Government Shutdown of 2013: A Decisive Blow to the Economy and National Security

The Government Shutdown of 2013 is a blow to the economy and to national security with nothing gained but to stupidly expose the American government and political system to a full view of its own weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Moreover, the counterproductive measures enacted by the shutdown have forced the nation to face a number of potential crises: staggering job losses and unemployment, excessive payouts to nonessential government employees despite the fact that they are at home, temporarily defunding government programs such as national parks and furloughing government agencies like the IRS, PulseNet (food safety inspection) and numerous private government contractors who will not receive back pay (Shutdown Costs $160 Million a Day). Even worse, since a majority of the intelligence community has also been affected by the government shutdown, America is now as vulnerable to the threat of terrorist attack as it was immediately after September 11th, before any infrastructure was put in place that might thwart any such attempts. In effect, a small band of conservatives on the outer fringe of the Republican party have committed strange and terroristic actions which have held the nation hostage and have undermined the collective authority of the United States government and the individual authority of the President; a crime which merits merciless sanctions if such actors are to be thwarted in their attempts to take America hostage in the future.

The Perpetrators

A roster of 32 of the most conservative Republicans in the most conservative districts serves as a booming voice of dissent against ObamaCare which they fear will run the economy into the ground. Representatives from Florida, Texas, California, Minnesota, Michigan, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and a number of other states (primarily in the south and Midwest) are the proud public faces of the government shutdown. This defiant group of conservatives has brought Washington to a complete standstill and have unapologetically promised to keep Washington locked down until ObamaCare is completely defunded (Narula, Jacobs & Ohikuareoct; Moody).

Not surprisingly, this band of misfits have the support of activist conservative groups like Heritage Action, an organization that successfully persuaded Republicans to refuse to fund the government until the federal health care law is tossed out. But what have House Republicans accomplished during this government shutdown? Have they derailed the despised Obamacare? No, they have not. The only thing they have accomplished is to earn the ire and contempt of the American people – many of whom are members or former members of their own party. While this is the whole purpose for this travesty, ObamaCare lives on. In fact, Republicans’ tantrum over ObamaCare has served as a major distraction from the computer glitches on the ObamaCare website. The glitches would have been a major fiasco that would have consumed media attention and earned the new insurance programs some very unfavorable ratings (The House GOP has nothing to show for its government shutdown; Moody).

Ignoring A Clear Mandate

One year ago, House Speaker John Boehner expressed his support of Obamacare saying that a government shutdown would be foolish because “it’s pretty clear that the president was reelected” and has the full support of the American people making Obamacare the choice of the people and law of the land. One year later, it seems absurd that he once promised that a government shutdown is not the goal of the party. Boehner was right: the shutdown has been catastrophic; it has forced the government to default on debt and it has made the Tea Party Republicans look like a group of terrorists who are willing to do anything to have their way including disrespect the office of the Commander in Chief. Republicans are demanding that President Obama negotiate and by negotiate they mean tossing out a law, a completely unimpressive strategy (The Politics behind the Government Shutdown).

Moreover, there are very few undeniable facts to this case and not much else appears to actually be relevant. The first fact is that Obamacare has been passed into law. It is dangerous to allow a government shutdown promoted by an extremist fringe of senators to be able to overthrow laws at a whim. The next fact is that Republicans have the right to their dissent. They can lobby and give speeches which advocate changes in any law. What they cannot do is to promote and engage in actions that are a direct affront to “the fundamental processes of democracy” (The Politics behind the Government Shutdown). Fact number three is proof that there is a clear and present danger in the actions of Tea Party Republicans as they “are attempting to bypass… procedure and create law by disrupting the government” (The Politics behind the Government Shutdown).

The Charges

The Republicans have been charged with the unthinkable. They have contributed to the destruction of the employment and earning potential of millions and have done so without batting an eyelash. Republicans have left secretaries, clerks, librarians, food-truck workers and waitresses who live and work near the national parks without a line, they are all feeling the pinch of the shutdown and are suffering as Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year rapidly approach.

