As the effects of the government shutdown creep into American homes, many can’t help but wonder how this happened and what the government is doing to fix it. The beginning of the new fiscal year passed on Oct. 1 with Congress yet again unable to settle their differences. The Republican majority within the House of Representatives wishes to move things forward for government spending but at the cost of Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The Democratic-run Senate is shooting down every proposal that comes their way. This stalemate is not only a demonstration of the ineffectiveness of our current elected government but has resulted in the cost of American jobs.
One of Congress’s most important jobs is to fix the spending budget for the government, and if they fail, then much of the government comes to a halt. If there isn’t any money being distributed, then the U.S. cannot continue to fund certain federal programs, such as national park facilities, services within the FDA and much of NASA. Yet there are programs that will not be affected, such as Medicaid and Medicare, the military and social security.
According to CNN, the shutdown has resulted in the furlough of 800,000 “non-essential” government employees. However, we must keep in mind that this is out of the 1.3 million employees that the government has deemed “essential.” Before the shutdown, the Office of Management and Budget ordered managers at all federal agencies to conduct reviews to see which of these categories their employees fell into, according to Washington Post. There are many key government functions that carry on during a shutdown, including anything related to national security, public safety or programs written into permanent law, like Social Security, reported Washington Post. All other federal workers not in these categories will be furloughed.
Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are still being paid and will not be receiving any pay deductions during the shutdown. Here is the first issue with this whole ordeal: Congress is still getting paid. If America is going to elect people to decide a spending budget, then these people should have to feel the aftereffects of their decisions. Congress needs accountability. American citizens are being affected by forces that are out of their control, while the people in charge are not held accountable and are not being penalized. However, according to huffingtonpost.com, there are about 100 lawmakers from both the House and the Senate donating their checks to charities. This is a nice gesture, but they’re not really helping to solve the current situation.
The health care act isn’t directly tied to funding the government, but it’s being used as a bargaining chip by Congress, according to CNN. The Republicans in the House are continually coming up with proposals that tag on additions detrimental to the health care act, and the Senate is not having it. The Democratic Senate continually overrules every House proposal that contains either less funding or delays placed upon the healthcare act, no exceptions. It seems like Congress is trying to deal with a law more than three years old, rather than figuring out appropriate spending bills.
What does the health care act have to do with government spending, and why is it coming back up now? About a month before the shutdown occurred, the Obama administration “delayed until 2015 a significant consumer protection in the law that limits how much people may have to spend on their own health care,” according to The New York Times. The out-of-pocket costs were not supposed to reach above $6,350 for an individual, but the prices ended up being much steeper than expected. Not only that, but Obama granted large insurance companies a one-year grace period “allowing them to set higher limits, or no limit at all on some costs, in 2014.” This was the fuel that Republicans used to initiate their own agenda against these large costs.
Many Americans are trying to lay blame on one side or the other. In reality, both the Senate and the House are acting like children. The House may have started this whole thing by inappropriately involving the health care act, but it’s not like the Senate is doing anything to fix it. At least the House is trying to come up with different proposals to find a compromise, while the Senate just sit in their chairs and pout. In fact, on the fifth day of the shutdown, it was the House’s proposal to pass a bill “that would eventually reimburse furloughed federal workers for lost pay,” according to the Chicago Tribune. The Senate has not even scheduled a voting session for the proposal. The same proposal would also postpone the demand for individuals to purchase health insurance for one year, “mirroring the delay the administration granted to employers.” The House is trying to give the same deal Obama had granted insurance companies on healthcare costs, so naturally the Senate has to think about it.
When the shutdown had first begun, the House recognized the stalemate that was about to ensue, and passed a proposal to go to a conference committee concerning the government-funding bill. According to the U.S. Senate website, a congressional conference committee is a temporary panel consisting of both House and Senate representatives, for the purpose of reconciling differences in legislation. According to Business Insider, it was “a move that Democrats immediately rejected as a cynical political ploy.” The first attempt to negotiate was blatantly shot down as another conniving political tactic. No wonder Congress is at a deadlock.
With the end of the shutdown nowhere in sight, it seems that America is fed up with the Democratic and Republican political agendas. Around the country, Republicans and Democrats alike agree that this shutdown should not continue. According to a poll by CBS News Online, 72 percent of Americans disapprove of shutting down the federal government over differences on the Affordable Care Act. The simple fact is that within Congress, everyone is to blame. It all comes down to whoever is willing to come to a compromise, or whoever is willing to give in. At this point it doesn’t appear like either of these will happen any time soon.
Lauren Richey can be reached at lauren.richey@theminaretonline.com
