Kennebec Journal interviews Trostel for article about government shutdown effects
The Kennebec Journal interviewed Philip Trostel, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Maine, for an article about local effects of the government shutdown. The U.S. government entered a partial shutdown Dec. 22, which has become the longest in history, now stretching beyond three weeks. About 800,000 federal employees are working without pay or are on furlough, the article states. “The real loss is the reduction in government services,” Trostel said. “We pay taxes for government safety, and those will be compromised the longer the shutdown goes on. The impact is that the morale of government employees must be suffering immensely.” Trostel also said “there’s a fair risk that if this goes on for a significant period of a time, this could trigger a recession.”