The shutdown ended? Amazing! Awesome! Terrific! Well, it isn’t as good as you think. The shutdown could easily start again by the same reasons it started before: a simple disagreement between the Republican and Democratic parties.
On Wednesday, October 16, 2013, Senate leaders announced a deal to end the partial government shutdown. This Senate deal under discussion would reopen the government, funding it until January 15. It also would raise the debt limit until February 7 to avert a possible default on U.S. debt obligations for the first time. Later that day, President Obama signs this bill to end this partial shutdown once and for all. Or is it?
This bill increased the debt limit, which really doesn’t help us at all. The United States is getting into more debt than ever before… and you know what that means. There will most likely be another shutdown– an even greater one- if little is done to fix what had caused the problem in the first place. Republican and Democratic leaders need to decide to compromise and find middle ground on issues before it’s too late.
Why did the government even pass this bill in the first place? Well, since the Republican Party is facing a lot of disagreement over their actions, many of the members went “mute”. To pass this bill, 80 Republicans agreed for this bill to come in play. Along with the majority of the Democrats, this was successfully passed by the House of Representatives. This bill allowed for 800,000 individuals to go to work again and end their riots. Essentially, it is now the way it was before the shutdown, except that we have more debt on our hands.
Many of the dividing issues that split the Democrats and Republicans, such as changes to tax reform, are not mentioned at all. This bill lasts until February 7th,  a time period in which the government will hopefully be persuaded to act effectively on the debt crisis. When February 7th comes around, let’s hope that the government is smart enough to stop the nightmare. This bill only further declines the crisis, raising the debt for us to deal with when we’re adults. The government needs to act, but it might already be too late.
The government’s bill to end the shutdown will help the country now, but that only extends the time to when we will be facing the real problems. The United States needs to stop buying time, they need to act now. Whether we can’t be sure they will act or not, we can advise others to be aware of this situation. In Madison’s Federalist 10, he mentions that factions can be a good thing because no one will ever get everything they want. He states that one of the ways to get rid of factions is to completely eradicate beliefs and make everyone feel passionate about the same issues and have the same views, but obviously this isn’t realistic. Madison believes that the great thing about factions is that there can be multiple views expressed in our democracy, and by working together, these views can be meshed into policies that best reflect the attitude of the people. As of late, Congress hasn’t been able to compromise at all. In the opinion of our founding father, the government needs to stop arguing and act… NOW!
