When the Health Insurance Marketplace opened Oct. 1 as a result of passage of the national health care law, the Affordable Care Act, small businesses in Texas and across the country will have a variety of choices to make to participate in the Small Business Health Option Program (SHOP). Similarly, individual consumers in Texas should find more affordable health care because of the competition the new program is expected to cause in the Marketplace.

SHOP, designed for small employers with 50 or fewer full-time employees, offers quality brand name health insurance plans and lets small employers make side-by-side comparisons that will help them pick the best health care option for their needs. And, individual citizens and families in Texas will have more than 50 health plans from which to choose for their health care needs.

The SHOP program and the federal health care overhaul and how it will affect Texans were topics of discussion for U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius when she visited Dallas this week to discuss how best to inform communities and businesses about the new health care program.

With less than a week to go before the new health insurance Marketplace opens and Texans and others across the country will be able to shop for the plan that best fits their needs and their financial situation, Sebelius said that the increased competition among providers in Texas is driving down costs.

“We are excited to see that rates in the Texas Marketplace are even lower than originally projected,” said Sebelius. “In the past, consumers were too often denied or priced out of quality health insurance options, but thanks to the Affordable Care Act, consumers will be able to choose from a number of new coverage options at a price that is affordable.”

A six-month open enrollment period will start Oct. 1 and run through March of next year for individuals. Coverage begins as early as Jan. 1, 2014. Texans will be able to pick from three different plans – gold, silver or bronze – and young adults will also have the option of purchasing a “catastrophic” plan, increasing their number of choices. In Texas, the average premium for the lowest-cost silver plan will be $287 and for the lowest cost bronze plan it will be $211. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services notes that the majority – about six out of 10 – of the individuals who are uninsured today will be able to find coverage for $100 or less per month in the Marketplace, taking into account premium tax credits and Medicaid coverage.

Texas businesses will get some help from a consortium of federal agencies and private-sector organizations as those businesses search for a suitable health insurance plan. HHS will be working with the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Small Business Majority, Main Street Alliance, Business Forward and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on an education and outreach campaign to help small employers.

Sebelius said one of the main concerns of small businesses historically has been the high cost of providing health insurance options for employees. “Many who would like to offer insurance to their employees have faced few choices, high administrative costs and skyrocketing premiums when an employee gets sick,” she said.

SHOP offers small employers quality brand name health insurance plans and lets them make side-by-side comparisons when choosing a coverage option that is right for their business. Those employers may also qualify for Small Business Health Care Tax Credit to help defray the cost of their premiums. Beginning in 2014, that tax credit could be as much as 50 percent of an employer’s premium contributions.

Small employers will be able to enroll in insurance plans through SHOP on a monthly basis throughout the year. The SHOP Marketplace for federally facilitated Marketplace states like Texas opens Oct. 1, when small employers can start the application process and get an overview of available plans and premiums in their area. Detailed information on the SHOP application and enrollment process are available at HealthCare.gov. SHOP will also have a call center operational on Oct. 1 at 1-800-706-7893. The Small Business Administration and HHS will offer webinars about what SHOP offers and how it works. Additional resources will be available at Business.usa.gov.healthcare

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By Noor H. Salem, TMO

On Saturday, September 28th, over one hundred people gathered for the “Sweetness of Salah” Seminar in Canton, Michigan. Dr. Farhan AbdulAzeez presented once again, a daylong seminar on attaining peace and tranquility in one’s prayers.

Dr. Farhan has been doing his Sweetness of Salah seminars in different cities across the country. Last May the seminar was in Dearborn, MI but despite that- hundreds came out to attend this one in Canton. Not even a month ago, Dr. Farhan thought he’d try a Sweetness of Hajj seminar as a means to teach people necessary facts and prepare them for the hajj coming up.

“Salah” means “prayer” in the Arabic language, and Muslims know this is the first thing they will be asked about in terms of worship. The seminar was deep, heart-touching, and life changing. Dr. Farhan was not joking when he said that prayer will be looked at differently after the seminar.  Instead of making it a habit, Dr. Farhan teaches ways to focus on one’s prayers and enjoy the time praying instead of rushing through it to get to something else. The seminar is meant to find the sweetness in the action of praying. The routine to pray, dua’a recited in certain positions, and extra reward opportunities were all discussed.

For more information about the seminar or to watch the lecture series check out: sweetnessofsalah.com.

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By Peter Apps

The  Chinese Navy on maneuvers.

