Work is not just a paycheck. Work is how people shape the world. When someone starts a business, they answer a call: to build something, to serve a need, to create opportunity. That is a profound human act. It matters morally when government makes it harder.
Right now, the federal government is doing exactly that.
The federal government shuttered the Small Business Administration’s lending systems, which become collateral damage in the politician’s ultimate game of chicken. Every business day that the government stays shut down over infighting about the budget, about 320 small businesses cannot access loans. That is roughly $170 million a day in capital for payroll, equipment, and leases. These are not abstract numbers. These are builders, creators, and doers who may not survive as entrepreneurs – despite no fault of their own.
On this Veteran’s Day, we should be especially bothered that the SBA just canceled National Veterans Small Business Week. Veterans own more than 1.6 million businesses and employ about 3.25 million workers. Many of these founders came home from service to our country and chose to build a better community rather than work for some international conglomerate. They chose creation over comfort and rigor over retirement. Now the government they serve failed them.
The shutdown also leaves contract workers without recourse. Federal employees get statutory back pay if a shutdown idles them. Most small contractors do not. When work stops, their income stops. We are talking about hourly pay for work that keeps the lights on: cleaners, security details, and maintenance crews. Many have no financial cushion, and they will get crushed.
When we break the connection between work and reward, we declare that political posturing matters more than the dignity of work. That is the wrong message.
The costs are real and lasting. The previously longest-lasting shutdown erased $3 billion in permanent output. These are jobs that never bounce back. These are sales that never happen, hiring that never occurs, customers that shift to competitors. This shutdown is the longest yet, so we should expect substantial long-term losses that echo for years.
This shutdown lands harder because artificial intelligence is changing work. The International Monetary Fund estimates AI exposes 40% of global jobs to disruption. That figure is even higher in advanced economies like ours. What keeps people moving forward when times get tough?
Do-it-yourself grit has long been America’s core ethos. Entrepreneurs that experiment, retrain and invent don’t just create jobs – they make work meaningful. When we shut down small-business lending, we don’t just shut down the mechanism that lets people adapt. We snuff out the American dream.
People have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When government can provide those conditions at no great cost and chooses not to, it picks politics over people. This is the wrong choice.
So, what should Congress do?
Congress designed SBA lending programs to run at no taxpayer cost; fees from lenders and borrowers cover all losses by statute. That single fact should end the debate. Even when lawmakers cannot agree on new defense or infrastructure spending, there is no fiscal reason to freeze programs that fund themselves.
Congress should keep SBA lending systems open. Shutting down self-funded programs serves no fiscal purpose. It only punishes people trying to build something.
Congress should also ensure that when someone does contract work for the government and completes the job, they get paid for that work. Work performed deserves compensation. That principle should not depend on whether Congress passed a budget.
And Congress should guarantee back pay for low-wage contract workers. Federal employees are protected by law. Contract workers usually are not. Congress must not foist its failures on the backs of people living paycheck to paycheck.
The principle is straightforward: When lawmakers cannot agree on new spending, government continues at current levels. This shifts shutdown strain from workers back to politicians – because that’s where political pressure belongs.
