Thousands of Americans are likely to be affected in the event of a shutdown including families who rely on federal programs for food.
Allison O'Toole is executive director of Second Harvest Heartland and tells WCCO Radio those who need help the most are going to be immediately affected and she points out the first program that could be affected is the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC.
"You know, I will point out too, with the WIC program almost 40% of the kids who are born in this state benefit from that program," O'Toole tells WCCO. "First, we can do better than that. But second, it's a lot of little people who are going to be facing hardship that they don't even know about."
O'Toole says they are frustrated and worried about what will happen in the next week.
"Federal employees will start to miss paychecks," explains O'Toole. "I think WIC recipients will start to be impacted either on that day or before that day leading into that. So it's pretty immediate impact in our community when these things happen. I think the snap benefits are in place for the month of October, which is great."
In Minnesota, Governor Tim Walz has issued guidance in the event a federal government shutdown takes place. The Governor is activating a contingency response team to identify the impacts a shutdown would have on some programs.
Walz says if federal funding should stop, it may have a minimal impact on many federally funded state activities because funds have already been obligated for many state services through block grants.
However, the longer a shutdown lasts, the greater the impact to state programs and services that millions of Americans rely on.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's last-ditch plan to keep the federal government temporarily open collapsed on Friday as a robust faction of hard-right holdouts rejected the package, making a shutdown almost certain.
McCarthy’s right-flank Republicans refused to support the bill despite its steep spending cuts of nearly 30% to many agencies and severe border security provisions, calling it insufficient.
The White House and Democrats rejected the Republican approach as too extreme. The vote was 198-232, with 21 hard-right Republicans voting to sink the package. The Democrats voted against it.
The bill’s complete failure a day before Saturday’s deadline to fund the government leaves few options left to prevent a shutdown that will furlough federal workers, keep the military working without pay and disrupt programs and services for millions of Americans.
A clearly agitated McCarthy left the House chamber. “It’s not the end yet; I've got other ideas,” McCarthy told reporters.