Fleet Week without the Blue Angels? Food aid running dry for impoverished mothers? Tax return processing on hold? Longer lines and flight delays at airports?

Those are some of the ways a federal government Shutdown as early as Sunday could be felt in the Bay Area and around the country as Congress’ periodic game of chicken over spending approaches a critical end-of-September deadline with no deal in sight.

While talks are expected to go down to the wire Saturday night, a shutdown could be felt the next day around the Bay Area, with further impacts mounting the longer the dispute drags on. Among potential impacts:

Fleet Week

The White House said if there’s a shutdown, all active-duty military personnel and many law enforcement officers would remain at work, but receive no pay until appropriated funds are available.

But a Navy spokesman said nonessential events like Fleet Week performances would become casualties — no Blue Angels, ship tours or military band performances for the event said to draw about 1 million visitors to San Francisco.

“If come Sunday there’s a shutdown, we will not be able to participate in Fleet Week, so our hope is on a swift decision on a funding bill,” said Brian O’Rourke, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy on the annual event scheduled for Oct. 2-10 that features air shows, ship tours and musical performances. “We’ll be disappointed if we can’t participate this year.”

With Fleet Week set to begin Monday, there would be little time to salvage Navy and Marine Corps participation unless a deal comes together quickly. A destroyer and amphibious ship are set to sail into San Francisco in coming days, O’Rourke said.

Airports

The White House said that like the armed forces, air traffic controllers and TSA officers would have to work without pay — potentially leading to significant delays and longer wait times for travelers at airports across the country like there were during previous shutdowns.

Katy Nastro, a travel expert with online booking site Going, explained that an extended shutdown with essential workers going unpaid can lower morale and increase chances for flight delays. Security screenings won’t appear out of the ordinary immediately, but the likelihood of longer lines increases as the shutdown continues, she said. Passport processing — already at an all-time high 10-13 weeks — may be gummed up as well.

“The longer this goes on,” Nastro said, “the greater the chance it will impact your travel plans.”

Welfare

According to the White House, the nearly 7 million impoverished mothers and children who count on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — WIC — for food aid could soon start being turned away at grocery check stands. A federal contingency fund for WIC is expected to run out of money within days, leaving many states with little funding to maintain the program.

The White House also warned that a shutdown would cause 10,000 children nationally to lose access to Head Start, which provides early learning support for kids up to age 5, because the Health and Human Services department wouldn’t be able to award grants during a shutdown. Impacts that would grow over time.

California officials could not immediately say Thursday how the programs’ recipients in the state would fare.

Taxes

The American Institute of CPAs, or AICPA, urged the Treasury Department to keep IRS workers on the job in the event of a shutdown, fearing return processing could be delayed.

An October shutdown, the institute warned, will likely slow processing of extended 2022 tax returns due by Oct. 16, tax-exempt organization returns due Nov. 15, and expatriate tax returns due Dec. 15, as has happened in previous government shutdowns.

“We are deeply concerned that a government shutdown with the IRS operating at only a fraction of what is deemed to be its essential workforce would result in a huge strain on taxpayers and practitioners,” the institute wrote in a letter to the Treasury.

National Parks

Access to the country’s National Parks and the facilities within them that accommodate visitors may be affected as well. The Interior Department was planning an announcement later on potential impacts. But Nastro noted that “in recent shutdowns, we’ve seen national parks barely open with shoestring crews, or close altogether.”

“The same goes for national monuments and museums,” she said.

In the Bay Area, and Northern California, those destinations would include places like the Presidio, Alcatraz Island, Muir Woods and Stinson Beach, all part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area; Pinnacles National Park and Yosemite.

The dispute

The dispute involves congressional approval agreed on in principle earlier this year that must be enacted by Oct. 1 to continue funding the government. It stems from opposition among some conservative Republican House representatives to what they consider runaway Democratic spending provisions, such as war aid to Ukraine and economic development abroad, that they argue aren’t core U.S. taxpayer interests.

Their opposition has frustrated House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Bakersfield Republican, who has argued Republicans lack votes to push their agenda through Democrats who control the Senate and the White House, which has decried what it calls a GOP “radical agenda” of “devastating, indiscriminate cuts.”