US Government Shutdown: Why Don’t Obama Care: Civil Services Mentor Magazine - November 2013

US GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN: WHY DON’T OBAMA CARE

The US government. entered a shutdown suspending discretionary services deemed “non-essential” by the Antideficiency Act. As a result of the government’s failure to enact regular appropriations or a continuing resolution for the 2014 fiscal year. Appropriations have lapsed and approximately 800,000 federal employees have been indefinitely furloughed without pay, while a further 1.3 million “essential” employees are required to report to work indefinitely but will not be paid until a budget is passed.

This is the first U.S. federal government shutdown since the shutdown of 1995 and 1996. The United States federal government has shut down on 18 occasions since 1976, although only the shutdown of 1995–96 both involved the entire federal government and lasted longer than four days.

Why this happened?

The Federal government had no choice. The US financial year ended on 30 September, and politicians on Capitol Hill have failed to agree a new budget for the 2013- 2014 financial year. Even a ‘stopgap’ funding deal proved beyond them. Without a budget deal approved by both parts of Congress, the House of Representative and the Senate, there’s no legal agreement to pay non-essential staff.

The shutdown was a result of political conflicts among Democratic President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives; specifically, the House’s unwillingness to pass a budget proposal without changes to the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the President’s unwillingness to sign into law a budget proposal with those changes.

October 1, 2013, the first day of the 2014 federal fiscal year, is also the date many of the Affordable Care Act’s provisions were to take effect. The health insurance exchanges provided for by the Affordable Care Act launched as scheduled on October 1.

Why doesn’t it happen in other countries?

The shutdown situation is a product of the US democratic system. The president is both head of state and head of the federal government, without a guaranteed majority in either of the legislative bodies where new laws are debated and voted upon (because presidents, congressmen and women and senators are elected separately). The president can’t simply ram laws through Capitol Hill.

In Britain, for example, tax and spending policies are outlined in the budget, presented to parliament by the chancellor of the exchequer. These changes are brought into law in a finance bill in the House of Commons. That’s in effect a confidence vote in the government, and even the most fractious backbench MP would balk at rebelling on it.

Finance bills are also one area where the elected House of Commons has the upper hand over the unelected House of Lords. The Lords have no power to reject a money bill; they can only delay it for a month.

<< Go Back To Magazine Articles Main Page

Current Affairs
Downloads
Magazine
Civil Services EXAM
Civil Services Preliminary
Civil Services Mains
UPSC