Working in the Social Security Administration’s Auburn office, Christine Lizotte typically helps Mainers manage fixed incomes, enroll in Medicare and interact with the federal bureaucracy.
On Wednesday, she spent her lunch break instead helping coworkers find food pantries.
“It’s dead silence in the office right now because people are just trying to make it through the day,” she said on the third day of the federal government shutdown.
Offices like hers quieted this week after Congress failed to pass a spending bill before an Oct. 1 deadline, causing furloughs, forcing some workers to show up without pay and limiting government services, including some at Acadia National Park. The last shut down was during President Donald Trump’s first term, running from late 2018 to 2019.
But this one feels different, Lizotte said. The Trump administration implemented plans to cut 7,000 Social Security workers earlier this year. The Republican president who is locked in a stalemate with Senate Democrats is saying he could cut deeper the longer the shutdown remains in effect.
“I’ve never seen staff afraid,” Lizotte said, adding that morale at the Auburn office is “below low.”
Social Security offices remain open during shutdowns, but they are barred from performing certain duties, like providing benefit verification letters or helping address overpayments. Adding to uncertainty, the tasks officials can undertake are always subject to change, creating what Lizotte calls a “moving target.”
Senate Democrats triggered the shutdown by withholding the 60 votes required to pass a continuing resolution that would keep the government open until almost Thanksgiving. They argue that Republicans must extend health care tax credits and undo other health policy changes made in Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill passed earlier this year.
Friday afternoon votes on proposals from both parties yielded little progress toward re-opening the government. With Republicans still several seats short of passing their spending plan, federal workers are anxiously awaiting news on when their next full paychecks will arrive.
At Portland Jetport, an official said federal Transportation Security Administration workers are taking the shutdown in stride — for now.
“People have been kind of joking around about it,” said Bill Reiley, who represents TSA agents across Maine for the American Federation of Government Employees. “[When] they don’t get their first paycheck, [it] becomes a little more serious, and the longer it goes off, the more serious it becomes.”
Luckily for Maine’s federal workers, the Legislature recently created a program to provide loans to shutdown-impacted workers with loans that will be interest-free for 180 days. While that has taken some pressure off workers, both Reiley and Lizotte expressed hope that Congress will resolve the shutdown soon.
“I just kind of wish the foolishness would end,” Reiley said. “We do our job. We’re looking for the federal government to start doing their job.”
Maine’s congressional delegation has been divided on the shutdown. Republican Sen. Susan Collins blamed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, for the inaction during a Thursday interview with WVOM. She has voted with her party and says the health care tax credits can be extended later on this year.
Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, went with Republicans in a vote this week. U.S. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine’s 2nd District was the only House Democrat to vote with Republicans on an initial September resolution, blaming his party’s leaders for the standoff.
“This government shutdown is the result of hardball politics driven by the demands far-left groups are making for Democratic Party leaders to put on a show of their opposition to President Trump,” he said in a Wednesday statement.
His fellow Democrat, U.S. Rep Chellie Pingree of Maine’s 1st District, chimed in more closely with her own party’s messaging: She called the shutdown “a clusterf— of Republicans’ making” on a party livestream this week.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
