Airport delays pile up as lawmakers return to D.C. with stoppage nearing a full month

The latest daily assertion from the US Treasury Department finds that America’s gross national debt has topped $38 trillion. It’s the quickest accumulation of an extra trillion {dollars} in debt since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The gross national debt hit $37 trillion just in August of this year.

CBS News studies how the continuing shutdown might make issues worse.

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The Federal Aviation Administration says air visitors controller staffing points have brought on new complications this week for some vacationers after a spherical of delays was seen over the weekend.

These federal workers are currently being asked to continue reporting to work during the shutdown, even as their paychecks have ceased. Controllers got a partial paycheck earlier this month and are set to see the pay they’re due to receive next week fully delayed until the shutdown ends.

GWN studies

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The first three weeks of this government shutdown have positioned air traffic controllers — a group that often rode out previous stoppages with minimal fanfare — as a key economic crimp point so far.

This comes after years of challenges in control towers.

Just this past weekend, monitoring web site FlightConscious clocked over 5,000 US delays on both Saturday and Sunday. The FAA said staffing shortages have been a major perpetrator.

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President Trump on Tuesday told a group of Senate Republicans to hold firm on the ongoing federal government shutdown, which on Wednesday is set to become the second-longest in US history.

“Our message has been very simple: We is not going to be extorted on this loopy plot of theirs,” he said during a lunch he hosted for GOP senators at the Rose Garden, which some observers said was meant as a show of unity amid the ongoing spending impasse.

From Bloomberg:

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Few signs of movement towards an end to the shutdown were in evidence Monday morning on Capitol Hill as both sides remained in partisan crouches and perhaps further apart than ever on the central issue of extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson again rejected talks at a press conference. He also invited two colleagues to appear alongside him who are among the loudest Republican voices for not devoting more money to the issue under any circumstances — shutdown or not.

Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland spoke first and called these enhanced Obamacare subsidies a “Biden bonus.” He was joined by Rep. Chip Roy of Texas — a fellow member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus — who echoed the sentiments saying “we’re not for giving more money to insurance coverage firms.”

Meanwhile Top White House financial advisor Kevin Hassett said no concessions are in the offing from the White House. He predicted on CNBC Monday that the continuing stress marketing campaign would imply “average Democrats will transfer ahead and get us an open authorities” suggesting the shutdown is “likely to end sometime this week.”

But little evidence of that was in the offing on the Democratic side.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is main Democratic effort and he started the workweek posting what he termed “Trump’s shutdown guidelines.”

Markets have brushed off the economic effects of the government shutdown so far but at least two economists this past week argued for diligence in the coming days as economic effects begin to pile up.

Both even used the same word to describe potential economic costs on the horizon: “nonlinear”

RSM chief economist Joe Brusuelas offered in his analysis to investors this past week that as the shutdown enters its third week “both the public and policymakers ought to anticipate the influence on households and companies to increase in a nonlinear fashion.”

Oxford Economics lead US economist Bernard Yaros also said in his own report that the effects could multiply. He first acknowledged a rule of thumb that a government shutdown tends to reduce annualized GDP growth by 0.1-0.2 percentage points each week it lasts but “there are nonlinear dangers related with these financial prices as time goes by.”

Brusuelas projects that the shutdown’s effects on economic growth could increase from 0.1% a week so far to a 0.25% per week drag on US gross domestic product.

Oxford adds in their analysis that the shutdown currently is disrupt about $800 million in federal awards each business day but that the economic costs could multiply when federal employees miss an entire pay cycle — as is expected soon.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced late Thursday that a variety of federal agents — including those at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) — will be paid during the shutdown at least for the next few weeks.

It’s a move that could lessen a key economic pain point with airports in focus during past funding shortfalls.

Noem posted late Thursday that “more than 70,000 sworn law enforcement officers across DHS including those serving in CBP, ICE, Secret Service, TSA and other essential mission areas shall be paid for all hours labored during the shutdown period.”

Noem said these officers would receive a “tremendous examine” by next Wednesday that would cover already lost days, overtime, and their next pay period.

The move does not address air traffic controllers — who appear set to continue being asked to work with their pay deferred — but the move could nonetheless lessen the chances for airport disruptions in the immediate term. During a previous shutdown in 2018, lots of of TSA brokers called in sick after being requested to work without pay.