The effects of the federal government shutdown will have minimal effects on the city of Muncie, said an official from the city controller’s office.
The government shutdown at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday after the Senate was unable to pass the two amendments that the House made to the budget Saturday.
Audrey Jones, Muncie city controller, said only one department runs completely from federal funds, the Community Development Department.
She said the department will still receive their drawdowns, which have already been planned for, but will not be able to speak with anyone on issues they have.
According to its website, the main function of the Community Development Department is to administer grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help “develop and revitalize viable urban communities.”
Grants the department plans to receive are a Community Development Block Grant, Home Investment Partnership Program, Neighborhood Stabilization Program and Community Development Block Grant-Recovery Act.
Other departments also receive some federal funding, including the Muncie Fire Department, Muncie Police Department, Street Department, Prairie Creek and General Fund.
Jones said, no positions will be cut as a result of the shutdown and no construction will stop.
Even though the impact tangibly is going to be minimal, Sen. Joe Donnelly said the shutdown leaves room for people to doubt thier elected representatives.
“Everyone knows Washington is broken, but too few people are talking about what that means for real people,” he said in a press release. “The economy suffers, people looking for work suffer and countless families, business owners and farmers simply seeking responsible behavior from the people they elected suffer. This is unacceptable, and we must do better.”
Michael Hicks, a Ball State economics professor, said the shutdown may not immediately affect students.
He said also, it probably won’t stop the processing of some federal Stafford loans because most of them have already been processed.
“Ball State students are very affected by the debate because you all are about to be tax payers,” he said. “And future tax payers, in particular, are going to be affected by the debate.”
He said there may not be any affect, even a temporary effect, on the U.S. economy depending on how long the shutdown lasts.
“In the past, this has occurred numerous times either in last minute negotiations or government shutdown,” Hicks said. “We will go back to normal, whatever the new normal is, pretty quickly.”
Jason Pickell, president of Ball State’s University Democrats, said he is worried about the shutdown, but doesn’t think many people are.
“Honestly, I haven’t heard anyone really talk about it,” he said. “I feel like most students are indifferent to it, not to their own blame, but just because it doesn’t necessarily interest a lot of them. At least in my organization, we are concerned about it just because 700,000 government employees will be let go for a short amount of time, so that will affect the unemployment rate for a short amount of time.”
Pickell said they haven’t really been discussing the shutdown with students.
“We have been focusing more on different issues right now that are concerning more students, to appeal to more students, because the government shutdown probably isn’t very interesting to most students at Ball State,” he said.
No one from Ball State’s College Republicans was available for contact Monday.
Hicks said finding a solution is going to be a long process for the U.S.
“This debate is not going to go away because we are maybe $15 [trillion], $16 [trillion], $17 trillion in debt, which is above the value of everything made in America in a given year,” he said. “So the amount of spending the government undertakes each year is more than it’s bringing in, so each year that debt is rising. We’re just going to have to reconcile ourselves to a long period of time where there is less spending and more tax dollars.”
