Thread by @stevenportnoy

Lots of people are curious about the impact of a "partial shutdown."

This is a challenge for us to explain.

THREAD ...

As of this tweet, it wasn't clear whether the Smithsonian museums would be open tomorrow if funding runs out tonight.

(Smithsonian policy says that if a shutdown occurs on a Friday night, the museums can STAY OPEN through the weekend and close on Monday!)

Federal agencies are -always- closed on Saturdays and Sundays. It just so happens that Monday and Tuesday are federal holidays.

Furloughed workers might not have to worry about what they'd have to do until Wednesday.

In the Jan 2018 shutdown that lasted from Saturday to Monday, open-air national parks were kept open. Impacts were difficult to illustrate.

One intangible is the loss of productivity, in the hours that agencies spend shutting down their operations. There's a protocol.

Mick Mulvaney, the president's budget chief and incoming chief-of-staff, told reporters in Jan 2018 that the Obama administration "could have made the shutdown in 2013 much less impactful."

Mulvaney says the Obama admin "chose to make it worse" by closing national parks, etc.

Some federal workers who had planned to travel, take time off over the holidays, would have to report to work if they're "excepted" from furlough. All pre-approved leave would be cancelled. And, of course, there's the mystery about the timing of paychecks.