US Gov Shutdown: Warwick Style

“Stop! Who goes there!” – the shout startles you as you are used to near silence and deserted streets. The rubbish remains uncollected, piled in heaps outside the halls, which have not been cleaned in a week. Only the security vans are seen, circling endlessly making sure people aren’t actively doing anything. “What are you doing trying to get into that lecture hall?”

Whilst this scenario may seem far-fetched, this is a metaphor for exactly what has happened in the United States over the last week. All services carried out by the federal government have been suspended, bar a handful that count as ‘essential’, such as national security, defence and air traffic control.

This means that for many Americans, their jobs in the public sector, and some social security payments that they rely upon will be immediately halted. National monuments will be closed and some food and environmental standards will not be checked.

The problem could not be more serious. The US is slowly crawling out of recession, but continuing uncertainty over the shutdown, and (as much as some Republicans might like to believe otherwise) the support for the economy which all this government spending provides risks a return to recession.

Things have got so bad that it seems some Republicans would rather see the US economy tank, and citizens go hungry or wanting, than President Obama be a success as President.

The sad thing about this is that it could all have been so easily avoided. An ancient measure designed to control government spending means the federal government is only allowed by law to be funded one year at a time and so a new funding law has to be passed every year.

Passing an annual budget is a formality in most countries. For example, in Britain the Houses of Parliament have to vote on the government’s budget, but the government’s Commons majority makes defeat all but impossible. However, the US system makes this quite a lot more complicated.

The two chambers of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate, each have to approve the bill. It also has to be signed by the President. Because these are all elected separately, it is quite possible for them to be controlled by different parties. Currently, President Obama’s Democrats control the Senate, but their rivals the Republicans control the House.

Historically, this has led to some horse-trading, but normally a compromise is met, as the American system’s famous checks and balances are intended to restrain abuses of power. But in recent years the Republicans have become more and more unreasonable, fuelled by their extreme-right faction, the Tea Party, who see ‘big government’, President Obama’s very modest healthcare reforms, government spending and liberal social attitudes as responsible for the US’s relative decline as a superpower.

Things have got so bad that it seems some Republicans would rather see the US economy tank, and citizens go hungry or wanting, than President Obama be a success as President. His supposed leftwing values, the existence of which seems highly questionable, and to a certain sad extent, his colour, are a source of much ire amongst some Republicans, and it appears clear they will do literally anything to stop him.

So, whilst in the 50 states the temporary shutdown of the national government seems bad enough, there is one place where matters are even more perilous. The District of Colombia, in which the capital Washington is based, is not in a state, so the regional and local functions of the government are not carried out by such a body, but instead directly by the federal government, as is the case in England with our unitary state.

This means that literally anything the government does, from sanitation to firefighting, will soon cease as the DC government runs out of cash to pay for them. To go back to our analogy, it may be bad enough for students and staff living off-campus that they cannot use the library or attend or give lectures, but for those on campus (DC) their cleaners, repairmen, wardens and even the night bus will all be out of action.

That it has come to this is a sad indictment of some on the hardright’s reaction to the challenges facing America. And just like Rootes with no cleaners, America without help for those who need it most is too horrible to contemplate.

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Header Image Courtesy of: Flickr/ Charles Sporn

Body Image Courtesy of: Flickr/ MDGovpics