Lights Out for the US Government: How Will it Affect Us?

By Chad Anthony on October 1, 2013

The question.  To fund or not to fund.  How can Big Brother do this to its people?  Two sides embody rams trying to knock heads until the other passes out.  War vets busted the blocks that stopped entry to the WWII memorial of etched stone.  They fought for one nation.  These war vets want one nation to work on the same side.  Not one nation split in two.  Displaying the old school mentality, they keep fighting for a nation that needs to be slapped into shape.  Barack versus Boehner or Tea Party versus Dems?  There is the problem.  We fight a politic civil war right now.  The question.  What is a country to do?

Not so surprisingly, this government shutdown pulls at the heartstrings of American society.  The people of the states seem to be angry.  But, why?  How does this affect us?

1. Don’t start an epidemic
- The National Institutes of Health cannot take any new patients.  Clinical research stops and medical hotlines quit taking calls.  The Center for Disease Control admitted that response time to mass attacks will be reduced.  Remember the chemical weapon hiccups over in Syria, Iran, and North Korea late August/early September?  If any of our red flagged enemies decided to drop Sarin, our government could not assist as well as before.

2. Put tree vacations on hold
- Over 400 national parks, museums, and zoos close their gates.  Reschedule that family trip to Yosemite.  Some parks are giving guests a 48-hour time table to leave the grounds.  Millions of visitors (and their wallets) will be turned away.  This puts a damper on businesses and generally depletes a mass amount of revenue.  Washington D.C. is projected to lose $200 million a day.  Let that sink in for a second.

3. Viva la aliens
- The nations E-verification system will be down.  This means that businesses will not be able to check the legality of their prospective employees during the government hiatus.

4. Health and [not so] wellness
- Support for the Women, Infants, and Children program will be halted.  This helps (or, used to help) pregnant women and new mothers purchase food as well as give nutritional information.  Health care referrals won’t happen either.  Funds have been appropriated to support these programs for “a week or so” but after that, the well runs dry.

(A full list of the departments affected can be found here)

The biggest hit will be to the mentality of the American public.  Yes, a contingency plan has been put in place for exactly this situation; however, it only covers the first 5-day period.  Two of the major parties continue to play the blame-game.  Turn on any news station and emotional questions are being asked to panels of enraged representatives.  They only want to hear themselves talk.  Republicans want to defund and rework the spending policies when Democrats have cemented their feet solidly in the health care reform.  President Obama explicitly stated the “Republican Shutdown” does not stop ObamaCare’s initiation.  With the new fiscal year already started, the government still hasn’t reached a decision as to how to appropriately fund the country.  The indecision digs our grave even deeper.  After a week of a shut down, the supposed “Greatest Country in the World” will lose around $1 billion.  The US has almost borrowed as much as it can.  If the shutdown continues, America will default on loans.  The worth of the dollar weakened, dropping 0.1%, after a loss of 2.8% last quarter (the most since 2010).

This stalemate successfully sinks the credibility of America even more so after the Syrian fiasco.  We have been playing Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun.  Who will want to play with a country as ridiculously immature as the US?  The American people along with American allies are embarrassed.  We’ve shit our pants.  Instead of quietly cleaning ourselves up, we’ve spread it all over the classroom walls.

 

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