LONDON (Reuters) – After a quarter century of Middle Eastern land wars and a sharp fall in big powers’ naval spending after the Cold War, sea power is back in vogue in response to the rise of China and Western reluctance to deploy ground troops in conflicts like Syria.

The greater interest in navies is being felt from the corridors of Washington to the pirate hunting grounds off Africa and the shipyards of Asia.

“You’re going to see a much greater emphasis on using sea-based forces to produce an effect,” said Admiral Gary Roughead, who retired as Chief of Naval Operations, the professional head of the U.S. navy, in 2011.

“You’re seeing it in the Mediterranean, with Syria, and you’re seeing it in the Pacific and the Middle East,” said Roughead, who is now a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

India last month launched its first locally built aircraft carrier and a dozen such ships are to be completed worldwide in the next decade, including two U.S. Gerald R. Ford-class giants, two British vessels, a refurbished Russian carrier for India and one or more of the first indigenous carriers to be built by China.

U.S.-based consultancy AMI International estimates about $800 billion will be spent globally on naval programs in the next two decades, a quarter of it in Asia, which now surpasses austerity-hit Europe as the second-largest naval market after North America.

In April’s 2014 budget, the U.S. Navy pulled ahead to win the biggest chunk of funding of all three services. The Pentagon requested $155 billion for the Navy, just under 30 percent of the total $527 billion baseline budget, which does not include contingency funding for Iraq and Afghanistan.

That did not take into account the automatic across-the-board spending cuts of “sequestration” that the Navy says could leave it with 10 percent less than its budget submission in 2014 if Congress cannot agree a deal to tackle the U.S. deficit.

“Sea power is growing in importance,” said U.S. Rear Admiral Robert Kamensky, commander of NATO’s submarine force, in a presentation on behalf of the U.S. Navy in London.
“We are experiencing increased demand … at the same time as a reduction in resources.”

Washington is moving ships from the Atlantic to Pacific in part to confront Beijing’s People’s Liberation Army Navy, seen the primary beneficiary of years of double-digit defense budget increases.
Beijing began operating its ex-Soviet carrier late last year, though it says it is not yet fully operational. It is also building submarines, patrol boats and other warships.
In September, state-backed China Shipbuilding Industry announced it planned to raise $1.4 billion through a private share sale to buy assets used for building warships, the first time Beijing had tapped the capital market to fund its military expansion.

U.S. TO SHRINK, OTHERS TO GROW?

Worried nearby nations – particularly those with maritime boundary disputes with China – are upgrading everything from radar to missiles and torpedoes.

Japan will next year see its largest defense spending rise in 22 years, purchasing patrol boats and helicopters and creating a force of marines. Australia is boosting its navy to include new assault ships, while Vietnam is buying Russian submarines.

The Philippines is dramatically expanding its once almost moribund force, acquiring two former U.S. Coast Guard cutters, Japanese patrol boats and a second-hand French warship.
Western defense firms struggling elsewhere are keen to get in on the act. BAE Systems is working with Thailand on building an offshore patrol boat, while other smaller firms are selling electronic equipment and weaponry.

Washington’s ability to strike from the sea remains without parallel, going well beyond its 10 massive carriers, currently over half the global total.

Five U.S. navy destroyers and an unspecified number of submarines are still holding position off Syria, ready to make good on threats of a cruise missile strike should a U.S.-Russian deal to put Syrian chemical weapons beyond use collapse.

Still, if the sequestration budget cuts continue throughout the decade, the U.S. Navy says it could be left with 38 fewer ships and might have to consider cutting its carrier fleet to eight or nine.
Sources say spending cuts are already affecting major U.S. shipbuilders such as Huntingdon Ingalls, with projects delayed, including the construction of the new USS John F. Kennedy nuclear carrier.
In the Gulf, worries over Iran’s swarms of small boat flotillas and the U.S. reduction of permanent carrier presence from two taskforces to one has prompted Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to buy and build new patrol boats.

Such deals can be highly lucrative. In July, Saudi Arabia asked to buy 30 Mark V special forces-style patrol boats worth $1.2 billion from unlisted Mississippi-based Halter Marine Inc.

In number of ships, many European fleets – including Britain’s Royal Navy, once the world’s pre-eminent maritime force – are now at their smallest in centuries. Britain has spent the last three years without a single operational aircraft carrier.

Though smaller, European navies remain potent. Spain, France and Italy have all built new carriers since 2000, the latter two using theirs heavily during the 2011 Libya war.

