The National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association has created some alarming visuals of what a federal government shutdown might look like if Congress cannot agree by next week's deadline on a spending plan for the current fiscal year.
NARFE's photo set warns of no airport security officers on hand to screen travelers; jammed traffic in a snowstorm, as drivers got no advance warning from the National Weather Service; and veterans hospitals that lack nurses to attend the sick. This, the association says, is what American life would look like without federal employees.
NARFE, which has 300,000 members and represents active and retired feds, says it produced the photos to "call attention to what the real possibilities are" for a disruption of government service, said Dan Adcock, the association's legislative director.
"There are some elected officials making the claim that if the government shuts down, no one will notice because it's irrelevant in people's lives," Adcock said. "But people don't remember what happened back [when the federal government shut down] in 1995. People were burning up the Capitol's switchboards to get the government to reopen."
(Read more about what might happen during a government shutdown.)
The group warns that, even if the House and Senate do reach a compromise on government spending, other proposals from House Republicans -- to furlough federal workers, reduce compensation and shrink the size of the workforce through attrition -- would weaken the government and lead to similar scenarios.
(Read about shutdown preparations within the government.)
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