By: Antonio Checchia and Emely Rodriguez
Shut down for what?
On October 1st,
as the clock hit midnight, the bill that funded the entire federal government
expired. Lacking a new bill, the
government shut down. Congress failed to create a new bill because they failed
to come to a compromise regarding Obamacare. Republicans in the House wanted to
send a bill to the Senate that had changes to the health care law that would
have defunded it but Senate Democrats refused to pass anything that touched
Obamacare, therefore sending any bill that came through back to the House.1
Because of this government shutdown, thousands of people are currently out of
jobs and many public services are suspended until further notice. The National
Institutes of Health are no longer taking new patients for research and are not
answering medical questions that come through their hotline, many civil cases
have been suspended by the Justice Department until further notice, more than
400 museums and national parks are closed, and all federal workers that have
been deemed “non-essential” during a government shutdown are unemployed until
further notice. All agencies pertaining to national security and public safety
will remain open and all active military personnel will get paid no matter how
long the shutdown lasts.2
With more than 800,000 workers
furloughed, who is to blame for the continuation of the government
shutdown? In somewhat typical fashion,
each side seems to simply be blaming the other. Both
sides are unyielding in their pursuit of what they see as beneficial to the
American people (as well as their party), and are resorting to pointing fingers
across the aisle: “Instead of allowing a vote on this clean Continuing
Resolution, House Republicans once again attached unreasonable amendments which
had no hope of gaining bipartisan support. Enough is enough!” said Representative Terri
Sewell (D-AL). Representing the opposing view, Representative Brad
Wenstrup (R-OH) states that: "The fact that we have reached this
point is a failure of leadership. I am disappointed by President Obama and
Harry Reid’s refusal to negotiate in good faith to keep the government open. I
will be working to get the government open.”
Once again, we are seeing some of the classic political rhetoric that many Americans are fed up with and, in large part, got us to this point in the first place. In each case, the “other side” is being irrational and impossible to work with. Meanwhile, every individual member is working their tail off to do what’s right for the people—your local Congressman is not a part of the problem caused by everybody else, as Representative Wenstrup made clear by saying “I will be working to get the government open.” Everyone else might just be sitting around, twiddling their thumbs but, I, am going to fix this crisis, single-handedly if I must!
As
for Obama’s thoughts on the issue, he made it clear in an interview
released Saturday that he places the blame squarely on the shoulders of House
Speaker John Boehner, stating:
"We can
vote to open the government today. We know that there are enough members in the
House of Representatives -- Democrats and Republicans -- who are prepared to
vote to reopen the government today. The only thing that is keeping that from
happening is Speaker Boehner has made a decision that he is going to hold out
to see if he can get additional concessions from us."3
Boehner’s
Position
In Boehner’s defense, he too portrays
himself as acting in the best interest of the people. To him, it is irresponsible to simply
continue raising the debt ceiling every time we max it out. Because of this, he has firmly entrenched
himself in refusing to raise the ceiling further, without first having serious
discussions to help identify what
is causing the debt to rise. Obviously,
he is of the opinion that Obamacare is a gratuitous expenditure that would only
cause the debt to climb even higher, so its inclusion within the new bill is a
clear deal breaker. As a result, we have
a standoff of wills, in which each side awaits the other to back off, with the
threat of the nation going into financial default looming ever closer.
In Conclusion...
There is no
clear right or wrong here. Right now
congressional Republicans are getting blamed more than Democrats and Obama but not
by a lot. Recent polls show that 25 percent of people think that both
Republicans and Democrats are responsible for the shutdown, while 36 percent
blame Republicans and 3 percent blame President Obama and Democrats.4
Both sides are at fault to a certain
degree and accusing the other of being “stubborn” accomplishes nothing. The
only thing that is clear is that until Congress can put their differences aside
and compromise, this government shutdown will continue.
References:
No comments:
Post a Comment