Britain’s “Queen Elizabeth” class – built by a BAE Systems-led consortium, with the first due to launch in 2014 – will be even more capable, the Royal Navy says, even if they will not have Lockheed Martin F-35 jets to fly for at least three years. By 2022, naval spending will have increased to 46 percent of Britain’s entire defense equipment budget.

“It amounts to nothing less than a maritime renaissance,” Britain’s First Sea Lord Admiral George Zambellas told an arms fair in London. “The Navy is back in business.”

(Editing by Will Waterman)

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By Hadeel Al Shalchi

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt halted tourism activities with Iran on Tuesday citing security concerns, a Tourism Ministry spokeswoman said, further distancing itself from Tehran after former Islamist President Mohamed Mursi tried to improve ties.

“At the moment the security situation does not allow the ministry to support travel with Iran, including flights and tourist visits,” spokeswoman Rasha Azaizi said, without giving details.
Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Cairo in February, the first visit by an Iranian leader in more than three decades.

The first commercial flight between Egypt and Iran in 34 years took off in March as Mursi tried to normalize ties broken after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. The state news agency said 43 Iranian tourists visited Egypt in April. But regular commercial flights never got underway.

Mursi, elected in 2012, was overthrown by the army in July after street protests against his rule. Azaizi said Mursi’s government’s plans to increase tourism with Iran had been put on hold.
Relations between Egypt and Iran broke down in 1979 when Cairo gave sanctuary to the deposed shah. Many in Egypt, a majority Sunni country, still harbor strong feelings against Shi’ite Iran.
The army-backed government views Tehran with deep suspicion. In July, Egypt accused Iran of “unacceptable interference” in its domestic affairs for criticizing the military’s removal of Mursi. Iran called the ousting of Mursi a “cause for concern” and suggested “foreign hands” were at work in the Arab state.

Egypt historically has much stronger ties with Gulf Arab states, who have vied with Iran for regional influence.

(Reporting and writing By Hadeel Al-Shalchi; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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By Daniel Fineren

Oman’s Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah addresses the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York September 30, 2013. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

DUBAI (Reuters) – If Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s dream of reaching a deal with world powers on Tehran’s nuclear program in six months comes true, Oman, an important intermediary in the dispute, could be a big winner.

There have been too many false dawns in Iran’s decade-old standoff with the West over Tehran’s nuclear program to bank on Rouhani’s call in New York last week for a deal within 3-6 months.

But in the weeks leading up to Rouhani’s first foreign trip since he became president in August, Omani officials have been visiting Tehran in a bid to buy Iranian gas in the hope that some day sanctions on Iran will be lifted and Oman can finally get the supplies it desperately needs over the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran sits on the world’s largest reserves of gas and Oman has been trying to buy some of it since 2005 to feed energy intensive industries and liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants planned before it cut its own reserves estimate.

Price disagreements, Western sanctions that have stunted Iranian energy projects and U.S. pressure on Oman to find other suppliers have prevented any real progress with the pipeline project since then.

But Oman is ahead in a queue like that which formed at Myanmar’s door as sanctions against the southeast Asian state were eased.

Muscat has moved quickly to cement ties since the election of moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani improved long-term trade prospects, with Oman’s Sultan Qaboos Bin Said the first head of state to meet Rouhani after his inauguration in early August.

On that trip, the two countries’ energy ministers signed a gas supply agreement that Iran’s energy minister valued at $60 billion over 25 years, which would be by far the biggest trade deal between the two neighbors, if any gas ever flows between them.

“The new government of Iran has a different approach. We are very optimistic that all the political issues between Iran and the West, particularly, will be resolved,” Oman energy minister Mohammed bin Hamad Al Rumhy told Reuters in early September after signing the gas deal in late August.

“This is our wish in Oman and we’re working towards it… The feeling in Oman is that things are changing.”

Sunni Gulf Arab leaders have tense relations with Shi’ite Tehran, but Sultan Qaboos has been on relatively good terms during his 43-year reign. He met Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif and top Iranian military officials on his latest trip, and his defense minister signed a military cooperation deal in Tehran in mid-September, Oman’s state news agency reported.

Oman is a close U.S. ally and has acted as a go-between for Tehran and Washington in the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, according to U.S. embassy cables published by Wikileaks dating back to 2006. Tehran dismisses Western suspicions it plans a bomb, saying its nuclear aims are purely peaceful.

U.S. officials have been warning that building a gas pipeline to Iran would likely be in violation of sanctions since an early trade deal was signed in 2007, according to U.S. Embassy cables published by Wikileaks.

