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(WASHINGTON) — Congress is scrambling to lock in a plan to keep several key government agencies funded before a Friday deadline — or risk a partial government shutdown that, among having other impacts, could eventually affect food assistance for millions.

Funding for the agencies — about 20% of the government — would run out on Friday night, and one week later on March 8, funding for the other 80% of government agencies also would expire if Congress fails to act.

Here’s what to know about what would happen if a partial shutdown takes effect at the end of the day March 1.

Which agencies would be affected in the shutdown?

If Congress can’t strike a deal, funding for the departments of Agriculture; Energy, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs, including military construction, would expire Friday night.

Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security payments wouldn’t be affected in a shutdown. Neither would the U.S. Postal Service, which uses its own revenue stream.

What happens to workers during a shutdown?

A shutdown means workers at those agencies who aren’t deemed essential would have to stop working and would be furloughed. Employees in essential roles would be required to keep working without pay.

Many government employees would be told to report to work without pay, including service members, air traffic controllers and inspectors for railroads and airports.

More than 100,000 workers are expected to be furloughed on the spot without a solution from Congress by Friday night.

What about food assistance programs?

Two major food assistance programs under the Department of Agriculture could be affected by a long-term shutdown.

The Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children — known as WIC — helps feed nearly 7 million at-risk, low-income women, infants and toddlers and is funded through March under the current continuing resolution. Funding won’t dry up right away, but an enrollment surge of about 400,000 last year could mean wait lists increase if funding stays flat.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — also known as SNAP — had an average monthly participation of approximately 42 million individuals in 2023. The USDA acted to ensure that SNAP participants will get their March assistance.

Veterans’ benefits will still be available

Government agencies have contingency plans in place should a shutdown occur — some involve furloughs or reduction of services.

With Veterans Affairs, about 17,800 employees would be furloughed and about 441,000 would be retained and paid thanks to advanced appropriations.

Veterans’ medical care would still be available in the event of a shutdown. Other benefits would continue to be processed and delivered, including compensation, pension, education and housing benefits.

In a news conferences Monday, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said there would be “no impact on veteran health care” if a shutdown were to happen.

“However, we would not be able to conduct most outreach to veterans. Our public-facing regional offices would be closed and many regular operations like career counseling, transition assistance, and cemetery ground maintenance would not be available,” McDonough said.

How would transportation be affected?

Key transportation operations would continue in a shutdown, but some services and employees would be affected.

Roughly 16,600 of the more than 45,000 Federal Aviation Administration employees are expected to be furloughed in a shutdown, agency officials said. Another 400 Federal Railroad Administration employees are expected to be furloughed.

TSA officers would continue to work without pay. However, with potentially fewer on duty, the White House has warned of possible longer wait times for travelers, as was the case in previous shutdowns.

Services such as facility security inspections under the FAA and research and development under the railroad administration would halt.

Rental assistance not immediately at risk

Rental assistance programs — which serve 4.5 million households — would not be immediately affected by a shutdown since they are funded through April, said HUD deputy press secretary Zachary Nosanchuk.

A shutdown would “greatly delay” the distribution of HUD grants to communities across the country, “possibly causing problems for counties, cities, and towns,” Nosanchuk said. New grant funds would not be available in a shutdown, he added.

Haven’t we been here before?

We sure have. This is the fourth time since October that Congress has stared down a government-funding deadline. Congress has already passed legislation to buy itself more time to negotiate long-term funding bills on three separate occasions since then.

But each passing deadline ups the stakes. Ukraine aid, border security provisions, and Kevin McCarthy’s speakership have all been casualties of previous government funding standoffs.

ABC News’ Allison Pecorin and Sam Sweeney contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday assembled voting rights leaders to reiterate the White House’s support for the issue as she has taken a public role in advocating for several Democratic priorities — on ballot access as well as abortion rights.

For the second time, Harris convened organizers described as being on the front lines of protecting voting rights and registering communities to vote, the White House said in a statement to ABC News.

The vice president and the approximately few dozen leaders met in a closed-door roundtable discussion in the Indian Treaty Room.

