The United States Government “shutdown” this past Tuesday on October first, for the first time in eighteen years. The last government shutdown, between 1995 and 1996 during Clinton’s administration, was caused by a legislative battle between Clinton and Gingrich about funding for education, Medicare, and public health. According to the Congressional Research Service Report, Shutdown of the Federal Government: Causes, Processes, and Effects, “On January 2, 1996, the estimate of furloughed federal employees was 284,000.42 Another 475,000 excepted federal employees continued to work in nonpay status” during the 1995 to 1996 government shutdown. Also, according to the report: health, law enforcement and public safety, parks, museums, monuments, visas and passports, American veterans, and federal contractors were all negatively impacted by the shutdown. The majority of executive branch agencies were prepared to cut down their procedures to strictly essential cases and to postpone the rest indefinitely before the crisis was over. While all essential government processes kept going during the shutdown, hundreds of thousands of government workers and countless citizens were affected through the cutback of government services provided throughout that time.
The government having to shutdown is a sign of major political issues. Today’s shutdown was caused by over polarized parties who couldn’t compromise. Compromise is the whole basis of the United States Political system: neither party holds a high enough majority to simply pass things through congress without at least some bipartisan support. Since neither party is willing to give that bipartisan support, nothing is passing through congress, everything is getting backed up, and Washington has become gridlocked. This is a precursor to the future dysfunctionality of the United States’ Government.
To avoid shutdowns, and to keep government-run agencies functioning, congress needs to approve twelve funding bills each year to provide money for all of the programs and facilities. As the political parties become more politically extreme and centralized, they are becoming less willing to compromise with each other; consequently, passing bills has become harder and harder in recent years because neither side can obtain a big enough majority to pass something alone. Democrats push for higher taxes and not many budget cuts at all, while Republicans demand extensive budget cuts while lowering taxes. Congress -- because of these extreme opposing views --has often fallen back on passing more and more stopgap budgets (more commonly known as continuing resolutions). These stopgap budgets are basically short extensions of the old budget until an agreement is reached on the new budget; they are mostly just used to prevent the government from shutting down at the deadline before congress can reach a compromise.
This year, like most, Congress did not reach an agreement before the September 30th deadline; however, unlike most years, the two sides could not even agree on a stopgap budgets. The Republican Party refuses to pass any budget bill with the Affordable Care Act (ACA aka: Obamacare) being funded. On the other hand, the Democrats refuse to pass a bill defunding Obamacare. Obamacare is a law, it was passed through congress, and then it was approved by the Supreme Court; yet, the Republican Party is still trying to fight against it as a law. The Republicans are basically holding the funding for the United States government under ransom, until Obamacare is defunded and crushed. They are refusing to pass even a stopgap budget through the Republican-controlled house, causing the shutdown of the government. They are intentionally shutting down the government as a threat to get what they want, which is getting an approved law unenforced.
Rep. Marlin Stutzman, a republican representative of Indiana, took the floor of the house saying “This country was founded on the principles of limited government, personal responsibility and consent of the governed, but Obamacare is based on limitless government…” His remarks argued about Obamacare itself and how it is bad for America, not about funding. His arguments exemplify how Republicans are not trying to negotiate about funding for different programs; they are solely focused on killing Obamacare.
Likewise, Stutzman’s colleague Rep. Steve King, a republican representative from Iowa, went on and took to the floor to “speak about the intrusion into God-given American freedom called Obamacare” and he went on to say that it is “an unconstitutional takings of God-given American liberty.” The Supreme Court has ruled on Obamacare as constitutional, and they are the final say on what is constitutional and what is not, that part is past debate. Nevertheless, Republicans are still fighting against Obamacare as a bill when, in reality, the bill has already passed. Republicans are using the budget as a last resort on getting rid of Obamacare and they are willing to shutdown the government to achieve it.
The fact that there can be a government shutdown based solely on the debate of the funding for one law, proves how messed up the United States’ government has become. One party is even willing to intentionally shutdown the government in order to fight for their party’s stance on the law, even though that ‘fight’ is pointless because they have already lost. The political parties themselves have become more important than solving critical issues for the good of the public. For example, fighting against Obamacare is a lost cause for the republicans because it has already passed as a law. That means that the only reason that they would still be fighting against it is for their party’s reputation. So in this instance, the Republican Party has caused an issue for the public (shutting down the government) for the good of the Party instead of the people.
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