Although the political environment has improved since Rouhani came to power, sanctions remain firmly in place and any company involved in the project would probably be in violation of them, a Western diplomatic source said.

GAS SHORTAGES

The U.S. ambassador to Oman wrote in a September 15, 2008 cable published by Wikileaks that his office would “continue to remind relevant officials as appropriate of the potential applicability of the Iran Sanctions Act,” but noted that “Oman’s urgent need for new gas supplies and dearth of potential suppliers severely limits receptivity to our message”.

Oman started importing Qatari gas through a pipeline across the United Arab Emirates in 2007. But it was not enough. A U.S. embassy cable dated May 6, 2009, quoted Minister Rumhy saying gas imports from Iran were “necessary and inevitable” because Qatar and Saudi Arabia had turned down his supply requests.

The U.S. embassy and Oman energy ministry in Muscat declined to comment on the latest gas deal but the Western diplomatic source said it had not been done with U.S. approval, despite a brighter outlook on relations with Tehran.

A U.S. official in Washington said: “U.S. concerns have been conveyed to Oman,” but did not elaborate.

Oman’s ever-growing gas appetite has already taken a bite out of its potential LNG exports and unless it can find a lot more feedstock those exports could dry up altogether over the next decade, analysts say.

Iranian officials have said they expect gas exports to Oman to start in under two years, but Rumhy has said it is unlikely construction of the physically challenging subsea pipeline could even start in that time.

His talks with Iran coincide with continuing negotiations to finalize British energy company BP’s Khazzan project to extract hard-to-reach gas in Oman that could supply around 1 billion cubic feet a day by 2018.

Oman will still need more imports in the longer term, so it makes strategic sense to do the political groundwork even if sanctions hold back progress.

“Given the recent changes in the political leadership in Iran, this is good time to start working towards a mutually beneficial agreement,” Richard Quin, Lead Analyst Middle East & North Africa Upstream Research at consultants Wood Mackenzie in Edinburgh, said.

“The advantage of this being a long term play is that it allows time for geopolitical challenges that exist between Iran and the rest of the world to make some kind of material progress.”

MANY OBSTACLES

Tehran has signed deals to supply gas to Pakistan, Iraq and Oman, but Iran’s own voracious gas appetite has made it difficult to meet existing sales commitments with Turkey and forced Iran to import gas from Turkmenistan.

Delays to an overland link to Pakistan highlight the financial and political obstacles to any such project as long as Tehran is in Washington’s bad books.

The Oman route has not yet been decided. But the options available are all technically challenging for a country that has only ever laid relatively short pipelines in the shallow waters of the Gulf.

Iranian hopes of using spare capacity at Oman LNG export plants to ship Iran’s gas to a global market are even more distant dreams, analysts say, because sanctions-wary Western companies hold shares in them.

The biggest obstacle could be reaching agreement on the value of Iran’s gas. Gas prices in Oman are fixed at below the costs of most producers and even after planned rises in the next few years, are set to remain well below international levels.

The LNG part of the project would improve the economics from an Iranian perspective, because it could open access to the markets of east Asia which currently pay five times more for gas.

But analysts say it is hard to see Oman’s LNG project partners agreeing terms with Tehran, and unless Iran agrees to supply gas to Oman at a price below the low levels set in long-term LNG export deals Oman has signed, they say it would make more economic sense for Oman to stop exports of LNG instead.

“(The) big questions – much more important than sanctions and the technical side – are what would the price be, and does Iran have any gas to export?” said Jonathan Stern, head of gas research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

“History is littered with Iranian regional gas pipeline schemes which come to nothing; this is a revival of one of them and I doubt it will make any progress.”

(Additional reporting by Amran Abocar in Seoul and Timothy Gardner in Washington; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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Shows the Power of BDS Organizing!

Big news! We just received confirmation that Veolia Transdev — a long-standing target of boycott and divestment Palestine solidarity campaigns worldwide along with its partial owner Veolia Environment –has sold off all bus services in Israel/Palestine! Until last week, Veolia Transdev, through its Israeli subsidiary Connex, operated bus lines for settlers on segregated roads in the Palestinian West Bank, and other lines throughout Israel. Today it operates none.

This marks one of the most significant, tangible victories to date for the international boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Veolia represents the global flagship BDS target, having lost more than $16 billion in contracts following campaigns across continents citing Veolia’s complicity in Israel’s gross violations of Palestinian human rights.

LA activists highlight Veolia bus segregation, now a thing of the past.

