U.S. Government Shut Down of 2013

There have been so many controversies that have come out from the time when President Obama was elected into office. There have been many speculations in relation to this issue such as race since President Obama is the only African-American person to be elected as the U.S. President. According to Van, “This was as a result of the typical Democrat and Republican controversies that occur involving the two parties” (23). Either way, the U.S. government came to a complete shutdown in 2013. The occurrence in 2013 was the first of its kind to happen during the last eighteen years. The last time the U.S. government experienced this type of event was in 1996, during the government of President Clinton. Even though, there are a lot of probable reasons to explain the shutdown of the government, this is in the country's interest as well as its’ citizens. Miroff et al. asserts that “The 2013 shutdown of the U.S. federal government is ranked as the second longest ever since 1980, as well as the most important one on record, in relation to employee furlough days” (23).

The main cause of the 2013 shutdown of the U.S. government was as a result of the Obamacare program, which was surrounded with a lot of controversies because of many reasons. President Obama had enforced “The Affordable Care Act” which would allow every American to have the chance of affording healthcare.   Whereas putting the Affordable Care Act into effect only concerns about 15% of the population in the U.S., it brought about a major debate with Republicans as well as the medical society.   During that time, the Republicans who were in Congress as well as the House of Representatives were not prepared to offer support to Obamacare in any aspect.   However, even though it appears as if this new law required more discussions with the government officials, it was not normal for the Republicans to close down the government’s day-to-day business. 

There are many basis for complaining regarding the Affordable Care Act aspects. There was no public option, and, therefore, people had no choice but to access care by means of the private insurers. The controls for costs are limited, implying that the doctors, drug businesses, as well as medical-supply organizations, would probably continue to charge patients too much. However, the Republicans were not concerned about these issues. The absence of sufficient cost controls in addition to other problems regarding its items would be fixed after the Obamacare program was in place. Therefore, these problems would scarcely validate the 2013 government shutdown in the U.S. (Miroff et al. 92).

After the attempt to obstruct passage of Obamacare act in 2010 failed, as well as the 2012 losing of a Supreme Court, the right wing aspects of the Republican Party in the U.S. House of Representatives put together a provision to a spending bill that needed withdrawal of funding for the implementing of the Affordable Care Act so as to finance the rest of the government. The bill was then forwarded to the United States Senate. The Senate withdrew the provisions in relation to withdrawing funds for the Affordable Care Act, and after that sent it to the House. After that, the House sent back an edition of the bill that postponed the execution of the Act in a period of one year, and it was not taken up for consideration by the Senate (Miroff et al. 13).

According to Marcovici (87), the origin of the 2013 shutdown by the Republicans was politically straightforward: They are afraid that people would get it and then like it. As a result, this would devastate the key political message that the Republican Party had. Whereas the Republicans have attacked almost everything that President Obama had proposed during his presidency, the Affordable Care Act aroused more vitriol than the others.

Due to 2013 shutdown of the federal government, many small businesses suffered a lot, with more than 800,000 government workers furloughed while Veteran Administrations, as well as national parks, were closed down.   According to Miroff et al. (71), this was a remarkable blow to the U.S. economy.   Most of the employees furloughed offer some sort of security measure for the U.S. Many U.S. citizens lacked the time to ponder over laws such as the Obamacare. The media's perception of objectivity means they pass along assertions of the Republicans in relation to Obamacare with no comment, in spite of how incongruous the assertions might be. Therefore, many people hold lots of false beliefs in relation to Obamacare (Marcovici 43).

In conclusion, understanding what is in the balance for the Republican Party, it is simple to perceive why they were be eager to shut down the federal government or still fail to pay the government's debt. The mission of this agenda was entirely wrongheaded. The Democrats misled even its followers in believing that Obamacare was not proper. The shutdown of the government was therefore not a necessary course of action.