“We have seen those who would loudly attempt to interfere in the lawful votes of the American people and attempt to question the integrity of a fair and free election system,” Harris said before the roundtable. “We have seen a rise in threats against poll workers. In fact, I met some recently in Georgia who had harrowing experiences in terms of how they were threatened, their well-being as well as their livelihood.”

Underscoring her point, elsewhere on Tuesday, an Indiana man pleaded guilty to charges that he threatened to kill a Michigan election worker who had made public statements defending the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, the Justice Department said.

In her White House meeting, Harris laid out a four-point plan that the administration will initiate to try to bolster voters’ rights.

The plan includes emailing instructions on how to register to vote to everyone enrolled in the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare; allowing students to get paid through federal work study for helping people to register to vote and working as nonpartisan poll workers; implementing initiatives to protect election workers; and announcing three national “days of action” to promote voting.

The three days will be Juneteenth, June 19, the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6 and National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 17, according to Harris.

The vice president also said she will be in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday in remembrance of “Bloody Sunday,” when white law enforcement officers attacked Black voting rights marchers on March 7, 1965, at the height of the civil rights movement.

“Many of us will be in Selma on Sunday to commemorate Bloody Sunday to remember the great John Lewis and Amelia Boynton and so many others — to issue a call, yet again, for Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,” Harris said.

President Joe Biden has for years pushed for lawmakers to implement major election and voting overhauls that supporters say would expand ballot access.

Opponents, including many Republicans, argue such legislation would let the federal government intrude on state authority.

While Biden and Harris, now in the early stages of their reelection campaign, have reiterated their support for voting rights, they have also faced some criticism in their party for not taking more aggressive steps.

At the same time, the Voting Rights Act has come under new legal scrutiny.

A federal appellate panel ruled in November that a key provision of the landmark law does not allow people outside the federal government to sue over alleged electoral discrimination based on race.

For decades, individual voters and civil rights groups have brought successful challenges under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, including last term at the Supreme Court, in a case about whether Alabama’s congressional map was drawn to dilute the voting power of Black people. The justices sided with the plaintiffs.

Multiple civil rights organizations, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed an appeal of the ruling in December. It will likely go to the U.S. Supreme Court this year.

The court’s conservative-leaning majority has already sharply curtailed the act in a series of recent decisions to bring its enforcement in line with their interpretation of the law.

ABC News’ Devin Dwyer, Alexander Mallin, Isabella Murray and Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Senate Democrats on Wednesday aim to force Republicans to take a public stand in the controversy over in vitro fertilization by requiring them to either support or oppose legislation led by Sen. Tammy Duckworth — a measure that would establish a statutory right to access assistive reproductive technologies, including IVF, in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling.

At a news conference Tuesday, Duckworth, who is sponsoring the legislation to create a federal law ensuring access, shared her personal experiences with IVF, which she said she used to conceive her two children.

“It’s a little personal to me when a majority male court suggests that people like me who are not able to have kids without the help of modern medicine should be in jail cells and not taking care of their babies in nurseries,” the Illinois Democrat said. “I know I’m not alone when I struggle to understand how politicians who support this kind of policy can possibly call themselves pro-life.”

Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that “unborn children are ‘children’ … without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.” The unprecedented decision from the court could impact the future of IVF treatments in the state — and several IVF providers have paused parts of their care to patients for fear of legal risks.

Duckworth’s plan would require unanimous consent in order for it to pass — even one objection from a Republican would tank it.

But Democrats were out in force Tuesday announcing that they’d push forward with trying to pass the legislation in hopes of putting Republicans on the record.

“I’m headed to the Senate floor to call on my colleagues to pass via unanimous consent my access to family building act, which would ensure that every American’s right to become a parent via treatments like IVF is fully protected regardless of what state they live in,” Duckworth said.

It’s not yet clear whether Republicans will try to block the bill from advancing. Several Republicans signaled an openness to Duckworth’s legislation, but some doubted the need for federal action.

