The third government shutdown since October has stretched into another week, after the Senate decamped on Thursday without reaching a deal to fund portions of the Department of Homeland Security, in the last appropriations bill left unenacted. Federal immigration enforcement agencies were funded last summer in the Big Beautiful Bill, but the current shutdown affects pay for employees of the Coast Guard, TSA, FEMA, and the Secret Service, among other agencies.

“In this case, about 90% of the Department of Homeland Security employees, for obvious reasons, are considered essential. So it’s only a very small percent that are furloughed this week,” explained Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) on “Washington Watch.” “But it should be none. The bottom line is, Congress should be able to keep the government open and fund it.”

On a fundamental level, “these shutdowns show how divided our government is, how divided our country is ideologically,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “But at a certain point you reach a dysfunction that is going to be very difficult” to continue.

Perkins identified at least three implications of chronic government shutdowns that spell trouble for America.

First, our government is oppressing its own employees who are forced to work without pay. “This is one of the most vital agencies of the federal government, Department of Homeland Security, along with our nation’s military. I mean, we should make sure that they and their families are compensated for the work they do,” Perkins argued. “This is actually a biblical concept, in Deuteronomy 24, you’re not supposed to withhold wages for someone.”

Perkins was referencing Deuteronomy 24:14-15, which states, “You shall not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and counts on it), lest he cry against you to the Lord, and you be guilty of sin.” Leviticus 19:13 makes the same point.

Of course, federal employees are not so poor as a day laborer in ancient Israel. These are salaried employees paid every two weeks or every month. Nor does every law given to ancient Israel transfer directly to 21st-century America. Rather, Israel’s laws teach us God’s principles of justice and righteousness, which we must then apply to our context.

Here, the application of Deuteronomy’s case law is fairly straightforward. Employers who do not pay their employees on time are oppressing them. This is because, in most cases, the one who works for pay “counts on it.” From creation (Genesis 2:15), humans have worked to provide for themselves the necessities of life. In societies that have advanced beyond subsistence farming and barter, people work for money, which they then exchange for what they need. Yet the bond between work and basic sustenance remains so strong that Paul warns, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

Today, we face an opposite scenario. Federal employees deemed “essential” are forced to work, even if they are not paid. Federal employees must pay for housing, bills, groceries, doctor visits, and transportation, not to mention braces for their kids — just the same as everyone else. Those in the D.C. region must meet these costs in one of the nation’s most expensive markets. Yet, when federal employees miss one paycheck, or even two (as they did over the shutdown in October and November 2025), they naturally start to wonder about how they will eat.

How many American families would be satisfied to go a whole month without income, even though they were still working? How many families would make ends meet?

In most cases, when someone is forced to work without pay, their condition is described as slavery. When it happens to government employees, their condition is described as essential. The difference is that a slave master was at least expected to provide for the basic necessities of those who served him without pay. The federal government does not cover the mortgage payments for those TSA agents or Secret Security officers required to stay at their post for nothing.

Second and related, the worthiest federal employees will likely seek other employment. “I’m concerned that good employees … if this keeps occurring, that some of these folks are going to look elsewhere,” Perkins expressed. “We need good people in the Homeland Security because we want our country to be secure.”

Private sector jobs in Washington, D.C. often offer higher pay than federal employment. One perk of government jobs that keeps them competitive is their stability. But the weeks of uncertainty that accompanies chronic shutdowns takes away the stability. People need to feed their families. And those with talent to do so will eventually take higher-paying and perhaps even safer jobs in the private sector.

Already, federal government employment has fallen by 10.9% since October 2024, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week, as the Trump administration’s early “DOGE” effort tried to slim down the workforce by making the lives of federal employees onerous. One weakness in this strategy, however, was that it could not differentiate between high- and low-quality employees.

If Congress accepts chronic shutdowns as the new normal, it will only accelerate the “brain drain.”

Third, chronic shutdowns perpetuate public mistrust of government. “The American people, I think, want government to function,” Perkins argued, “and buy time for the parties to work out their differences.”

“It erodes the trust and confidence that exists or may exist for Congress,” Harris agreed. “This is the third [shutdown] we’ve had in a short time frame. I think the public is getting tired of it, and we ought to listen to what the public wants.”

“This is Congress’s job, to keep the federal government funded,” Harris added. “We don’t do it. … We should eliminate any shutdowns. That should be the job of Congress, [the] basic job of Congress.”

In fact, Harris noted, conservatives in Congress have devised a solution to do just that. The House Freedom Caucus and Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) have introduced legislation that would implement “rolling continuing resolutions maybe two weeks in duration, allowing you to conduct these negotiations, but keeping the government funded,” explained Harris, who currently chairs the House Freedom Caucus.

Johnson has introduced the “Eliminate Shutdowns Act” (S.2806) and the “Shutdown Fairness Act” (S.3012), which provide different mechanisms to incentivize Congress to reach a deal, even while the government remains open. “It depends on which approach you take,” said Harris. One bill would “cut funding at 1% every month or so,” while another would halt “the funding of grants and monies flowing out of the government, but not to workers.”

Harris urged Congress to pass one such bill this year. As for the current partial shutdown of DHS, he estimated it could last for another two weeks. “All the workers got paid last Friday,” he said. “It’ll be two weeks until the full force is felt. So, for instance, the TSA officers will miss a paycheck about a week and a half from now. And I think then the pressure begins to build for the Democrats to say, ‘Enough is enough.’”