In the U.S., member groups from Los Angeles to Boston have taken Veolia to task in their city councils and municipal departments. Peace-seeking Quakers andUnited Methodists achieved divestment from Veolia, while member groups in Yoloand Sonoma Counties, CA, and St. Louis, MO celebrated local victories and major breakthroughs catching the attention of Israeli officials, Veolia headquarters, mayoral candidates, and popular media.

These activities, combined with parallel campaigns across the world, have imposed a significant cost to Veolia for its ongoing participation in Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies — a cost that Veolia can no longer ignore, as evidenced by the recent news.

St. Louisans at City Hall connect Veolia injustices in Palestine with its labor and environmental abuses.

Nonetheless, Veolia remains an important target. It continues to own and operate the Tovlan landfill in the occupied West Bank, which collects and dumps refuse from Israeli settlements using illegally captured Palestinian land and natural resources — a form of pillage; it provides wastewater services to settlements; and Veolia Transdev still operates the Jerusalem Light Rail, which deeply entrenches and normalizes Israeli illegal settlements in East Jerusalem.Beyond Palestine, Veolia is also infamous for labor abuses, privatizing public resources, and disastrous environmental practices.
This recent victory illustrates the power of local organizing and the importance of redoubling our efforts to hold Veolia accountable until it ends all complicity in Israel’s abusive practices once and for all!

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By Brad Plumer

Not shut down…

A government shutdown starting Tuesday, Oct. 1, is now upon us. The House and Senate couldn’t agree on a bill to fund the government, and time has run out.

So… it’s shutdown time. Let’s take a look at how this will work.

Not all government functions will simply evaporate come Oct. 1 — Social Security checks will still get mailed, and veterans’ hospitals will stay open. But many federal agencies will shut their doors and send their employees home, from the Environmental Protection Agency to hundreds of national parks.

Here’s a look at how a shutdown will work, which parts of the government will close, and which parts of the economy might be affected.

Wait, what? Why is the federal government on the verge of shutting down?

Short answer: There are wide swaths of the federal government that need to be funded each year in order to operate. If Congress can’t agree on how to fund them, they have to close down. And, right now, Congress can’t agree on how to fund them.

To get a bit more specific: Each year, the House and Senate are supposed to agree on 12 appropriations bills to fund the federal agencies and set spending priorities. Congress has become really bad at passing these bills, so in recent years they’ve resorted to stopgap budgets to keep the government funded (known as “continuing resolutions”). The last stopgap passed on March 28, 2013, and ends on Sept. 30.

In theory, Congress could pass another stopgap before Tuesday. But the Democratic-controlled Senate and Republican-controlled House are at odds over what that stopgap should look like. The House passed a funding bill over the weekend that delayed Obamacare for one year and repealed a tax on medical devices. The Senate rejected that measure. They voted a few more times and still no agreement. So… we’re getting a shutdown.

Does a shutdown mean everyone who works for the federal government has to go home?

Not exactly. The laws and regulations governing shutdowns separate federal workers into “essential” and “non-essential.” (Actually, the preferred term nowadays is “excepted” and “non-excepted.” This was tweaked in 1995 because “non-essential” seemed a bit hurtful. But we’ll keep things simple.)

The Office of Management and Budget recently ordered managers at all federal agencies to conduct reviews to see which of their employees fall into each of these two categories. If a shutdown hits, the essential workers stick around, albeit without pay. The non-essential workers have to go home after a half-day of preparing to close shop.

Which parts of government stay open?

There are a whole bunch of key government functions that carry on during a shutdown, including anything related to national security, public safety, or programs written into permanent law (like Social Security). Here’s a partial list:

— Any employee or office that “provides for the national security, including the conduct of foreign relations essential to the national security or the safety of life and property.” That means the U.S. military will keep operating, for one. So will embassies abroad.

— Any employee who conducts “essential activities to the extent that they protect life and property.” So, for example: Air traffic control stays open. So does all emergency medical care, border patrol, federal prisons, most law enforcement, emergency and disaster assistance, overseeing the banking system, operating the power grid, and guarding federal property.

— Agencies have to keep sending out benefits and operating programs that are written into permanent law or get multi-year funding. That means sending out Social Security checks and providing certain types of veterans’ benefits. Unemployment benefits and food stamps will also continue for the time being, since their funding has been approved in earlier bills.

— All agencies with independent sources of funding remain open, including the U.S. Postal Service and the Federal Reserve.

