By ANDREW MORSE
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
After 16 days of political posturing, ultimatums and #endthisnow tweets by President Obama, the government shutdown is finally over. Almost 800,000 federal employees were furloughed and many more were required to work without pay because their jobs were deemed essential. According to Standard and Poor’s, a financial research company, the shutdown cost the economy $24 billion; to say the situation spun out of control is an understatement.
The Obama administration and the Senate’s fiscal irresponsibility initially caused the shutdown. Republicans had been planning all along to use the funding bill as leverage to get spending concessions from Democrats. However, the fractured and seemingly-leaderless Republican party allowed a conservative minority from within its ranks to take center stage and turn the potential fiscal reform into an ethical and political firestorm.
Contrary to popular belief, the Republican contingent in the House of Representatives did not directly cause the shutdown. The GOP’s top priority for the last few years has been cutting down on government spending and lowering the deficit. It has made many attempts to cut costs, but the Democrats have been unwilling to budge on the big issues. The House passed enough money to fund all government activities except for President Obama’s signature health care law. Republicans view the Affordable Care Act as an unnecessary federal expense that will hurt small businesses and job growth.
Most Republican lawmakers knew that there was no serious chance that the Senate, much less the President, would allow the healthcare act to be delayed. The point was to get their attention and start talking about the issues on which Democrats would be willing to actually decrease spending. There was an opportunity for a legitimate bipartisan agreement that could have appeased both parties and set the stage for more deficit reduction in the future. There was also an opportunity for a small contingent of Republicans to turn the potential government shutdown into a crusade to destroy the crowning achievement of the president.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx) and other Tea Party politicians turned the government shutdown into a critique on healthcare reform. Their rhetoric and ultimatums created an incredibly hostile environment and essentially forced all lawmakers to retreat to their party lines. This small group of extreme right wing Republicans mortgaged the entire party’s position and gave Democrats a huge advantage in terms of public support.
The GOP showed a severe lack of leadership and an inability to create public support. Speaker John Boehner, as the de facto leader of the Republican Party, has to bear the brunt of the blame. As soon as the shutdown debate became about more than just fiscal reform the Republican Party lost. What is worse is that the party knew it was going to lose but kept on fighting regardless of the consequences. Conservative leaders allowed their party to undercut their public support and seriously hurt their chances in the 2014 elections with no positives to show for it.
Although the government is back up and running and the debt ceiling has been lifted, the problems that caused the government shutdown have not been solved. The government has been reopened until Jan 15 and the federal debt limit has been extended until Feb 7. Nothing has been done to curtail federal spending. In a few months this process is going to repeat. Although fractured, the Republican Party has shown that its primary concern is lowering the national debt.
President Obama is at a significant crossroads. Unless he is willing to reach a deal with conservative lawmakers to appease their budgetary demands, he will not be able to address any other significant issues. If the Senate and the White House continue to be uncompromising, then they will continue to settle for short term solutions that only postpone the problem. If the president wants to make serious progress on his political agenda then he will need to come to an agreement with conservative lawmakers.
In politics there are going to be conflicting ideologies, disagreements and a certain amount of petty bickering. It comes with the territory. However, allowing the situation to escalate to the point where the United States is in danger of defaulting on its debt shows a severe lack of leadership.