US Shutdown

By Heeeun Shin (11007 신희은)

On January 20, 2018, the US government entered a shutdown for nearly three full days—the first since 2013. It was the first government shutdown of the Trump administration, and it coincidentally happened on the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States. Although the situation has been temporarily extinguished, many are concerned about whether another one is on its way soon. Here are some questions that can be answered about the shutdown.

What is a government shutdown & how did this happen?
A government shutdown is the closure of nonessential offices of the government due to lack of approval on the federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year (Investopedia). To put it simply, a government shutdown happens when the Congress cannot decide on spending plans. The temporary shutdown happened when an agreed spending bill failed to be passed by midnight on January 19. Thousands of federal employees were to be placed on furlough, which means they would not be showing up for work on Monday. The emergency did not last long, however, as the Congress passed a short-term spending bill that would be able to fund the government for the next 3 weeks until February 8.

What was the problem?
10 votes were short to pass the funding law. The question is, what did the Democrats and Republicans disagree on? One of the key arguments centered around Trump’s immigration policies. Back in September 2017, the Trump administration declared to shut down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program—a program built to help thousands of unauthorized immigrants by granting work permits and offering deportation protections to immigrants who came to the US as minors. This meant that these immigrants would be threatened to leave the country, even though they were raised in America. While the Democrats are trying to stop the DACA recipients from being deported, the Republicans are not into that idea, and this has been the basis of their sizzling argument.

What happened next?
After the shutdown, the Congress was to discuss an effective solution to the budget deal until February 8, or a second US government shutdown would be brought into action. A second shutdown was successfully avoided when Senate leaders announced a two-year budget agreement on February 7. The new plan seems to have satisfied both parties, as it “includes a long-sought defense spending boost that was the top goal of Republicans who lead both chambers in Congress and gives more funding for domestic programs sought by Democrats,” according to Bloomberg (Litvan et al., 2018). There has been criticism, however, regarding that significant increase in spending would not be in favor of America’s already enormous deficit.

Although the argument has been settled with a reasonable agreement, protecting the DACA recipients is still a matter waiting to be resolved. Now that the budget agreement has been negotiated, an assuring solution towards the immigration problem must be debated.