Leonie McCann

The other thing I think we'll see a focus on, this is in addition to the National Development Plan that was announced earlier this year, is that likely to see infrastructure spending as well.

Just about.

Yeah.

So maybe just for context, the US fiscal year runs from the 1st of October.

It starts on the 1st of October.

And ahead of that, the US government looks to...

agree a funding bill to fund the government for the next year.

And what's happened is that Republicans and Democrats haven't been able to agree that bill.

Hence, you've got this shutdown.

Now, shutdowns aren't a rarity in the US.

We have seen them before.

If you go back to the mid 1970s, there's been about 20 US shutdowns.

This is the first one that were nearly seven years, so it might feel newer.

It's actually the third one under Trump that we've seen.

So they are things that we have seen before.

So what happens in a shutdown is that you get most of the government agencies being shut down.

There's no funding essentially for them during that period.

What stays open?

So things like mandatory programs, so things like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, as well as the Mail Service and the Fed, which are self-funding, so they're not impacted by this.

And essential functions also stay open.