This paper will examine the federal
government shutdown of 2013 it’s causes and effects, the perpetrators, and the
lasting ramifications present today. With another government shutdown always on
the rise in American politics, it’s important to analyze the ramifications and
foundations for a shutdown. The drafting of the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) created a toxic political environment resulting
in Tea Party members insisting on a government shutdown to “work out” the kinks
of Obamacare and democratic congressman being defiant in protecting the
signature Obama era legislation. More than Democrats, Republicans were
negatively affected by the shutdown including most of the United States putting
blame on solely Republicans or a combination of both parties. The shutdown
directly and indirectly affected many Americans for more than weeks and costed
the U.S. billions of dollars. It is hoped that this will help America learn
from its mistakes and not opt into another government shutdown yet again.
Keywords: Republicans, Democrats, Obamacare, insistent, shutdown
From
October 1 through the 16th of 2013 the United States federal
government shutdown as neither legislature appropriated funds for the following
fiscal year of 2014. Regular working government resumed October 17 due to an
interim appropriations bill being signed into law. During the shutdown, roughly
800,000 federal employees were furloughed for an undetermined period of time.
Plus, an addition 1.3 million employees were required to report to work without
knowing when they were to be paid. The shutdown lasted 16 days and was the
third longest government shutdown in U.S. history, behind the 1978 18-day shutdown
and the 1995-1996 21-day shutdown.
The
financial backup was created when the two chambers of congress were not
successful in agreeing to appropriate funds for the government. Congress failed
to come to an agreement on a budget after Republican lawmakers in the House of
Representatives began pushing to defund the Patient Protection and Affordable
Care Act also known as Obamacare. Unsurprisingly, the senate led by the Democrats,
and the Obama administration rejected the propositions and the dead lock led to
the government shutdown. Congress has a key duty enamored in the Constitution,
to pass spending bills that fund the government. If it doesn’t, most functions
of the government halt; services like Social Security, air traffic control and
active military pay will be funded. Let’s not forget that Congress gets paid too
during government shutdowns (Yan, 2013).
The
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires all Americans to have
health insurance. Republicans said it would hurt small business employers and
overreach of the federal government. The democrats defense in a nutshell, is
that the law will expand access to healthcare to a majority of Americans and
help stifle the rising costs of Healthcare coverage. Proponents also voice that
those with health insurance will no longer have to indirectly pay for those
people who end up in emergency rooms uninsured. This toxic mix of differing
opinions led to Congress creating a funding gap for the federal government.
The
Tea Party and the Heritage Action for America used Obamacare as a bargaining
chip to fund the government. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
isn’t directly connected in funding the government. However, the group of
Republicans, most notably led my infamous Tea Partier Ted Cruz of Texas were
insistent that Obamacare was so bad for the country that it was worth shutting
the government down. On the other side, Democrats were insistent that Obamacare
would remain the law of the land and were not going to hear dissenting opinions
on the matter.
Key
players are as follows, not in any particular order of importance: John
Boehner, Harry Reid, Eric Cantor, Barack Obama, Ted Cruz, Nancy Pelosi, and Mitch
McConnell. Isn’t it funny how the names haven’t changed all that much from
2013. It’s almost as if America doesn’t learn its lessons from year to year. John
Boehner was the Speaker of the House of the U.S. Representatives and led the
republican opposition along with the majority leader Eric Cantor in the House.
Championing the Democratic cause in the House was minority leader, Nancy
Pelosi, yet there was little she could have done with such a big Republican
majority. On the other side of the 113th Congress was majority
leader in the Senate Harry Reid defending Obamacare, with opposition coming
most notably from Ted Cruz and his superior Mitch McConnell. And let’s not
forget the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s father, Barack Obama.
He was not about to let his first domestic landmark piece of legislation be
picked apart by Republicans in Congress.
In
short, the Republicans in the House and Senate wanted to kill or seriously
dismantle Obamacare. It was not tied in any way to funding the government but
they thought of it as a way to bargain with Democrats. Republicans assumed
(incorrectly however) that if Democrats wanted to keep funding the government
they would give some political power to the Republicans by means of disassembling
Obamacare; seeing as Democrats did not control both houses of congress.
However, Obamacare was not repealed. Obamacare was not defunded.
Obamacare was not delayed. The individual mandate was not delayed. The
medical-device tax was not repealed. The health-insurance subsidies given to
members of Congress and their staffs was not taken away. What the
Republicans did however get was their poll numbers tanking, and a big portion
of their base being ticked off, most notably the elderly and veterans. And in
my opinion, seriously hurt Ted Cruz’s hopes of sweeping the nomination for the
Republic nominee in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. Nevertheless,
during the 2014 midterms, Republicans gained 9 seats in the senate and 13 in
the House.
Democrats wanted what they
needed to accomplish to keep the government running. They wanted to further
fund the government, increase the debt ceiling and keep the fundamental
promises of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Rather
than trying to pass one continuing resolution to fund the government.
Republicans in the House tried a strategy of “piece-mealing” bills to fund national
parks, museums, the National Institute of Health, the city of Washington D.C.,
Department of Veterans Affairs, WIC, and FEMA. In 16 days, the U.S. House of
Representatives passed 10 bills to partially fund different portions of the
federal government. These bills were opposed by congressional Democrats and
ignored by the Senate in favor of passing one full resolution (Kasperowicz,
2013).
In
a Fox News poll conducted during the first two days of the shutdown,
42% of registered voters blamed Republicans for the shutdown (17% blamed
‘Republican leaders’ and 25% blamed ‘Tea Party Republicans such as Ted Cruz’);
while 32% blamed Democrats (24% blamed ‘President Obama’ and 8% blamed
‘Democratic leaders’). The rest, 20%, said all sides were to blame (Clements,
2013).
In
addition, according to the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Republican
efforts to defund or delay the Affordable Care Act through a government
shutdown had caused an increase in popular approval of the law, from 31%, just
before the shutdown, to 38% (Ungar, 2013).
If only the Republicans
could have predicted the future, they might have been more apt to avoid the
shutdown; especially knowing now that the popularity of Obamacare went up a
whopping 7 points. With the shutdown, Obamacare’s public polling has only
increased, maybe without the shutdown, Republicans would have had more luck
trying to “repeal and replace” the current law in 2017.
The White House estimated that a one week
shutdown would cost the United States economy $10 billion. People directly
affected by the shutdown were the 800,000 federal employees furloughed
indefinitely, and the millions of “reserve components of the Armed Forces.”
Including the Army National Guard, Army Reserve, Navy Reserve, Marine Corps
Reserve, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, and Coast Guard Reserve
(Michaels, 2013).
Those indirectly affected by the government
shutdown including those businesses that rely heavily of government employee’s
dollars. Especially any business running in Washington D.C.
Native Americans were big losers during the
shutdown. Although the Bureau of Indian Affairs continued to run programs
during the shutdown that were considered essential, including police services and
firefighting. It stopped funding tribal governments as well as many programs and
services that provide necessary support for impoverished reservations (Frosch,
2013). The cuts closed programs that provided income, medical care, food,
transportation, and foster care to communities.
In my opinion, America has a long way to go from learning from its mistakes. Looking at the leadership in Congress than versus now, it hasn’t changed all that much, and maybe that’s the problem. Congress and to be honest, most Americans, know nothing of compromise. We are just on a never-ending cycle of one administration in power implementing programs and dismantling programs from the previous administration, and so on. We have a culture of “my way or the highway.” And maybe it’s American tenacity… or just plain stubbornness.
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