The work that won’t get done during a government shutdown

WASHINGTON – There’s plenty that won’t get done if thousands of federal employees are barred from working until dysfunctional Washington agrees on a plan to restore funding.

Thousands of intelligence agency employees would be furloughed even as tension over North Korea’s nuclear program remains high. Important biomedical and public health research would be interrupted and possibly damaged. Military veterans would watch helplessly as processing of their disability claims came to a halt.

Partial shutdowns can be expensive, too. Five years ago, when swaths of the federal government were shuttered for just over two weeks, 850,000 employees were furloughed, which cost the government 6.6 million days of work and more than $2.5 billion in lost productivity and pay and benefits for employees.