This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. You know it’s bad when the TSA officers at airports are checking your bags alongside boxes seeking canned goods, gift cards, and baby formula for those same screeners . Yet this is where we are as a partial government shutdown enters its second month, leaving thousands of federal workers forced to choose between continuing at their posts unpaid or finding other jobs. In