The big parlor game in Washington, D.C. right now is figuring out what departments will stay open and which agencies will mainly close their doors if the government runs out of money tomorrow night.
It may seem odd, but there are no simple answers on this.
For example, during a conference call yesterday with "senior administration officials," we were told that if you file paper tax forms by mail with the Internal Revenue Service, those will not be processed during a shutdown.
But, if you file electronically, then it will be dealt with by the feds whether the government shuts down or not.
Note to self - file electronically.
There were lots of conflicting answers on what would happen where, like at the Pentagon, where the feds say most civilian workers will be furloughed.
But if you work for a defense contractor, the answer wasn't so simple.
And if you are an active duty soldier, you will keep working and accruing pay, but you won't get paid until the budget is fixed.
That was one reason why Republicans were adding in full funding for the military in a one week stop gap budget that will be voted on by the House on Thursday.
The impact of a shutdown will be felt mostly here in Washington, D.C., where the bulk of the 800,000 federal employees work who would be furloughed.
For all of the tourists now in town, a shutdown could be a problem, since it would close the Smithsonian museums and scrap the Cherry Blossom Parade set for Saturday.
Around the country, national parks would be closed as well.
Back in Washington, the District of Columbia government - armed with their license plates that say, "Taxation Without Representation" - announced that 21,000 of 35,000 city workers would stay on the job.
(Remember, the District is pretty much run by the Congress, so the city employees are also on the federal payroll.)
A shutdown would close the motor vehicle department, licenses and permits for construction and more would not be available, public libraries would close, road work would cease, as would trash pickup.
In fact, the D.C. government put out a notice that "trash collection will not start until one week after shutdown."
Hmmmm. That could make things sort of smelly up on Capitol Hill and at the various federal agencies which remain open for work.
Tick, tick, tick.
