“Then Shut It Down”

It seems like I’m living in season five of The West Wing, only I’m not.  The United States Government has been shut down for over twenty-four hours now.  I know plenty of people who work within the federal government and they are not working or getting a furlough if they do work.  I honestly figured a deal would be struck in the eleventh hour – just like all the other times the United States has encountered “close calls” of a government shutdown.

            Now that the government has shut down and it doesn’t look like it will re-open any time soon, it is important to understand how Congress has failed to represent the people that elected them to govern.  Some would say it is a partisan gridlock but when one looks further into the situation, they will see that the gridlock and overall failure of this Congress falls on bipartisan lines.  While it is true the House of Representatives is controlled by the Republicans, the Senate is controlled by the Democrats, it is not true that they can’t get along and pass legislation.

            The Republican-led House of Representatives tried to pass legislation dubbed as “continuing resolutions” which would fund the government for a certain amount of time. The thing that is often overlooked by the general public is that they also attached riders to the legislation. A “rider” is simply an attachment to a piece of legislation that has a specific goal to either undermine a standing law.  Now I’m not going to get into the specifics of what the national news networks are reporting. The bottom line is both parties failed to come to an agreement to fund the government; which ironically, is one of their sole purposes of the legislative branch of government. The Legislature makes the budget and the Executive Branch either signs it or vetoes it (hence the system of checks & balances).

            Now there are a lot of things going through my head. So to alleviate this, I’m going to go ahead and post this piece and start on the next one. If anything, it will keep you coming back to see what I’m thinking and to see my point of view on this historic time during the first half of the twenty-first century. Personally, I think the government shutdown of the United States Government will last at least four week…then again, I’ll address that soon enough.