“There’s no effort in Florida or any state in the country to ban fertility treatment,” Sen. Marco Rubio said.

But the Florida Republican indicated legislation could be a relief for medical practitioners exposed to liability.

“I think it’d be worthwhile for every state to provide clear, legal legislative guidance on how clinics can handle unused embryos, particularly when parents have not given clear direction,” Rubio said.

Sen. Roger Marshall, an OBGYN who practiced medicine for more than 25 years before he was elected to the Senate, called on colleagues to “have a lot of compassion and care. this is a very complicated topic, a very personal topic. I encourage people discuss the issue with their own pastor, their own priests, their own rabbi.”

“The Republican Party is the pro family party. So there’s nothing more pro family then then welcoming new babies into the into the world. I think the Dobbs decision clearly puts this issue back at the state level. And we’d encourage the state legislature of Alabama to right this wrong and look forward to more IVF babies,” the Kansas Republican said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham bluntly said an embryo doesn’t constitute life.

“I think one thing I’ve learned is that nobody’s ever been born in a freezer, that I know of. So you’re not going to be born in a freezer. A fertilized egg has to be planted into a biological woman — then you can have a baby,” Graham said.

The South Carolina Republican said IVF “actually [provides] people with children who have a hard time otherwise.”

“We’re talking about the law here. At the end of the day, a embryo in a freezer is not going to develop into a human being. So we need to have a balanced approach to make sure that the the treatments go forward,” Graham said.

Duckworth said that if Republicans who, in recent days have been out in force asserting their support of IVF, are being true to their word, they should support her effort Wednesday.

“I expect them to if they live up to the words that they are saying to not block it, but we’ll see tomorrow when rubber hits the road whether they actually show up and show support for IVF or whether they actively block American families’ ability to start families through IVF,” Duckworth said Tuesday.

Duckworth appeared on “This Week” Sunday where she told co-anchor Martha Raddatz that “it’s been crickets” from Republicans since the Alabama ruling threatened IVF access in the state.

“Not a single Republican has reached out to me on the bill. I’ve introduced a bill, multiple times, now multiple Congresses — but frankly, let’s see if they vote for it when we when we bring it to the floor,” Duckworth told Raddatz.

Duckworth’s bill also establishes the right to use or dispose of “reproductive genetic material” and allows the Justice Department to pursue civil action against states who block this right.

Duckworth has been trying to advance a similar version of this bill for years, but it has previously faced challenges from Republicans.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden handily won the Michigan primary Tuesday night, but still faced protest votes over his handling of the war in Gaza.

Critics of the president have protested the Israel-Hamas war across the state, which is home to a large Arab American population. However, it remains unclear if the “uncommitted” ballot option Tuesday, which organizers urged Democratic voters to choose to send a message to Washington, will garner enough votes to earn any delegates at the party’s national convention this summer.

On the Republican side, former President Donald Trump again romped, easily beating former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Haley, though, showed once again that an unignorable minority of Republicans aren’t thrilled about the prospects of a third consecutive Trump nomination.

Here are three takeaways from the results Tuesday night in Michigan.

Biden handily wins, fending off a worst-case scenario…

Biden was expected to win Michigan’s primary, but the growing effort to get progressives to vote for the “uncommitted” option on the ballot sparked speculation over what his margin would be.

With About 49% of the estimated vote tallied at publication time, the president had nearly 81% of the vote, with uncommitted stuck at just over 13%, a substantial enough margin to easily avoid a worst-case scenario for Biden’s campaign.

Sensing the threat posed by progressive critics, Biden and his allies looked to finish strong in the home stretch of campaigning.

A friendly pro-Israel group had rolled out advertisements urging Democrats to vote for the president rather than for uncommitted, and Biden himself said in an interview that aired Monday night that a ceasefire in Gaza could be days away. And while the president and vice president themselves didn’t campaign extensively in the state, Gretchen Whitmer, the popular Democratic governor, and her political action committee held several events backing the president just this month.

In a statement following primary projections, Biden touted his win and pushed for Democrats to unite behind him and Vice President Kamala Harris in November, casting the stakes of the election as too high for division.

