Shortly after the United States government shutdown began at midnight on October 1, Republicans and Democrats immediately began placing the blame on one another.
Senate Majority Leader and Democrat Harry Reid put the blame on Republicans when, on October 1, he told the Senate “Government is closed, because of the irrationality of what is going on on the other side of the Capitol.” In direct response, Senate Minority Leader and Republican Mitch McConnell said, “They’d rather see the government shut down than do anything to protect the American people from the consequences of Obamacare.” McConnell was referring to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, launched in 2010 and nicknamed “Obamacare.” Republicans’ refusal to fund the act is what led to the government shutdown at the beginning of the month. Obamacare has been wildly unpopular amongst Republicans since its implementation. Republicans commonly claim that the act is unconstitutional and very costly, resulting in tax hikes for the individual and an increase in debt for the nation.
Members of the Senate are not the only ones assigning blame. President Obama has joined the chorus of Democrats and begun blaming Republicans for the government shutdown. In his speech from the White House on October 1, President Obama said, “They’ve shut down the government over an ideological crusade to deny affordable health insurance to millions of Americans.”
On day three, the blame continued. In a statement released on October 3, Speaker of the House John Boehner said, “It’s time for the president and Senate Democrats to come to the negotiating table and drop their my-way-or-the-highway approach that gave us this shutdown.”
It should come as no surprise that this childish bickering between Democrats and Republicans did not yield any progress. After 16 days, President Obama signed a bill to reopen the federal government and lift the debt ceiling, just hours before the government’s borrowing authority was set to expire. According to Time, the Senate voted 81-18 in favour of the bill, and the House voted 285-144 in favour of the bill.
President Obama, in a speech at the White House on October 17, said “…there are no winners here.” If, in fact, there are no winners, there sure are losers. At the start of the shutdown, Republicans had hoped to defund the Affordable Care Act, or at the very least, to stall the implementation of the program; however, neither objective was achieved. In the end, Republicans received a mild tightening of income verification rules for Americans accessing new health insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. Since the reopening of the government, numerous Republicans have publicly accepted defeat. As Boehner said to WLM-AM radio station in Cincinnati, “We fought the good fight. We just didn’t win.” In addition, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said in an interview to Face of the Nation, “After this debacle called the shutdown, our party’s been hurt, our brand name is at the lowest ever…from my point of view, this was a tactical choice that hurt us.”
Furthermore, the effects of the shutdown on the country as a whole remain palpable. 800,000 federal government employees were forced on unpaid leave for nearly two and a half weeks. Numerous government services, including the National Park Service and national monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial and the Statue of Liberty were closed. It cost the government billions of dollars which President Obama referred to as, “…completely unnecessary damage to our economy.” And of course, the shutdown also hurt the nation’s international credibility.
With little for either party to show, it seems the shutdown only served to hurt the country. The actions of the Democrats and the Republicans, both citing the protection of citizens’ rights as their motivation behind refusing to budge in negotiations, only served to hurt those Americans they were claiming to protect.
At the very least, the shutdown has hardened the resolve of both sides never to enter into a situation akin to this again… right? Wrong. While both President Obama and Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell assured Americans there would not be another government shutdown, Republican Senator Ted Cruz, largely blamed for initiating the shutdown in the first place, had a different position to share. In an interview with CNN on October 17, Cruz said he would not rule out another shutdown over defunding the Affordable Care Act when the next fiscal deadlines approach.
With the end of the 2013 federal government shutdown, the blame game is over…until next time.
