Should Government Shutdown Be Retrogressive?

Since Congressional committees are ultimate decision makers, perceive that their staff individuals can have the critical impact over the course and content of legislation. Constituents are asked to keep up continuous contacts with these people, particularly subcommittee staff and the lawmakers' about particular authoritative helpers. These congressional meetings are very powerful because they also carry out legislations processes such as authorizing legislation, appropriation of bills, and entitlement legislation. Authorizing legislation is a bill that makes another government program, expands the life of a current program, or nullifications existing law. Approving bills generally set a point of confinement on the measure of assets that can

Overspending is a pertinent problem facing the lawmakers in Congress. In 2012 discretionary spending reached $1.3 trillion and mandatory spending $2 trillion, while only bringing in $2.5 trillion in revenue. Since the turn of the century back in 2000, non-mandatory spending by the government has topped out a whopping $16.1 trillion just in the past 13 years (Boccia, Frasser & Goff 2013). This persistent overspending on programs and services that are not necessary to the functionality of the country is what is causing the deficit to rise year after year. To remedy this issue the government must either increase the revenue it brings in through taxes and trade or reduce the amount of money it spend or perhaps even both. In 2012 thirty-one cents of every dollar that Washington spent was borrowed (Boccia, Frasser & Goff 2013). Most of which went to large programs such as Social Security and Medicare and if these large, growing programs, or just the budget in general, do not undergo financial reform it could spell disaster for the economy and fiscal state of the nation.

Congressional gridlock is not a modern invention in the world of politics. Alexander Hamilton use to complain about the deadlock “flaw” in the design of Congress. In politics, “Congressional gridlock” is a situation in Congress where there are complications in passing laws for the people. Gridlock could be prevented if we had a democracy for the majority and unified. While many view this as frustrating, gridlocks are starting to become a political norm. This leads to a divided government. Congressional gridlock in the states has become an everyday topic that nobody really understands what to do. The creation of gridlock is seen every day. The failure that Congress comes with when trying to agree upon the nation’s budget, or have the right

In response to a rapidly increasing national debt, President Barack Obama signed into law in August of 2011 the Budget Control Act (BCA) which mandated $1.2 trillion in across-the-board spending cuts, known as sequestration, over a 10-year period (Matthews, 2013). The BCA of 2011 was intended to serve as motivation for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to come up with a deal for achieving equivalent spending cuts and avoid a mandatory sequestration (Matthews, 2013). The committee

Congressional gridlock has been around for centuries in Congress and does not seem to be changing anytime soon. Congressional gridlock refers to the inaction of the government and failure to make a decision or legislative law that satisfy the needs of the people. This inaction of the government and stagnation occurs when two parties cannot agree on a single matter, and they cannot come to a good agreement on how or when the law is going to be passed, thus leaving complex problems in the nation unhandled. Congressional gridlock does not just come and take over the government on its own, though. It is evident that congressional gridlock is a major problem in the American government that needs to be addressed because there are so many root causes that the government fails to fix including gerrymandering and a lack of “bridge-builders.” Solutions to these causes that have yet to be made include improving the system of checks and balances and reducing representative dynamics and some of the nation’s most pressing problems that should not even be examples of congressional gridlock include climate change and the gun laws issue.

Congress has the significant power of ‘power of the purse’, which means that all of the money that the president wants to spend on his policies must be voted for by Congress. If they refuse to vote then it brings to a halt what the president was planning to do. In 2007, the Democrat

On October 19, 2017, the Senate approved a budget that would aid Republican efforts to create tax cuts in a vote of 51-49. In essence, this budget would expand the federal deficit by 1.5 trillion dollars over a span of 10 years. According to Republicans, the intent of these tax cuts is to create more jobs as well as providing more income to Americans as a whole. However, many Democrats are starkly opposed to this budget because of how it will increase the federal deficit as well as reducing the potency of federal revenue provided by taxes. With the budget being approved by the Senate, it is now up to the House to adopt its version of the budget to officially make it into law.

