Government Shutdown Inexcusable

Sure, there were plenty of threats about the government shutting down in past weeks. They just weren’t believable.

Who in his or her right mind would shut down the federal government?

The country did that 17 years ago, when another group of Republicans led by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich tried to force its budgetary will.

Then-President Bill Clinton vetoed the bill Congress sent and let the government shut down for 28 days in late 1995 and early 1996, until the parties resolved their diff erences.

You’d think someone would have learned from that bad experience, its impact on the economy, the pain it brought to real people who need government services or who work in the government. Right?

Wrong. Americans awoke Tuesday to fi nd much of the government once more shutting down, not knowing when it will be fully operable again. Days?

Weeks? More?

The start of the federal fiscal year began Oct. 1 with no federal budget in place and not even a continuing resolution to run the government on last year’s budget numbers.

The Republican-ledHouse of Representatives offered a budget bill that could have passed. It contained agreed-upon spending cuts but it carried a poison pill - withdrawal of funding for the federal Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, the legislative centerpiece of President Obama’s presidency.

That was a nonstarter with the president and with the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, as Republicans knew from the outset.

Most of the Republicans rode their opposition to Obamacare to election and won’t back off . The Democrats - including the president - say they were re-elected to support the historic, if controversial, health care plan. The U.S.

Supreme Court has upheld it and Democrats intend to see it implemented.

Even with a government shutdown looming, no one would compromise, leaving Americans to contend with the ramifications of turningoff the federal money tap.

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe called the shutdown “absolutely inexcusable.” It is.

So is the back story of this budget battle - a tale of raw politics and positioning for the elections of 2014 and 2016, although both sides may be misreading voters’ patience with congressional intransigence.

Right now, all eyes should be on these lawmakers, on what they do, not where they point their fi ngers to assign blame.

The government just shut down and they’re all at fault. The debate may be about policy. The impact is on people. And all of us, some much more than others, are touched by the shutdown.

As Beebe said, the Congress was unable to do its most basic job, which is to pass a budget for the government’s operation.

On Monday, with the shutdown sounding inevitable, the governor and other state oft cials talked about its reach into the everyday lives of Arkansas people.

He noted the need to furlough as many as 2,000 state employees who are paid wholly or partially with federal dollars. And he said to expect some harsh cuts. The state won’thave money to cover the cost of 85,000 federally funded meals for Arkansas children, to buy the infant formula provided to 2,000 newborn babies or to help protect nursing-home residents.

And those cuts don’t include the federal employees being furloughed or the money shut off from strictly federal programs and services provided in Arkansas.

Just pay attention in the days to come to see how many ways federal dollars normally get to the states and cities and school districts as these entities, like the federal government itself, curtail “non-essential” services.

Furloughed government workers, unsure how long this budget stalemate will continue, won’t be spending in local stores. And that’s just one tiny element of the shutdown’s impact on what is still a fragile economy.

Nationwide, even a brief shutdown will cost the economy billions.

The whole situation really is inexcusable and should not be soon forgotten by the American electorate.

BRENDA BLAGG IS A FREELANCE COLUMNIST AND LONGTIME JOURNALIST IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 10/02/2013

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