“I want to thank every Michigander who made their voice heard today. Exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great,” he said. “For all of this progress, there is so much left to do. Donald Trump is threatening to drag us even further into the past as he pursues revenge and retribution.”

“You’ve heard me say many times it’s never a good bet to bet against the United States of America. It’s never a good bet to bet against Michiganders, either. This fight for our freedoms, for working families, and for Democracy is going to take all of us coming together. I know that we will.”

…but critics win enough votes to make their voices heard

While Biden did win by a yawning margin, supporters of “uncommitted” were able to win tens of thousands of voters to their cause.

The critics appear to have an uphill battle to hit the 15% threshold needed to net any delegates at the party convention this summer, but with about a third of the vote tallied, over 43,000 people had voted “uncommitted,” a not insignificant figure.

“Our movement emerged victorious tonight and massively surpassed our expectations. Tens of thousands of Michigan Democrats, many of whom … voted for Biden in 2020, are uncommitted to his re-election due to the war in Gaza,” Listen To Michigan, a top group pushing the uncommitted effort, wrote on X.

“President Biden, listen to Michigan. Count us out, Joe,” the group posted.

It’s not yet clear how many votes were cast for uncommitted, but for context, Biden won the state by about 154,000 votes in 2020.

In apparent recognition of the electoral threat, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison over the weekend said that Biden needed to hear out his detractors.

“At the DNC, we don’t handle policy. But we have to deal with the political implications of policy as they move forward. And the one thing we see, particularly with the situation in Israel and Gaza, the president understands that this is personal for so many folks. And when you’re dealing with personal, you’re dealing with a lot of emotions that come along with it. And the first thing is sitting down and listening to people and hearing where they are,” Harrison said on MSNBC.

Trump romps, but Haley takes a slice of the pie

As in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, Trump won Michigan without breaking a sweat.

With just over half of the votes counted, the former president had a 68-27% lead over Haley, the last remaining serious primary rival left in the race.

“I just want to thank everybody, you’ve been incredible. And I’m so proud of the results because they’re far greater than anticipated. So, thank you all very much, and I’ll be seeing you over the next period of nine months and long beyond that,” he told state Republicans after his win.

Still, Haley was able to capture over a quarter of the vote, underscoring again that a vocal minority would rather not have Trump as their nominee and, she claimed, their president.

“Joe Biden is losing about 20 percent of the Democratic vote today, and many say it’s a sign of his weakness in November. Donald Trump is losing about 35 percent of the vote. That’s a flashing warning sign for Trump in November,” Haley spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement. “Let this serve as another warning sign that what has happened in Michigan will continue to play out across the country. So long as Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, Republicans will keep losing to the socialist left.”

Haley’s loss is likely to pour fuel on the pressure campaign for her to drop out, but the South Carolina Republican has remained adamant that she will stay in the race at least until Super Tuesday next week.

Haley said in a pretaped interview that aired Tuesday on CNN that she was “absolutely” staying in the race through March 5.

“Let people vote. Now, in the next week, we’re going to watch 20 states and territories vote. Let’s let that happen,” Haley said.

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(NEW YORK) — A sewing machine manufacturer in Ohio froze employee wages, a New York City-based wheelchair producer forced layoffs at a U.S. supplier and a drone seller in Florida struggled to offer pay increases and hire workers.

The companies were among hundreds who filed comments with the federal government over the negative consequences of tariffs put in place under then-President Donald Trump. Many of the businesses bemoaned sudden employment-related difficulties, government filings show.

Drone Nerds, the Florida-based firm, criticized the tariffs in a filing as “a dead-weight loss for the economy.”

The challenges reflect findings in a series of studies that show the tariffs undertaken by Trump resulted in at best a neutral effect on U.S. employment and at worst a loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, all the while raising prices for consumers.

On the campaign trail, Trump has vowed to escalate the trade war initiated during his first term. Such policies would spur employment in some industries acutely threatened by foreign goods but the overall result would be further job losses due to a rise in costs for companies across the economy, experts told ABC News.

