With a midnight deadline fast approaching, a government shutdown in the United States is becoming quite likely, and the results will not be favorable. Servers for the National Library Service BARD program were crawling according to some users in anticipation of the service going offline until a solution can be reached. This pales in comparison however to the thousands of blind and visually impaired employees who will be out of a job come Tuesday. For example, Lions World International has actively been training blind individuals to work in call centers for the Internal Revenue Service, centers that will be closed starting Tuesday. Beyond direct Federal positions, contractors who rely on Federal dollars to perform technology training or produce braille could see their payments delayed. This type of shutdown hasn't been seen since the end of 1995 when the government was closed for two weeks.
this piece from Politico outlines what will and won't likely be effected by the shutdown. Essential services, including social security and Medicare payments will remain as well as agencies and programs with other funding including the post office and Amtrak. Social Security, among other organizations, will not be accepting new clients and a backlog of work is likely to result. But for more than three quarters of a million Federal workers and many others, there isn't much good that can come out of a government shutdown.
I can confirm that the BARD service has been slower than Christmas. Took prob. about ten minutes to download a six-hour book a few hours ago, and web pages took from a few seconds to near a minute to load.
janbrown Monday, 30-Sep-2013 10:16 PM ET:
Good post. The art, and it is an art, of give and take, and compromise appears to be dead in many aspects of our society. We do not all listen to the network evening news any more. A sense of common good and shared responsibility is lacking. It is a national flaw but shows up in our government. Scoring points appears to be more important than governing and working for the citizens. My way or the highway is not a good way to do anything.
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J.J. Meddaugh is an experienced technology writer and computer enthusiast. He is a graduate of Western Michigan University with a major in telecommunications management and a minor in business. When not writing for Blind Bargains, he enjoys travel, playing the keyboard, and meeting new people.