Republicans have wasted taxpayer dollars with this frivolous shutdown. In fact, it costs billions to shut down websites, parks and more; it will cost a lot of money to get them up and running again. Meanwhile, the House has decided to eventually pay the salaries of hundreds of thousands of employees who have been asked to stay home. If government is supposed to run as seamlessly as business, this is inarguably a very destructive way of managing an enterprise (Altman; Bernstein).

Republicans have been charged with their interference of key governmental operations which are in place to protect the American people and which are designed to run without obstruction. The National Transportation Safety Board is one such agency. It can’t investigate an accident on Metro’s Red Line, even though that means the death of a worker will go without explanation and that other accidents are imminent. America’s partners and allies do not know if they can trust her because the president cannot work, and the work of American government and business has to be shut down. As such, Republicans are charged with rattling the markets, slowing an economy which is only in the infancy phase of its recovery and interrupting lifesaving research and information gathering all to prove a point.

And still the perpetrators march on, assuring the concerned media and public that there can be no deal except a deal that defunds Obamacare. Heritage Action’s Michael Needham argues that “The only acceptable way out of this is some sort of deal that funds the federal government without funding Obamacare.” Republicans want to blame Democrats for the shutdown when really the blame is all theirs. This is not a fight about Obamacare because Obamacare is the law. This fight is about ideology and the fact that there are some who refuse to go away quietly when they have clearly lost. They prefer instability and destruction over governmental action and stability and, though they cannot back Obamacare, they refuse to see that politics has always been about mobility over issues that one group of people support over another. This selfish short-sightedness is dangerous. It cannot be permitted, and it cannot be encouraged through compromise.

Moreover, there are a slew of other charges that can be lobbed at Republicans. First: Federal Courts have remained open and operating for the most part. However, they have only remained in place due to “naturalization ceremonies, court fillings, and various miscellaneous payments” (Rogers). Unfortunately, Republicans have forced U.S. courts to delay and curtain civil litigation in favor of criminal litigation. What’s worse, the work of some agencies has been slowed down because it cannot be completed without the work of other agencies which are completely shutdown. These types of domino effects are seen throughout the system (Rogers).

As if there were not enough, the markets have already begun to tremble at the tremendous uncertainty of the economy as the holidays approach. There is a great deal of anxiety in the credit and housing markets. Further, no one really knows what to make of the current job report because this situation has created so many severe outliers and has made policy decisions and actions moot, antiquated and wholly ineffective.

There is another decidedly disastrous impact of the government shutdown. This month, compensation payments to 3.8 million veterans have halted. Additionally, nearly 5,600 veterans a day have not received any decision about their badly-needed disability claims, education benefits and living stipends which are funded by the GI Bill. Republicans have cost half a million veterans and the wives, widows and families of service members the stability and security of their pension payments (Rogers; Peterson 14-18; Ponnuru & Lowry 28-32; The Week).

The list of charges gets worst. At the State Department level, there is a great deal of concern that the security of ambassadors overseas, particularly in the wake of Benghazi, is in danger of being compromised. In the first leg of the shutdown, the State Department was able to stay up and running by using extra money on its budget from last year to pay workers. Individual departments vowed that they would continue this way until the balance had been emptied.

What’s worse, the GOP has no direction and no real strategy in the face of excessive waste and destruction. Their only goal appears to be to shame moderate Republicans into joining their bizarre cause. The Heritage Foundation has tried to drum up support in the middle and left of center so that the plan to defund Obamacare might be successful. By some accounts, the party and its extremists have been successful in holding the country hostage while growing its base of support. To stay their cause, “House Republicans have passed several [mini-funding] bills that would re-open some crucial and popular parts of the government, which the Democrat-led Senate and President Barack Obama have repeatedly rejected” because these moves would be an act of negotiation that would make more comfortable Republican’s attempts to control and usurp the law while receiving credit for getting a few choice items up and running again (Moody).

Extremist Republicans are willing to see the National Labor Relations Board and Environment Protection Agency shut down in the hopes that President Obama will dismantle the crossing achievement of his presidency. Many insiders argue that Obama will never go along with such a plan and not because he is being stubborn or refuses to negotiate with these terrorists, Obamacare is “the signature legislative achievement of his presidency” and the proposal that it should just quietly go away “ makes the future of this current battle uncertain” (Moody).

