Pondering a Shutdown

As the battle royal over fiscal 2011 spending rages on Capitol Hill, Politico reported this morning that an aide to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she had told chiefs of staff of Democratic lawmakers that a government shutdown was more likely than not.

In the wake of that report, NPR's It's All Politics blog weighed in with a post on what might happen in the event of a shutdown. It links to a September 2010 Congressional Research Service report on the 1995 shutdown that noted, among other things that during that time:

• New patients were not accepted at the National Institutes of Health clinical center.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ceased disease surveillance.
• Closures of 368 National Park Service sites were reported, with a loss of 7 million visitors.
• Approximately 20,000-30,000 applications by foreigners for visas reportedly went unprocessed each day.
• Multiple services for veterans were curtailed.
• Employees of federal contractors reportedly were furloughed without pay.