— Members of Congress can stick around, since their pay is written into permanent law. Congressional staffers however, will also get divided into essential and non-essential, with the latter getting furloughed. Many White House employees could also get sent home.

Do these “essential” employees who keep working get paid?

The 1.3 million or so “essential” civilian employees who stay on could well see their paychecks delayed during the shutdown, depending on the timing. They should, however, receive retroactive pay if and when Congress decides to fund the government again.

The 1.4 million active-service military members, meanwhile, will get paid no matter how long the shutdown lasts. That’s because the House and Senate specifically passed a bill to guarantee active-duty military pay even when the government is closed. Obama signed it into law Monday night.

So which parts of government actually shut down?

Everything else, basically. It’s a fairly long list, and you can check out in detail which activities the agencies are planning to halt in these contingency plans posted by each agency. Here are a few select examples:

Health: The National Institutes of Health will stop accepting new patients for clinical research and stop answering hotline calls about medical questions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop its seasonal flu program and have a “significantly reduced capacity to respond to outbreak investigations.”

Housing: The Department of Housing and Urban Development will not be able to provide local housing authorities with additional money for housing vouchers. The nation’s 3,300 public housing authorities will also stop receiving payments, although most of these agencies have enough cash on hand to provide rental assistance through the end of October.

Immigration: The Department of Homeland Security will no longer operate its E-Verify program, which means that businesses will not be able to check on the legal immigration status of prospective employees during the shutdown.

Law enforcement: Although agencies like the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency will continue their operations, the Justice Department will suspend many civil cases for as long as the government is shut down.

Parks and museums: The National Park Service will close more than 400 national parks and museums, including Yosemite National Park in California, Alcatraz in San Francisco, and the Statue of Liberty in New York. The last time this happened during the 1995-96 shutdown, some 7 million visitors were turned away. (One big exception was the south rim of the Grand Canyon, which stayed open only because Arizona agreed to pick up the tab.)

Regulatory agencies: The Environmental Protection Agency will close down almost entirely during a shutdown, save for operations around Superfund sites. Many of the Labor Department’s regulatory offices will close, including the Wage and Hour Division and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (The Mine Safety and Health Administration will, however, stay open.)

Financial regulators. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees the vast U.S. derivatives market, will largely shut down. A few financial regulators, however, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, will remain open.

(Small parts of) Social Security: The Social Security Administration will retain enough staff to make sure the checks keep going out. But the agency won’t have enough employees to do things like help recipients replace their benefit cards or schedule new hearings for disability cases.

Visas and passports: The State Department says it will keep most passport agencies and consular operations open so long as it has the funds to do so, although some activities might be interrupted. (For instance, “if a passport agency is located in a government building affected by a lapse in appropriations, the facility may become unsupported.”)

During the previous shutdown in 1995-’96, around 20,000 to 30,000 applications from foreigners for visas went unprocessed each day. This time around, the State Department is planning to continue processing visas through the shutdown, since those operations are largely funded by fees collected.

Veterans: Some key benefits will continue and the VA hospitals will remained open. But many services will be disrupted. The Veterans Benefits Administration will be unable to process education and rehabilitation benefits. The Board of Veterans’ Appeals will be unable to hold hearings.

What’s more, if the shutdown lasts for more than two or three weeks, the Department of Veterans Affairs has said that it may not have enough money to pay disability claims and pension payments. That could affect some 3.6 million veterans.

Women, Infants, and Children: The Department of Agriculture will cut off support for the Women, Infants and Children program, which helps pregnant women and new moms buy healthy food and provides nutritional information and health care referrals. The program reaches some 9 million Americans. The USDA estimates most states have funds to continue their programs for “a week or so,” but they’ll “likely be unable to sustain operations for a longer period” — emergency funds may run out by the end of October.

Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) has a list of other possible effects of a shutdown. Funds to help states administer unemployment benefits could get disrupted, IRS tax-refund processing for certain returns would be suspended, farm loans and payments would stop, and Small Business Administration approval of business loan guarantees and direct loans would likely cease.

Would the city of Washington D.C. be affected?

Only if the shutdown goes on longer than a few weeks. In theory, the District of Columbia is supposed to shut down all but its most essential services during a government shutdown. But Mayor Vincent Gray has said that he will label all city services “essential” and use a cash reserve fund to keep everything going for as long as possible.

Some background: The District of Columbia is the only city barred from spending funds during a federal government shutdown, save for a few select services. During the 1995-’96 shutdown, the city was only able to keep police, firefighters and EMS units on duty. Trash collection and street sweeping came to a stop until Congress finally intervened.

