Latest news, weather and high school sports for Albany and Southwest Georgia

ALBANY -- Government shutdown: They're words that sound very scary and by the tone of the political rhetoric, it's something that's very possible.

"When you have people on the far left and the far right and their positions are very strong, I would say that yes, the government is going to shut down,” said Darton College Economist Aaron Johnson.

Johnson says if the federal government does a figurative shutdown, it doesn't mean they shut their doors.

“We need to be clear that when the federal government is going to shut down, it doesn't mean that all operations are going to shut down. Essential operations will still remain in play. When you think about our military presence overseas, that won't be impacted. When it comes to the mail that won't be impacted. When it comes to social security you will still get your claims processed,” said Johnson.

It comes down to what are essential government services and what are non essential government services.

For the most part consumers would immediately notice a difference if a shut down were to take place. Take the airport for example.

“TSA employees are deemed to be essential, so all security operations would still be working, so there wouldn't be and discernible difference for people,” said Southwest Georgia Regional Airport Director Yvette Aehle.

That doesn't mean complete smooth sailing in the world of the friendly skies.

“I'm currently trying to find additional funding for our new terminal building and the people that I deal with in Atlanta are the ones that are deemed non essential,” said Aehle. “So if the federal government does shut down on Friday, they will not be reporting to work on Monday. Therefore any kind of an application that I have for projects is going to be stalled until they come back to work.”

In all about 15 percent of the government is nonessential. Things like, national parks and zoos would be closed. Passport processing would halt. If you’re waiting for tax refund you may have to keep on waiting.

“The major impact is that federal employees will not be working, so with them not having checks, they're not going to be spending as much. And here you're talking about employees that are making on average $72,000 a year,” said Johnson.

When you think about the federal government, and you think about Southwest Georgia, one of the things that come to mind is Albany’s Marine Corps Logistics Base.

We wanted to know what effect a potential government shutdown would have on the MCLB, but base officials tell us that they're under strict orders directly from the white house not to talk about any potential employee furloughs.