TAIMUN 12th Press 2014

 

 

     Legislative, judicial, and executive are the three branches of power the Federal government is divided into and each has its own duty. Congress -a part of the legislative branch- has an indispensable duty of passing bills that fund the government. If the bills aren’t passed, most functions of the government, from the funding of agencies to the paying of small business loans and processing passport requests, comes to a stop. Take the U.S. government shutdown that happened a few months ago for instance. Members of Congress had disagreements on the bills of the funding, causing the bill failing to pass.

 

     It all started when the Republican leader of the House voted to keep the government funded through December 15, but only if the president agrees to defund the 2010 Affordable Care Act -also known as ObamaCare- on September 20, 2013. Ted Cruz, Senator and representative of Texas, made his 21-hour-long filibuster against ObamaCare and advocating a shutdown unless the Democrats outline compromises on the health care law on September 24 to 25. However, the Democratic leader of the Senate rejected and sent the bill back to the House requiring them to rework the bill. Thence, they did, altering their demands of defunding Obamacare to the postponement of the implementation of the law for a year and invalidate its tax on medical devices. Yet, the Democratic leader of Senate -anew- rejects and returns the reworked proposal. This time, rather than accepting and reworking the bill, the House rejected and on October 1, the government shutdown commenced.

 

     As the shutdown progressed, the Speaker of the House John Boehner proposed a six-week debt limit extension with the compromise that Obama discussed spending cuts. He met with the president at the White house but came to no agreement during the meeting on October 10. Thus, shortly after the meeting, a group of bipartisan senators worked on a bill to reopen the government and avoid default. As the negotiation failed, Harry Reid, Senator Majority Leader, and Mitch McConnell, Minority leader, commenced the discussion on the reopening of the government and extending of the debt limit. aa Then on October 15, the hopes of passing the new bill of ending the shutdown and extending the debt limit collapsed when Boehner affirmed that he didn’t have enough votes. Subsequently, the leaders approached a deal to close the government until January 15, 2014 and extend debt limit until February 4, 2014, which was passed before midnight on October 16th and was signed by President Obama after midnight ending the shutdown.

 

     Even though the shutdown only lasted 16 days, the impact was severe and drastic. The shutdown cost the Federal government billions of dollars and lost approximately 2 billion due to the furloughed workers-about 850,000 employees per day. Fees were uncollected, Internal Revenue Service enforcement and other programs were halted, and the Federal government had to pay attention on payments that were late. Import and export licenses and applications were put on hold, which negatively impacted trade and effected the economy. Private-sector lending to individuals and small businesses was disrupted, since banks and lenders couldn’t access government income or Social Security Number verification services. Travel and tourism at national parks and monuments across the country was also disrupted.

 

     Furthermore, millions of Americans were impacted. Hundreds of patients were prevented from enrolling in clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health. Agencies from the Food and Drug Administration to the Environmental Protection Agency had to cancel health and safety inspections, and National Transportation Safety Board was unable to investigate airplane accidents. Four billion tax refunds were delayed. Additionally, there are long-term impacts on the country as well. The shutdown followed a three year pay freeze for Federal employees and cuts in training and support for hundreds of thousands of workers, which made it even harder for the government to attract talents to provide top level services to American people. All in all, the government shutdown had great impact on both the economy and the citizens.