The End of the American Government

The government of the United States dealings are involved in every Americans lives, on October 1, 2013 the United States federal government shutdown was solely caused by the President of the United States and Congress members ineptness to find a compromise on the budget. The effects are far reaching, from national parks being closed to traffic and food manufacturing investigations being stopped. The government shutdown and subsequent furlough of 40% of this nations federal employees occurred because no budget was approved. In a news article from the Huffington Post on the topic of why the government shutdown the author says, “The reason that the House of Representatives and the Senate cannot agree is that the House of Representatives are using this power of budget approval to stall the budget so that they may show their constituents that they are doing "everything in their power" to stall the Affordable Care Act, as the majority of Republicans disagree with the provisions of the Affordable Care Act.” (Why) The Affordable Care Act was passed in 2012 and was set to be implemented on October 1, 2013. This clearly states why the shutdown occurred. House republicans want to keep their constituents happy by stalling and hopefully terminating the exceedingly unpopular Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as, “Obamacare”. Democrats in the Senate and President Obama refused to negotiate a deal with the house and thus no budget was passed to appropriate federal money. Park rangers can’t regulate the Federal Parks they have all been ordered to be shutdown. After October 1, 40%, or 860,000 of all federal employees were told by Congress that they could not come to work and be paid until a budget was passed. Park rangers are part of the 40% of federal employees deemed “non-essential”. Parks include Yosemite, California, Yellowstone, Wyoming, the Grand Canyon, western U.S., Assateague Island, Maryland. The closing of these parks affects more than just the visitors, stated by the Associated Press, “The Grand Canyon averages 18,000 tourists per day in October, which has left hotels, concessionaires and tour operators losing money by the hour.” (Impacts) Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being lost each day because the workers are living paycheck to paycheck and are not stimulating the economy because of the shutdown. Different federal agencies such as the National Safety Transportation Board, NTSB, and the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, were forced to make drastic reductions that affect millions of Americans, if not all. The Food and Drug Administration has had to completely cut out routine inspections of food companies. This greatly increases the chance of a breakout in salmonella or other food related diseases because food companies do not meet standards. Also,