When our Government shuts down..The Shutdown of 2013

The Government Shutdown of 2013

So, we ended the streak of having 17 years go by since the last time our politicians could not agree on a budget and the federal government was forced to shut down all non-essential services. Thousands of government workers have been furloughed with no end in sight and the "End of the World Preppers" are coming out of the woodwork and predicting a total economic and social collapse!  I guess my wife and I made a mistake when we chose to build a new patio instead of a bomb shelter and buying a year’s supply of MRE’s.

How did we get here?

Each year Congress is supposed to agree on a budget to fund the next years’ worth of government waste (sorry, I mean expenses). The fiscal year ends on Sept. 30 each year, but congressional leaders were not able to agree on how to divvy up all the pork in the budget. So, without an agreement on the budget – which is essentially a law passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate pay what amounts to trillions of dollars in annual expenses for the next fiscal year, the government effectively shuts down at midnight on Oct. 1st.

With that said, the government has not ground to a complete halt. Services deemed to be essential like tax collection, the mail, and the military will continue to operate. Non-essential departments and employees will be furloughed and attractions like the National Zoo will be closed until further notice.

The last government shutdown was in 1996, when President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich could not reach a deal. That shutdown lasted nearly a month.

Why can’t we all just get along?

The impasse between the GOP and the Dems centers around funding the Affordable Care Act, or what has lovingly become known as Obamacare. This piece of legislation (passed early in the President’s first term in office) would increase the number of Americans who receive health insurance by requiring them to buy it.  It is no longer a choice to buy health insurance because you will be subjected to paying a penalty if you don’t have health coverage from somewhere.  The responsibility of collecting any penalties for those that don’t purchase coverage falls on the shoulders of the IRS each year at tax time.

The budget stalemate stems from the fact that the House of Representatives are controlled by Republicans and the Senate by the Democrats.  The Tea Party representatives in Congress are adamantly opposed to Obamacare and seem willing to do anything to defund or delay it.  It appears they are willing to derail a still fragile economy, not fund expenditures they passed legislation to pay years ago, and would potentially even cause the country to default on its sovereign debts.

The tennis match goes like this: The Republicans keep passing budgets in Congress that they send to the Democratic controlled Senate for approval but they get rejected on arrival because they include language to defund or delay Obamacare.  Ironically, the government shutdown doesn’t affect Obamacare.  In fact, the online exchanges to buy health insurance went live at midnight on October 1st, just as the rest of the government was being shut down.

So now what happens?

It becomes about who is going to blink first and succumb to the pressure to cut a deal. What does that take you might ask?  It boils down to who wins or loses the public “popularity contest.”  Each side is working day and night to make the other appear to be at fault for the shutdown.  So the winner in this fiasco will be the side that succeeds in making the other side take the blame in the court of public opinion.  It appears that this is the sad state of what has become politics today.

We are all confident the shutdown will end and the drama will subside until the next crisis (right around the corner) becomes front page news.  The sad part is that no matter how this turns out I can’t help but think that America has already lost.  I would opine that our elected officials, most importantly starting with President Obama, have lost their sense of leadership, bipartisanship and doing what’s best for the country in the long run because they seem focused on serving personal interests and agendas over everything else.  Regardless of which party affiliation occupies the White House, I believe it is the President’s role to lead and consensus build to get things that need to be done.  I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that President Obama’s approval rating is at its lowest point at the same time he is providing little to no leadership towards generating a solution to our budget impasse.  I believe that when times get tough, leadership makes all the difference.

In the meantime, I guess we can just shake our heads in disbelief and pray that sound judgment and a mutual compromise will ultimately prevail in the battle of the budget.  If not, does anyone know a good contractor specializing in building bomb shelters?