For 43 days, tens of millions of Americans were wondering whether or not they would be able to put food on the table. Hundreds of thousands of federal government employees were furloughed and sent home without knowing when they would return to stability. Even more were deemed as essential workers and forced to work without pay.
Air traffic controllers, TSA agents and senate staffers are just some of the federal employees who were either furloughed or deemed as essential during the shutdown.
Though these workers should be receiving back pay in accordance with the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act that was signed by Trump in 2019, he is now threatening that some employees won’t receive this pay, stating to CNN that there are “some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of.”
Federal contractors, including security, cleaning and other staff members in federal buildings, have been laid off during the shutdown, and they have no guarantee of being financially stable once it ends.
Amidst all of this uncertainty, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had the luxury of financial security and continued to be paid.
During the longest government shutdown in United States history, the priority of the presidential administration wasn’t everyday Americans or even the essential employees who keep the government running.
Great disparities can be seen in funding for different governmental agencies and programs.
ICE and the Transportation Security Administration both fall under the Department of Homeland Security and receive their funding through annual Congressional proportions.
However, Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill allocated roughly $75 billion more to ICE’s budget over the next four years, leading to a large gap between the two agencies’ budgets.
So, when the shutdown began, ICE agents were able to receive more cushion and financial security than TSA agents due to the safety net their abundant budget provides. TSA agents were deemed essential workers, but they clearly weren’t essential enough to include in the massive budget.
Air traffic controllers are essential workers and were forced to work without pay during the shutdown. According to NPR, air traffic controllers work one of the most stressful and demanding jobs in the world, often for 10 hours a day, six days a week.
During the shutdown, many called off from work and had to do side hustles in order to have a source of income. It would be ridiculous to expect these individuals to work without compensation, while also trying to make money through side jobs such as DoorDash.
Trump wasn’t pleased with air traffic controllers who decided to stay home and pursue reliable sources of income in order to financially survive. He wrote on Truth Social that he was not happy with those who “did nothing but complain, and took time off.”
Air traffic control is funded through the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, and Congress appropriates money from this fund annually for the Federal Aviation Administration to administer to air traffic controllers.
Had the Trump Administration chosen to allocate $75 billion more evenly across essential programs and operations in the government, maybe air traffic controllers could have felt the same financial security as ICE agents during the shutdown.
Though Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are legally guaranteed to those who qualify for it, the program was still impacted by the government shutdown.
According to NBC, roughly 40 million low-income Americans were impacted by the drying up of SNAP funding.
SNAP receives its funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The shutdown meant the USDA couldn’t send money to states for SNAP payments after the start of November.
According to NPR, the Agriculture Department contingency fund had to be dug into, but beneficiaries were only able to receive half of their normal benefits due to there only being $4.65 billion available, compared to the usual $8 billion.
Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill also tore through the SNAP program. According to NBC, the bill cut SNAP funding by about 20%, which will impact roughly 22.3 million families.
Cutting benefits for American citizens while also increasing the annual funding for civilian kidnappers doesn’t appear to display fair funding allocations.
TSA employees, air traffic controllers and millions of American families all suffered during the shutdown. However, United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said ICE agents would be receiving “super checks” during the shutdown, which covered their work during the shutdown as well as the next pay period. These funds came from the increased Department of Homeland Security budget given through the Big Beautiful Bill.
This shutdown has revealed the funding priorities of this administration and just how little the Big Beautiful Bill did for everyday American citizens. Though figuring out government funding is a very complicated situation, surely our government leaders should’ve realized that essential programs and agencies deserve more funding and financial security, and that ICE is not as large a priority as Trump makes it out to be.
Perhaps Trump could have spared some of the $300 million being dumped into his new ballroom, or taken a pause from his grand old “Great Gatsby” themed Halloween party, which took place as millions of families realized they would struggle to put food on the table during November.
After analyzing the clear funding disparities illuminated during the 43-day shutdown, it’s impossible to say that the United States has been made great again.