This time, however, the District is taking a more defiant stance. Gray has recently said that he will declare all city services “essential” and keep them running. And the city has $144 million in funds to carry out services like trash collection and street sweeping for two weeks. If the shutdown drags on longer, however, it’s unclear what will happen…

How many federal employees would be affected by a government shutdown?

The government estimates that roughly 800,000 federal workers will get sent home if the government shuts down.

That leaves about 1.3 million “essential” federal workers, 1.4 million active-duty military members, 500,000 Postal Service workers, and other employees in independently-funded agencies who will continue working.

Can you give me an agency-by-agency breakdown of the impacts?

Yes. We’ve been compiling a detailed list here at the Post, but here’s a brief overview, showing how many employees are furloughed, and examples of who stays and who goes:

Department of Commerce: 87 percent of the agency’s 46,420 employees would be sent home. (The Weather Service would keep running, for instance, but the Census Bureau would close down.)

Department of Defense: 50 percent of the 800,000 civilian employees would be sent home while all 1.4 million active-duty military members would stay on. (Environmental engineers, for instance, would get furloughed, and the agency could not sign any new defense contracts.)

Department of Energy: Thanks to multi-year funding, parts of the agency can actually operate for “a short period of time” after Sept. 30. But eventually 69 percent of the agency’s 13,814 employees will be sent home. (Those in charge of nuclear materials and power grids stay. Those conducting energy research go home.)

Environmental Protection Agency: 94 percent of the 16,205 employees will be sent home. (Those protecting toxic Superfund sites stay. Pollution and pesticide regulators get sent home.)

Federal Reserve: Everyone would stay, since the central bank has an independent source of funding.

Department of Health and Human Services: 52 percent of 78,198 employees would be sent home. (Those running the Suicide Prevention Lifeline would stay, those in charge of investigating Medicare fraud would go home.)

Department of Homeland Security: 14 percent of the 231,117 employees would go home. (Border Patrol would stay. Operations of E-Verify would cease. The department will also suspend disaster-preparedness grants to states and localities.)

Department of Housing and Urban Development: 95 percent of the 8,709 employees would go home. (Those in charge of guaranteeing mortgages at Ginnie Mae would stay, as would those in charge of homelessness programs. Almost everything else would come to a halt.)

Department of Interior: 81 percent of the 72,562 employees would be sent home. (Wildlife law enforcement officers would stay, while the national parks would close.)

Department of Justice: 15 percent of the 114,486 employees would go home. (FBI agents, drug enforcement agents, and federal prison employees would stay. The department would continue running background checks for gun sales. Some attorneys would go home.)

Department of Labor: 82 percent of the 16,304 employees would be sent home. (Mine-safety inspectors will stay. Wage and occupational safety regulators will go home. Employees compiling economic data for the Bureau of Labor Statistics will also get furloughed.)

NASA: 97 percent of the 18,134 employees would be sent home. (Scientists working on the International Space Station will stay. Many engineers will go home.)

U.S. Postal Service: Everyone would stay, since the Postal Service is self-funded.

Social Security Administration: 29 percent of the 62,343 employees would be sent home. (Claims representatives would stay; actuaries would go home.)

Supreme Court and federal courts. Federal courts, will continue to operate for approximately two weeks with reserve funds. After that, only essential employees would continue to work, as determined by the chief judge, with the rest furloughed. (The Supreme Court will continue to operate when it opens Oct. 7, as it did in previous shutdowns.)

Department of Treasury: 80 percent of the 112,461 employees will be sent home. (Those sending out Social Security checks would stay; IRS employees overseeing audits would go home.)

Department of Transportation: 33 percent of the 55,468 employees will get sent home. (Air-traffic controllers will stay on; most airport inspections will cease.)

Department of Veterans Affairs: 4 percent of the 332,025 employees would go home. (Hospital workers will stay; some workers in charge of processing benefits will go home.)

A much, much more detailed list can be found in the agency contingency plans online.

Do “non-essential employees” who get sent home ever get paid?

That’s unclear, as my colleague Lisa Rein has reported. On the first day of the shutdown, these employees do have to come to their offices to secure their files, set up auto-reply messages, and make preparations necessary to halt their programs.

The last time this happened, Congress later agreed to pay these employees retroactively when the government reopened. But that’s completely up to Congress.

Is the government even prepared for a shutdown?

Maybe? As mentioned before, the Office of Management and Budget has asked federal agencies to develop contingency plans for a shutdown. But chaos is always possible. Back during the 1995 shutdown, the Social Security Administration initially sent home far too many workers and had to recall 50,000 of them after three days in order to carry out its legal duties.

