risks a conservative effort to remove him from his position.

McCarthy's bill includes a fiscal commission that he met with Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from the 2nd District, to discuss this week. While Golden was one of two Democrats to vote for two spending bills overnight, he has not committed to that bigger measure, which includes poison pills for his party. It shows how negotiators are trying to avoid a shutdown while holding ground.

Maine might use state money to backfill federal services with one catch. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are not affected by shutdowns, but Maine's 12,000 federal employees could be furloughed or made to work without pay that would come with interest when the government reopens.

Food assistance programs used by 18,000 Mainers could also be interrupted, something Democrats here have seized on while criticizing McCarthy. But the administration of Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, has some options in continuing these services.

The state could pay to keep any interrupted programs going. The Mills administration told Maine Public that it would only use the rainy day fund to do so with a promise of reimbursement from the feds once government reopens.

It may take a few weeks to feel the effects of a shutdown. The gates to Acadia National Park will likely be locked if a shutdown happens. Park officials estimated $16 million in lost tourism revenue for the area during a 16-day shutdown in 2013, but those numbers are dicey since they assume no tourists visited Bar Harbor during that time. Trips are booked and people are coming.

However, shutdowns certainly have bigger economic effects. A Goldman Sachs study says the U.S. economy will shrink by 0.2 percent every week a shutdown lasts. It would bounce back when the government opens again. Maine is dependent on federal spending, but it will take a little while to see major effects.