“Some jobs would be created,” Raymond Robertson, a professor of economics and government at Texas A&M University, told ABC News. “But it’s going to come with higher prices and the market will adjust with lower demand for workers.”

In response to ABC News’ request for comment, the Trump campaign rebuked criticism of the tariffs, pointing to strong economic performance under Trump.

“It’s no surprise that organizations funded by foreign outsourcers, globalist corporations, and Chinese business interests don’t like President Trump’s historic tariffs — but the American people don’t need made-up ‘models’ to know how much better our economy was under President Trump,” Karoline Leavitt, the campaign’s national press secretary, told ABC News.

“By cutting regulations and taxes and using the leverage of the United States to negotiate better trade deals around the world, President Trump built the strongest economy in American history,” Leavitt added.

During his tenure, Trump placed tariffs on aluminum and steel from a host of countries, including Mexico, Canada and the European Union.

Meanwhile, he taxed hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods from China, raising import costs for everything from shoes to BMX bikes to computer chips.

Trump’s tariffs decreased U.S. employment by 166,000 jobs, according to a study from the nonprofit Tax Foundation, which cited an increase in import costs for U.S. employers. A separate study from the U.S.-China Business Council estimated up to nearly 250,000 lost jobs as a result of the tariffs.

The manufacturing sector drew special attention from Trump, who touted the potential for rejuvenating U.S. production.

However, in 2019, the Federal Reserve Board found that the tariffs had led to a 1.4% decline in manufacturing employment, which amounts to roughly 175,000 missing jobs that would’ve otherwise been created in the absence of the policy, Katheryn Russ, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis, told ABC News.

The primary reason for the job losses, experts said, owes to the increased costs for materials imported by U.S. firms, which in many cases raised prices to make up for the shortfall and in turn lost out on business. Retaliatory tariffs, which raised the prices paid for U.S. exports, also negatively impacted jobs, the experts added.

“What we know is that the tariffs increased costs for manufacturers,” Russ said. “So overall they are associated with a decline in employment among manufacturers who used the goods targeted by tariffs.”

Neel’s Saddlery and Harness, a small seller of industrial sewing machines based in Lima, Ohio, suffered an immediate 20% drop in sales in 2018, after Trump placed tariffs on China-made sewing machines.

“Our prices had to go up and customers expressed dissatisfaction,” Ryan Neel, the owner of the company, told ABC News. “It was very stressful.”

In response to mounting losses, the company froze wages and ultimately laid off two of its six employees, Neel said. “I didn’t tell them it was because of the tariffs,” Neel added. “I said it was because we were losing business. But I think they could put two and two together.”

To be sure, the tariffs have protected some industries vulnerable to cheap foreign goods, likely bolstering employment in those areas. A trade group representing steel pipe manufacturers and another advocating for wood flooring producers, for instance, defended the tariffs in comments to the U.S. International Trade Commission.

In the absence of the tariffs, “large quantities of unfairly priced Chinese imports of steel pipe would be likely to result in U.S facility closures and the loss of thousands of U.S. manufacturing and related jobs,” the American Line Pipe Producers Association Trade Committee said.

President Joe Biden, for his part, has kept many of the tariffs in place.

Trump has recently vowed to expand the trade war if he takes office next year, promising to impose tariffs on most imported goods. Speaking with Fox Business in August, Trump said the tax on imported items could ultimately stand at 10%.

Earlier this month, when asked by Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo whether he would consider implementing a 60% tariff on Chinese goods, Trump said: “No, I would say maybe it’s going to be more than that.”

Higher tariffs would protect some industries but the ultimate effect would be a deepening of the job losses caused by the initial round of measures, experts said.

“If we impose 60% tariffs, that will have significant adverse effects on U.S. supply chains, employment and prices,” said Robertson, of Texas A&M.

Neel said his firm would likely go out of business under such tariffs.

“The immediate drop in sales would be tremendous and jobs would be eliminated,” Neel said.

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