Like any other year, the US government must pass a spending bill that will appropriate funds for the following year. Sometimes tempers flare up and politics get heated, but for the most part, everyone comes to an agreement in order to keep the US government functioning. Not this time. The House of Representatives (controlled by the Republican party) passed a spending bill that would have defunded the Affordable Care Act, as a way to repeal Obama's signature health care plan. The Democrat-controlled Senate wanted to pass a bill with no additional conditions. The House of Representatives would not budge, so on October 1st, the government went into shutdown mode. Many parks and museums were closed. Federal loans were put on hold. More than 800,000 federal employees were furloughed. Fingers were pointed all over the political spectrum. Overall, the shutdown lasted 16 days, with the government coming back to life on October 17th. House Speaker John Boehner caved in and allowed other Republicans to vote for the Senate's version of the bill. If they had not acted by that date, the United States could have potentially defaulted on its loans, the first time in history if that were to have happened. It's a little alarming when elected politicians will not do the job they were hired to do. The shutdown is over for now, but as always, there will be another crisis in a few months that could get just as heated.
Ryan Estabrooks is a film writer/director and photographer. When he is not busy solving mysteries, he can be found working on his feature length film. You can view all of his work at the imaginatively-titled RyanEstabrooks.com
