With Congress unable to agree upon a budget for the next year and unwilling to extend this past year’s budget, the federal government was shut down this morning.

The Republican-majority House insisted on either defunding or delaying the Affordable Care Act as a condition of passing a new budget, a condition the Democratic-controlled Senate rejected. Monday night saw both houses trade virtually unchanged proposals, with neither side compromising.

Consequently, the sun rose on an America with a crippled executive branch this morning. The vast majority of federal employees, millions of people ranging from soldiers to NASA scientists will either be forbidden from working or will not be paid. Only so-called “essential personnel” will continue to work.

Despite the fact that over a million Americans are kept from work, members of Congress will continue to receive their paychecks, which total $174,000 per year. This is because Congress passed a budget for the legislative branch earlier this year without much controversy, so Congressional salaries are guaranteed. Only employees of the executive branch of the federal government are affected by the shutdown.

Additionally, the 27th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution forbids any change in Congressional salaries until an election passes, which means that Congress could not pass a bill denying itself funding during this shutdown even if it wanted to (well it could, but Congressional salaries would not be affected until after the 2014 election).