The longest ever government shutdown dragged on in 2018. President Trump continues to demand more than $5 billion for a U.S.-Mexico border wall. But the Democrats wouldn’t agree to any new budget for Trump’s wall. How did this shut down affect America?
What is a partial government shutdown?
In 2018, America faced a partial shutdown. What is a ”partial government shutdown?” A shutdown happens when congress agrees not to pass a funding bill. Like, a bank refusing to give a loan. The Federal government organizes a budget every year to fund different departments and projects, but Trump’s wall wasn’t one of them. In order for the annual bill to pass it must be approved by the President. But, Trump said he wouldn’t sign anything that didn’t included the money to build his wall. The Democrats refused to sign off on his bill, so President Trump refused to sign the budget plan for the year. Which led to the country’s partial shutdown.
A ”partial shutdown” only effects certain departments of the federal government. The federal government is like a tree. You have a lot of branches, and they work together to help keep the tree alive. The truck of the tree being America. The Federal government is split into 15 different departments, 9 of those departments were shut down. Departments like Homeland Security, the Justice Department, Commerce, and many more.
Perspective.
President Trump shut down the government in demands that the Democrats in office would grant him 5 billion dollars to build the Mexico-U.S border wall. The Federal government is granted $4.4 trillion dollars a year to cover all expenses like paying off diets to other countries. If we look how much the governments budget is for the year, $5 billion dollars doesn’t make a dent in the budget. CNN states, ”The money that Congress and Trump are fighting over — $5 billion for the border wall — is a small fraction of the overall federal budget.” The budget for the wall is a fraction of a faction of the total budget. My question is why would you sacrifice the livelihood of over 800,000 federal workers? After all, it’s something so small.
The Workers.
Firstly, 9 out of 15 departments were closed as a result of the shutdown. The workers that belong in those 9 departments, fall under two categories. Those two categories are ”essential and non-essential workers.” Workers that fall under the ”non-essential” category aren’t in a position that is a integral piece to the everyday function of the country. These workers aren’t allowed to work. So they’re sent home, for instance. they were let go. In other words, they’re fired for a period of time.
As for the workers who fall under the ”essential” category, they have a different story. These worker have jobs that can’t be postponed. For example, the department of Homeland Security. The workers that are essential to keeping the country safe and running have to go to work everyday like usual. But the only difference is they never got paid. How would you feel if you had to work without getting paid for your hard work?
The Departments affected.
The shutdown affected the operations of nine departments in the federal government. Including, the department of Commerce, Justice, Science; Financial Services & General Government; Homeland Security; Interior, Environment; State, Foreign Operations; and Transportation.
