Government Spending: Disagreement and Division

Government Spending: Disagreement and Division

Isaac Cooper, Managing Editor

    A “mess.” This is how junior Will Fulton describes the most recent government shutdown enacted by Congress.  On January 19, the U.S. Congress extended its period of budgeting (unclear and indefinite plans of spending) for the fourth time this fiscal year, which began October 1, 2017.

    A Congressional Resolution (CR), or “shutdown,” means that the U.S. Congress has not agreed upon a way to spend or allocate money to federal programs for the fiscal year by an internally agreed deadline.  The fiscal year began on October 1 of last year, meaning that for the past three months, congress has made no real plan of how to fund federal programs and in what manner to do so.

    The main thorn in the U.S. Capital that has caused this shutdown is the debate over DACA, an Obama era immigration program that protects the children of immigrants to the U.S. who were born in the U.S. to parents who illegally immigrated to the U.S. 700 thousand kids are currently reliant on this program to retain their legal status.

    This issue is a segue to the topic of immigration, a topic that has come under intense debate since the implementation of DACA and further aggravated by the election of President Donald Trump, who has a staple policy of building a wall on the southern border of the U.S. to prevent illegal immigration into the U.S.  This compiled with pre-established sectional and factional tensions between the two main political parties has resulted in this extended gridlock.

   “I think it [the CR] proves an ineffectuality of the United States government right now…there’s an impasse on both sides, but there’s an aura of sectionalism above actually actually doing anything for the country,” junior Ben Smith said.

    The end for this Congressional Resolution is set for February 8.  Will Congress be able to find a compromise in time of this deadline?