The shutdown battle is fueling anger and uncertainty far beyond Washington, D.C
The mayors of four cities say the government shutdown with no end in sight is starting to take its toll on Central America.
In interviews, the mayors of Kansas City, Missouri; Scranton, Pennsylvania; Minneapolis; And Cleveland He told NBC News they are hearing from their residents about fear, economic insecurity and extreme anger at the chaos the shutdown has caused in the nation’s capital.
“What people don’t understand in D.C. is what it means to live paycheck to paycheck,” said Paige Cognetti, Mayor of Scranton. “There are a lot of families here in Scranton, if their paychecks are affected in any way by this federal shutdown, they are going to have to choose between rent, child care, childcare and food.”
The mayors, all Democrats, as in many big cities, say their residents are asking questions about health care and whether their Social Security checks will continue to arrive. Some want to know more about housing vouchers or SNAP food benefits.
Tensions are rising as the federal government shutdown enters its 17th day on Friday. The impasse already means that dozens of federal employees are out of work, while others remain employed but without pay.
Each party blames the other for the stalemate. Democrats point to Republicans, who control power in the White House and both chambers of Congress, and accuse them of refusing to come to the table to talk about protecting people from losing their health care coverage and facing higher insurance premiums. Republicans believe that Democrats are making unreasonable demands.
Mayors say lockdown is not an option for them. Regardless of the political infighting in Congress, mayors must keep the water flowing and the trash picked up. In some cases, they feared the cuts would hurt vulnerable populations, such as homeless veterans, and they would have to step in to fill the gap. Now they are doing so under the continuing threat of reduced federal funding flows.
“I see a lot of anger, and the anger I see stems from the fact that Republicans and the president competed to lower the cost of living for Americans in the last election,” Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb said. “What they have done is not only have they continued to raise rates and make health insurance more expensive for ordinary Americans, but now they are trying to blame Democrats for the shutdown.”
The White House rejected these characterizations.
“Mayors must know the facts: It was their Democratic colleagues in the US Senate who shut down the federal government,” White House spokesman Khush Desai said in a statement. “If Senate Democrats truly care about ordinary Americans and American cities that depend on federal funding, they should reopen the federal government with the same clean financing bill they previously voted on 13 times under Joe Biden.”
However, the mayors say there are many layers to their uncertainty — including the ongoing threat that President Donald Trump will target their cities for politically motivated reasons.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey described the Trump administration as distracted and inconsistent in its approach to his city throughout the year. Frey spoke about federal grant programs that were at one time in question.
“The consequences of really bad choices are being felt at the local level, and we are the ones making up the shortfall,” he said. “People come to us looking for solutions, and it’s always helpful to have a solution-oriented partner in the White House.”
Lockdown now injects a whole new element of chaos, he said.
“Our ability to predict what’s going to happen is less clear when you have two federal departments operating in disarray, two trying to withhold federal funds, and three currently in lockdown,” Frey said.
Cognetti said the closure is just the latest blow to families and small businesses after a year of cuts from Washington.
“We are really in a position where many of our nonprofits, our school district, and our health and human services across the county are struggling to figure out how to make it through the end of the year and in the years ahead,” she said. “With the budget cuts and this stalling of federal funds [it] “It will make it much worse.”
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said 30,000 federal employees are on the brink.
“I hear the anger of workers, I think workers, even dating back to the beginning of the year, who are saying, ‘Look, I don’t really care who the boss is, I’m just going to show up and do my job and get the job done.’ I think the fact that this has been undermined every step of the way is frustrating.”
Lucas also spoke about the ripple effects of the lockdown. So far, the potential lack of air traffic control has not reached Kansas City Airport, but that doesn’t mean airport passengers there won’t feel the impact.
“If eight flights out of Chicago are delayed and those are major flights in the system, that means Kansas City is going to be backed up, which means it’s going to be backed up somewhere else,” he said. “There is anger among employees, and eventually that will spread to the American people.”
Republicans say they have come to the table and offered solutions, and they portray Democrats as making unreasonable demands. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican caucus committee member, said Democrats should learn from previous shutdowns that it’s not a winning proposition.
“We made the mistake of shutting down the government for 35 days to try to build the wall, but they wouldn’t bend, and we ended up, you know, building the wall,” Graham said. “The point I’m trying to make is let’s get the government back to work, and stop the chaos. I don’t know about you, but I feel international terrorism is on the move again, and airport systems have been hacked with pro-Hamas messages. This is not the time to let your guard down.”