Shutting down the government is nothing like the slow-motion calamity that is sequestration.
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees would face indefinite furloughs. National parks from Yosemite to Acadia wouldn't open. And if the spending standoff lasts into late October, veterans' benefit payments would trickle to a stop.
Continue Reading Unlike this year's across-the-board spending cuts that rarely lived up to the hype, Americans will notice soon enough that their government services have been disrupted — if not canceled. So, Monday would have been the day to get a last look at the National Zoo's panda cam.
"It's a different kettle of fish when you say people aren't going to show up at all," said a former Clinton administration official central to planning for the last government shutdown in 1995 and 1996.
(POLITICO's full government shutdown coverage)
Appearing in the White House briefing room Monday just hours before the deadline, President Barack Obama assured Americans that air traffic controllers and federal prison guards would remain on the job. They will also still get their Social Security checks and Medicare help. But it won't be pretty either, he warned, especially for the federal workers who will be sent home without pay until there's an agreement on Capitol Hill.
"A shutdown will have a very real economic impact on real people right away," Obama said.
So how exactly does the U.S. government close its doors?
The official word won't come from the CNN countdown clock. It'll be via a guidance memo from White House Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell — due around midnight Monday — instructing department heads to begin implementing their specific shutdown contingency plans.
(WATCH: Shutdown: Democrats vs. Republicans)
All federal employees should still show up for work Tuesday, where their managers will distribute the official notices on who is and isn't essential to daily operations. That's a tricky enough question — one loaded with both legal ramifications and a good bit of psychological baggage — but essentially boils down to the Cabinet secretaries and a skeleton operations crew who have jobs that involve protection of public safety or government property: think military troops, meat inspectors and border patrol.
The furloughed workers will have until about lunchtime Tuesday to wrap up any last-minute business at their desks: securing files, cancelling meetings, conferences and trips, setting up their 'out-of-office' email replies and updating voice mail recordings to say they won't be back on the job until there's a budget agreement.
Federal employees are also being told to track news sites for updates on when they can come back to work. And as for any other questions about the strict rules surrounding furloughs? Those can be answered by a handy Office of Personnel Management guidance document that describes frequently asked questions like prohibitions on voluntary government work and moonlighting.
(WATCH: Boehner 'confident' House will pass CR)
Some of the largest furloughs will hit the Pentagon and 400,000 of its civilian workers. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel fretted Monday about how these workers have been among those hit hard by sequestration — with a summer full of unpaid furlough days. Still, he said decisions to send them home without pay "are dictated solely by the law" for protecting people and property.
"The furloughs are in no way a reflection of the importance of your work, the hard effort you put forth every day, or your dedicated service to our department and our nation," Hagel said in a memo to Defense Department employees while traveling in South Korea.
As for the uniformed troops, they too must report to work, though they'll have the benefit of receiving their pay thanks to a rare legislative agreement between the House and Senate.
(PHOTOS: 17 times the government has shut down)
The news isn't so good for veterans. Benefit checks from the Department of Veterans Affairs, including disability claim checks and pension payments, are expected to last only two or three weeks beyond the start of the shutdown. Assistance for veteran-run businesses also will cease, while rehabilitation and education counseling are likely to be limited.
Some programs and government offices will remain open during the shutdown because they rely on mandatory spending or funding streams outside the annual congressional appropriations process. That's why it's full steam ahead for the Obamacare insurance exchanges — which coincidentally go live Tuesday — that are central to the Capitol Hill budget impasse.
It's also why the U.S. Postal Service and Amtrak will continue operating, along with the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and some parts of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — all of which get funding from the federal fuel tax.
Many others aren't so lucky.
