Financial safety

DC: Shutting down cybersecurity?

This weekend or soon thereafter, if Congress hasn’t managed to pass a stopgap spending measure—never mind an actual budget—the government will run out of money. National parks will close to the public. Passport applications won’t get processed. Government websites won’t be maintained. Heck, the last government shutdown delayed the opening of the 2013 crab season in Alaska.

So what’s the hold-up in Congress? Essentially, Democrats say they won’t vote for a spending measure that fails to resolve the legal status of undocumented individuals who were brought to the United States as children. Republicans, who wish to leave that question unresolved for now, have offered instead to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program—though President Trump now says he opposes such a move, which throws negotiations into even greater turmoil. Washington logic can be a little tough to follow.

Most folks have heard of the “dreamers” and CHIP; fewer are aware that Congress’s inability to fund government operations in an orderly fashion may be putting crucial agencies at increased risk of cyber attack.