Which parts of the economy would be most affected by a shutdown?

A few points:

— The local economy around Washington, D.C. is expected to lose some $200 million in economic activity for each day that the government is shut down.

— Economist Mark Zandi has estimated that a short government shutdown, which would send more than 800,000 federal workers home, could shave about 0.3 percentage points off economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2013 (though the economy would likely bounce back in the following quarter). A more extended shutdown could do even more damage.

— Alternatively, we can look at what happened back in 1995 and 1996, the last two times the federal government actually shut down for a few weeks. In a research note earlier this month, Chris Krueger of Guggenheim Partners passed along some thoughts about the possible economic impacts of a shutdown in a few areas:

Tourism: U.S. tourist industries and airlines reportedly sustained millions of dollars in losses during the 1995 and 1996 shutdowns, in part because so many parks and museums were shutting down, turning away 7 million visitors in all.

Federal contractors: Of the $18 billion in federal contracts in the D.C. area back in 1995-’96, about one-fifth, or $3.7 billion, were put on hold during that era’s shutdown. Employees of contractors were reportedly furloughed without pay.

The effects would be considerably larger today, given that the number of private contractors has swelled over the past two decades. In Fairfax County, Virginia, alone there are currently 4,100 contractors that bring in about $26 billion per year. It’s still unclear exactly how many of those contracts would be affected.

Energy: The Department of Interior would temporarily stop reviewing permits for onshore oil and gas drilling as well as applications for renewable energy projects on public land. (The Department of Energy can keep processing applications for liquefied natural gas exports for the time being, though it’s not clear how long that funding will last.)

Pharma and biotech: This one’s harder to game out. The Food and Drug Administration didn’t have to shut down in 1995 and 1996 because it was already funded. This time around, however, the FDA won’t be spared, and the review process for new drugs is likely to get bogged down. The shutdown could also put a cramp on the grant process from the National Institutes of Health. “If prolonged,” Krueger writes, “that could negatively impact life sciences/diagnostics companies.

Would a government shutdown stop Obamacare from happening?

No. As Sarah Kliff has explained, the key parts of Obamacare rely on mandatory spending that isn’t affected by a shutdown. “That includes the new online marketplaces, known as exchanges, where uninsured people will be able to shop for coverage. The Medicaid expansion is funded with mandatory funding, as are the billions in federal tax credits to help with purchasing coverage.”

That means uninsured Americans will be able to start shopping for plans when the exchanges launch Oct. 1, although there are likely to be some glitches.

How do you end a government shutdown?

Congress needs to pass a bill (or bills) to fund the government, and the White House has to sign them. They can do this at any time. Or they can sit at home and keep the government closed. Nothing requires them to do anything. It depends what sort of political pressure they’re facing.

How often has the government shut down before?

Technically, 17 times. But a serious, prolonged shutdown? That’s only happened once before.

Since 1976, there have been 17 times when Congress has allowed government funding to lapse. Back in the 1970s, this happened on six occasions, although those lapses didn’t lead to actual, physical shutdowns — government carried on as usual.

Then, in the early 1980s, then-Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti argued that the Anti-Deficiency Act actually required government agencies to close down if their funding expired. Since then, a failure to fund the government has meant an actual, tangible shutdown. Most of the shutdowns in the 1980s were brief affairs.

By far the most significant shutdown to date came in 1995-’96 and lasted 21 days, as Bill Clinton wrangled with congressional Republicans over budget matters.

Is a government shutdown the same thing as breaching the debt ceiling?

Nope! Different type of crisis. In a government shutdown, the federal government is not allowed to make any new spending commitments (save for all the exceptions noted above).

By contrast, if we hit the debt-ceiling then the Treasury Department won’t be able to borrow money to pay for spending that Congress has already approved. In that case, either Congress will have to lift the debt ceiling or the federal government will have to default on some of its bills, possibly including payments to bondholders or Social Security payouts. That could trigger big disruptions in the financial markets — or a long-term rise in borrowing costs.

The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates that we’re on pace to breach the debt ceiling sometime between Oct. 18 and Nov. 5. So if a government shutdown isn’t thrilling enough for you, good news: There’s another fiscal crisis just around the corner.

Brad PlumerBrad Plumer covers energy and environmental issues, which ends up including just about everything from climate change to agriculture to urban policy and transportation. Follow him on Twitter at @bradplumer.

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