The government shutdown has officially become a reality. As a result, many employees have been furloughed. For some perspective on how feds will cope during the shutdown, Tom and Emily spoke with Cindy Blythe. She’s a management program analyst for the Coast Guard and has worked in the federal government for 34 years.

With the start of the government’s first shutdown since 1996, every federal employee who’s not granted a specific exception is being placed on unpaid furlough starting today, for a total of about 1-million workers. But, the picture’s a lot murkier for federal contractors. Many of them will still show up to work for agencies, even if it’s not clear when their companies will be paid. Federal News Radio’s Jared Serbu has the story. Listen to his audio report or read his article.

The Pentagon says about 400,000 civilian employees in the Defense Department face furloughs during the federal shutdown. Many of those people are contracting officers and others responsible for buying what DoD needs to keep operating. Bloomberg Government Senior Analyst Rob Levinson spoke with Tom and Emily about the probable impact of the shutdown on defense contractors.

Many government lawyers, auditors, engineers and scientists will go to work this morning only to be told to close down their computers and go home due to the government shutdown. This was not what Greg Junemann, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, wanted to wake up to this morning. His group represents 80,000 federal employees.

Some people were shocked and others not-so-much that the federal government actually shut down today. Congress had many opportunities to keep funding the government over the past few months, and yet midnight came and went with no continuing resolution. What went wrong and how will Congress solve the problem it’s created? Tom and Emily spoke with Bob Cusack, managing editor of The Hill newspaper.

Like the Civil War, the government shutdown is something everyone said they wanted to avoid. But it’s come anyway. Contractors are nervously wondering what it means for them and agencies are wondering what, if anything, they can buy to keep things going. Emily and Tom spoke to procurement attorney Joseph Petrillo of Petrillo and Powell about what the shutdown means for contracting.

From rescuing more than 160 children from pornography to working tirelessly to rid the world of polio once and for all, this year’s finalists for the Service to America Medals are shining examples of what it means to be a public servant. The awards are given out by the Partnership for Public Service. On Thursday night, the winners will be announced. John Palguta, vice president for policy at PPS, joined Tom and Emily with a preview of the special night and how the shutdown might affect the event.

It’s not the best New Year’s Day ever, but it is the first day of new fiscal year. That’s true even with the government in shutdown mode. Anthony Robbins, vice president of federal sales at Brocade, joined Tom and Emily with some tips for federal chief information officers in 2014 — when they get back to work.

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