Pay for a pizza and it's not delivered, you get a refund. That's not so with a government shutdown

Even though it appears the end is near for the longest-ever government shutdown, it will take days –at best– for the government to get going and things to return to whatever normal is.

It’s already been 41 days that taxpayers have been funding a government that isn’t operating, for the most part. 

So what can Americans expect, in the way of a tax credit in April or a check from Washington, D.C.?

After a month and a half of taxpayers not getting what they paid for, they shouldn’t expect consideration from Congress, according to the lessons of history.

This same Congress that created the closure has never compensated Americans for a shutdown.

And federal tax experts told NBC 5 Investigates taxpayers should not expect a check in the mail after this one – or some kind of tax credit.

“There’s not an expectation that there will be some extra sort of boost or compensation for any delays. I think that’s consistent across government function,” said Alex Muresianu, a senior policy analyst at the independent non-profit Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C., which is aimed at improving U.S. tax policy.      

You don’t have to be a tax expert to know that if you pay for a pizza and it never shows up, you’re entitled to your money back.

You pay for a plane ticket and the airline doesn’t get you to your destination, you are compensated.

But if you pay for the government to simply stay open and it doesn’t, nothing requires a refund.

“I think there is a lot of validity for frustration,” said Muresianu. “At the same time, though. I mean, the part of the reason why you have shutdown of policy problems in Washington is high deficits and having this sort of added compensation for the issues during the shutdown. I think that that would be sort of fiscally irresponsible.”

President Donald Trump on Monday said, “We’re going to be opening up our country.”

And that return to status quo is apparently supposed to be enough compensation for taxpayers, along with flight schedules returning to the usual delays.

But the congressional plan to end the shutdown and reopen isn’t solving the health care funding issues that caused a partisan logjam in the first place, and we may have to buckle up again, very soon.

“I think we’ll end up having to go through another rigmarole to extend government funding again in a few months,” said Muresianu, of the Tax Foundation.

For now, thousands of federal workers and federal aid recipients are among those who just want the shutdown to end.

With the Senate vote underway, it could go to the House of Representatives when members return by Wednesday. If the reopening bill passes the House, Trump has said he will sign it and then the tenuous process of reopening will begin. 

“The American people have suffered for long enough,” said Senator Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota.

“Let’s not pointlessly drag this bill out. Let’s get it done, get it over to the House so that we can get this government open,” Thune said.  

Thune on Monday pressed his colleagues to stop the shutdown. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, six of his Democratic colleagues and an independent crossed over to expedite what could be the beginning of the end.

But most Democrats still oppose the compromise.

“I cannot support the Republican bill that is on the floor because it fails to do anything of substance to fix America’s health care crisis,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York.

The carrot that Republican leaders appear to have hung in front of Democrats is a pledge to vote on a Democratic health care bill by the end of the year.

With a full Senate vote, House passage and Trump’s signature still necessary, Americans will continue to suffer.

“After 40 days of wandering in the wilderness and making the American people suffer needlessly, some Senate Democrats finally have stepped forward to end the pain,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson. “It appears to us this morning that our long national nightmare is finally coming to an end.”