And while some Republicans stomp around and puff smoke out of their ears over Obamacare, other Republicans have come to their senses and have conceded that this battle is meaningless. They don’t support measures to fully defund the law, instead, they’d rather see a true test of democracy where politicians do a difficult thing because it is clearly the will of the people who are governed. These parties have suggested much more stringent measures to re-open the government, “such as delaying the individual mandate to buy health insurance and an unpopular tax on medical devices” (Moody).

Conclusion

Now that we know the perpetrators of the government shutdown and part of the laundry list of things that these characters have been charged with, it is important to discuss the probable punishment for those who have attempted to “ransom” their way past democracy, law and governance and who have taken the government hostage whole lobbing threats that force the country to face its destruction or give the Republicans their way. Remarkably, the partial government shutdown has been tremendously counterproductive and the whole exercise has accomplished nothing but waste and delay. Moreover, the defunding of numerous federal agencies has been accompanied by post-dated payments to workers who are not working, the process has not saved money, it has created more debt (a problem that Republicans have argues is the reason for the whole thing in the first place). Is it enough to refuse to re-elect the injurious parties? No, it is not. The biggest strain is financial, and sanctions should be financial. Many of these senators are wealthy; those involved with the shutdown should share the cost of the shut down. The properties and monies they have should be liquidated and put in a large pot and shared to cover the cost of the shutdown among average everyday Americans. Americans should not have to pay because politicians do not respect the laws of the land. Right now, the government is paying people not to work, but Republicans hate welfare and they hate government intrusion – this is why they claim to hate Obamacare, and yet, they are guilty of so much worse. Moreover, “the administration has forced restaurants, inns, campgrounds and recreation areas — private businesses on federal lands — to close, a double whammy that puts people out of work, hurting the economy and forfeiting the rent these businesses pay the government” (Shutdown costs $160 million a day). The list of injuries and damage are worse than that. Workers who live in national parks have been forced from their homes as 100 campgrounds have closed. We cannot string conservatives up from their toenails, but we can make them pay and we should and then (and only then) we should swiftly eject them and subject them to the public tarring and feathering that they so richly deserve (Shutdown costs $160 million a day; By the Numbers).

Works Cited

Altman, Alex. "The Tea Party Under Fire." Time 182.20 (2013): 34. Academic Search Premier.

Bernstein, Corinne. "US Government Shutdown's Early Effect on IT Jobs Remains Hazy." Eweek (2013): 9. Academic Search Premier.

"By the Numbers." New Criterion 32.3 (2013): 1-3. Academic Search Premier.

Editor. "The Politics Behind the Government Shutdown." The Atlantic. The Atlantic, 2 Oct. 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/opinion/the-politics-behind-the-government-shutdown.html?_r=0.

Moody, Chris. "Meet one of the conservative advocacy groups behind the shutdown." Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 9 Oct. 2013. http://news.yahoo.com/meet-one-of-the-conservative-advocacy-groups-behind-the-government-shutdown-163357339.html.

Narula, S.K,, R. Jacobs, and J. Ohikuare. "Republicans who caused the government shutdown." The Atlantic. N.p., 4 Oct. 2913. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/32-republicans-who-caused-the-government-shutdown/280236/.

Peterson, Kyle. "Politics' Leading Man." American Spectator 46.9 (2013): 14-18. Academic Search Premier.

Ponnuru, Ramesh, and Richard Lowry. "Apocalyptic Conservatism." National Review 65.21 (2013): 28-32. Academic Search Premier.

Rogers, Alex. "5 New Blows To Expect If Government Shutdown Doesn't End Soon." Time.Com (2013): 1. Academic Search Premier.

"Shutdown costs $160 million a day: Our view." USA Today. N.p., 13 Oct. 2013. http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/10/13/shutdown-back-pay-parks-salmonella-editorials-debates/2977257/.

"The House GOP has nothing to show for its government shutdown." Washington Post. N.p., 7 Oct. 2013. http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-10-07/opinions/42792517_1_government-shutdown-house-gop-obamacare.

"The Week." National Review 65.20 (2013): 4-12. Academic Search Premier.