The government shutdown of 1995 was yet another example of how the system of checks and balances wasn’t what Madison intended. In 1994, there was a shift in the control of Congress from Democrats to Republicans, with the intended goal of balancing the federal budget. Here, breaches of inter-branch accommodation occurred and resulted in the 1995 budget shutdown. The Congressional Republicans were threatening to withhold funding from the executive branch unless President Clinton conceded to a series of budget priorities. The power of the purse is given to Congress without any textual limitations that give them the authority to defund the executive branch. The danger in this would be sabotaging the Constitution’s central organizational structure, set up by Madison, that the government comprises of three equal branches. Regardless, the Republicans in Congress remained firm, which caused the two shutdowns of government agencies in 1995.The divided branches and impasse led to the expiration of federal funding. In 1996, the President and Congress agreed on appropriations for the Fiscal Year. At the time, majority of public opinion favored the President’s position.

“To budget is to fight over money and the things money buys” (Document A). The federal budget is adjusted every year and has to follow certain criteria set forward by the Preamble to the Constitution. The Preamble sets five goals that the budget must fulfill, these goals are: to establish justice, to insure domestic tranquility, to provide for the common defence, to promote the general welfare, and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our prosperity. Furthermore, it is difficult to decide what clusters of the federal budget to allocate money to in order to meet the five goals of the Preamble which are “The Big Five”, “The Middle Five”, and “The Little Guys.” In each of the three budget clusters,

The legislature's set up allows for corruption to exist in the government. The government shutdown of 2013 ended after a "deal was reached in the U.S. Senate that included a provision that raised the spending cap on a dam construction project in Kentucky" (Hudak). In this case, "2.2 billion" dollars were set aside for this project (Almasy). CNN's article stated: "So much for a "clean" bill" (Almasy). Despite the fact that the major issue occurring was the government shutdown, Senator Mitch McConnell still pushed for his rider to be added to the bill. Salient issues are not being addressed

Growing spending and debt are undermining economic growth and may push the nation into a financial crisis in coming years. Edward then stated that the solution to these problems is to downsize every federal department by cutting the most harmful programs. This study proposes specific cuts that would reduce federal spending by almost one-quarter and balance the budget in less than a decade."

When people think of the government shutdown many think of quite simply the downfalls. This is most logically because the negatives of a government shutdown over power the positives. Just like most things though, there were some plus sides to the shutdown. Gingrich stated that the shutdown led to a balanced budget deal, and without the shutdown it may have never been arrived at (E. Green)

Better known as the debt ceiling compromise, the sequester was intended to serve as an incentive for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, also known as the “supercommittee,” to come to a deal to cut $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. If they could not come up with a deal, $1.2 trillion in further spending reductions would be implemented starting Jan. 1, 2013. Despite the deadline being extended to March 1, the supercommittee still could not come up with a plan. As a result, the sequester was set in motion, causing the government to trim its budget by $85.4 billion this year and by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years (Zeitlin, “Fiscal cliff for dummies”)

On January 20, 2018, the United States government shutdown when the Extension of Continuing Appropriations Act of 2018, a bill to fund the federal government, failed to pass Congress. The reason for this was due to disagreements between Democrats and Republicans on a proposed extension to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy incorporated into the bill. In response, Democrats, those who supported the DACA extension, led a filibuster in the Senate that effectively halted any legislative progress on the bill. Despite Republicans enacting a a cloture vote, a vote to forcibly end a filibuster, it failed to garner the sixty votes necessary to end the filibuster. As a result, the government shutdown will furlough thousands of federal

The definition of congressional gridlock is the inability of the government to act because different parties (usually rivals) control different parts of the government. When two major partisan parties have a differentiating stands when it comes to ideology that’s when gridlock occurs. The House of Representatives and the senate are controlled by different parties, and this is when congressional gridlock can occur. This situation is very common and is a bit complex because in order for bills to be presented, the house has to be in agreeance with it first. Many members fear losing control with the decisions they make, without Congress all being controlled by the same party. If congress were to side with the opposing party on an issue that could benefit many lives, they won’t because they feel that they will not be loyal to their colleagues’ beliefs and stand on that