In the history of the American government, the term strategy of threatening a government shutdown has been utilized on a number of occasions but the opposing party in many circumstances. Each year the president, Senate and House of Representatives have to agree on a budget for a fiscal year before it begins. The fiscal year is a financial year that governs the timeline of a budget for an organization or government within that year. The year usually takes the same range as a normal year but starts and ends at different days compared to the normal year, for instance, the United States Government fiscal year begins on 1st
October and ends on 30th September. Therefore Congress must agree on a budget before the end of this fiscal year (Meyers, 2014).
The budget for government covers the government spending which includes capital provided for government remitted services and the wages of government employees, this includes military programs, emergency response services, government employees etc. The government budget allocates the money for all these branches of government. The Finance department cannot release acquired revenue to these branches of government without a budget. Nevertheless, at times, the budget is exceeded due to unforeseen outcomes within the year, Congress can still approve the accommodation of these modifications in the reflection of the critical nature of the matter (Meyers, 2014).
The president, Senate and House of Representatives are given an allocated timeline to agree on a new budget in order to move forward. However, this may be challenging based on the different opinions of members of the groups aligned to different goals as per their party’s objectives. If this is the case, Congress provides more time for them to agree on the budget, meanwhile, they suspend funding for unnecessary government activities and allocate funding for the continuation of essential services such as salary for military personnel, air traffic controllers etc. If the responsible groups are not able to agree on a budget by then the government goes into shut down, this means that funding for all activities is halted. It is very disastrous for the government to go to shut down, this is because essential employees will not have pay and end being forced to go for a compulsory leave of absence, If this takes effect then the government may be left vulnerable to certain risks. Nevertheless, a government shut in other instances resulted in the growth of the economy as the private sector swooped in to provide certain services.
The government shut down results because of conflict between members of the different houses, despite the president belonging to a particular party he has to work with other houses some of these branches have the opposing party as the majority (Meyers, 2014). The government shutdown is therefore used as a bargaining instrument to force the hand of administration on specific issues (McMains & Lanceley, 2003). Based on some circumstances the divulging issues may appear reasonable for the government to comply however in other instances it is just a tactic to tarnish the popularity of the government among the US citizens.
Based on the above remarks we take a look at the threat of a government shut down during President Obamas rule. At the time Obama had brought into passing the Affordable health care act that provided medical cover for those who their employees could not provide or they themselves could not afford the cover. The act was passed by Congress and increased the ratings of the government to the public, nevertheless, it brought about an increase in government expenditure to cater for this new incentive. The Republicans were not happy about the outcomes that resulted from the act. Nevertheless, passing the bill meant all houses and Congress were in agreement on the bill. A year later they threatened to pursue a government shut down if the bill was not abolished (Bendersky, 2014). The republicans reflected on this threat in different ways some did not find the means to engage the government in reason necessary. Based on this argument each group considered different consequences of opposing either group had in mind. The Obama care was relevant however it had resulted in an increase of budget by a considerable amount. On the other hand, the Republicans opposed the bill either based on the increase in budget or increase in popularity of the Democrats based on the affordable healthcare act either way if they led to the abolishment of the bill the public will be angry at both groups thus the consequences were inevitable.
Causing a government shutdown at the time could lead to the downfall of the economy as investors will be discouraged to pursue any investments in the area, also based on the rise of terrorist threats to the United States, the state would be more vulnerable. The outcomes were essentially negative at all levels, the only solution was that all groups should put differences aside and seek a way of how to cater to their requests and solve the issue at hand. In this case, the issue at hand would be the increase in the budget due to the affordable healthcare act, this means that they should engage in discussions on how to provide additional funding from other ventures or cutbacks from other government ventures as health care should be prioritized before other initiatives (Gelman, Kariv, Shapiro, Silverman, & Tadelis, 20125). The threat of a government shutdown can also be reflected upon as a means of engaging other groups in order to be hard as it is a critical threat to the party in the rule, due to the outcomes involved. Therefore neither Republicans nor the Democrats were on the right side of this situations.
References
Bendersky, C. (2014). Resolving ideological conflicts by affirming opponents' status: The Tea Party, Obamacare and the 2013 government shutdown. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 163-168.
Gelman, M., Kariv, S., Shapiro, M. D., Silverman, D., & Tadelis, S. (20125). How individuals smooth spending: Evidence from the 2013 government shutdown using account data (No. w21025). . National Bureau of Economic Research.
McMains, M. J., & Lanceley, F. J. (2003). The use of crisis intervention principles by police negotiators. Journal of Police Crisis Negotiations, 3-30.
Meyers, R. T. (2014). The implosion of the federal budget process: Triggers, commissions, cliffs, sequesters, debt ceilings, and shutdown. Public Budgeting & Finance, 1-23.
