Published in The Voice on March 27, 2014
A response to a semi-literate rambling on blaming the GOP for being responsible for all partisanship
On
October 1, 2013, the United States government experienced a partial shutdown.
However, if there is any making sense of the shutdown, it is unquestionably
crucial to understand and recognize a timeline of the events that took place
before and after. Mr. Catona shared his views as to why he believes that the
Republicans were the direct cause of the shutdown. This article clarifies that
an indifference between two parties is needed for a disagreement to transpire,
and how the stubbornness of the Democrats lead to an unwillingness of
negotiation.
On
September 20, 2013, the Republican Party agreed to keep the government funded
through December 15, 2013 as long as President Barack Obama agreed to defund
the 2010 Affordable Care Act, otherwise referred to as Obamacare, which has
been delayed numerous times by the president himself. Four days later, Sen. Ted Cruz delivers a
filibuster- like speech encouraging a governmental shutdown unless the
Democrats make the delineated negotiations and compromises on the health care
law. Through September 27 to September 30, the Democratic-led Senate rejects
any provisions made by the GOP, one of those provisions being that the
president and his congressional staff be required to pay unsubsidized
healthcare expenses. As a result, the shutdown ensues.
After
the commencement of the partial government shutdown, the Republican-led house
began approving bills as an effort to revive prevalent government programs,
including national parks and museums, National Institute of Health medicinal
study, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Food and Drug
Administration, and Head Start. The Democratic-led Senate and the president,
however, either ignore or reject the Republican attempts, giving them more
incentive and motivation to prolong the shutdown. After much discussion of debt
limit extensions and disagreements between House GOP leaders and the president,
it isn’t until October 16 that the Senate Majority and Minority leaders
announced that they came to a decision to momentarily end the government
shutdown until January 15, 2014 and extend the debt limit until February 7,
2014. The proposal passes through both the House and Senate and is signed into
law by President Obama just after midnight on October 17 (mediate.com).
Health
care improvement from the Republican mindset exhibits the support of
commonsensical reforms that will lower costs for the American people, certify
the utmost quality in health care that the people deserve, and end to lawsuit
exploitation. The Republican Party is in strict opposition of government-run
health care that compromises that physician-patient relationship, hinders the
promotion of competition, and staggers healthcare quality and variation of
choice. In the past, as polling has demonstrated, the American people are in
disfavor of such a health care policy developed by President Obama, due to the
common belief that the ACA will drive up costs and hurt the quality of health
care (gop.com). Eighty-five percent of GOP voters and sixty-eight percent of
unaffiliated voters expect health care costs to increase under the new law.
This view is also shared with thirty percent of Democrat voters (rasmussenreports.com).
Even
though Gun Control is irrelevant to the cause of the government shutdown,
background checks for purchases of weapons do exist. Over ninety percent of
U.S. citizens support background checks, however, a much smaller amount support
stricter gun control, such as high-capacity magazines and semi-automatic rifles (NRA).
This
isn’t the first or last time the two political parties disagree. There is a
greater challenge for these parties to come to a neutral agreement when the
president refuses to negotiate and bypasses congress to pass a law that many are
not in favor of. In our past, a Democratic president has successfully negotiated
with congress and the Republicans, just as a Republican president with Democrats.
It is not about how many bills are passed, but rather the quality and how
effective these bills are to the nation as a whole.
