Taylor Bembery
Associate Editor
The United States federal government was closed for business on Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2013. Students at Jackson State University expressed many concerns about how the government shutdown would affect them.
Parts of the federal government officially shutdown at 12:01 a.m. after Congress played ping pong for several hours with a spending bill that would help uninsured Americans afford health care but failed to come to an agreement to fully fund normal operations.
The House would pass a version of the spending bill that delayed or chipped away at the Affordable Care Act.
The Affordable Care Act or ‘Obamacare,’ is a United States federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. Obamacare still made its debut in the midst of the shutdown and is now available for U.S. citizens as of Tuesday.
Rickey Hill, Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Political Science at JSU, gave more insight on the shutdown and some of the possible affects of it.
“The government has to pay its bills, salaries, wages, goods and services, so appropriation bills go through the Congress then eventually through the House. Presidents then send their legislative request to the Congress. The President has people that work with the Congress for budgetary matters,” explained Hill. “This is not the first time they have shutdown the government, it simply means that until they come up with an appropriation bill that they can agree upon, there will be a shutdown. The appropriation bill has to be agreed upon by the House and the Senate.”
Hill stated that government agencies will have to furlough an estimated 700,000 to 800,000 workers of the closed agencies.
“There are some critical agencies that are not going to close down, but depending on how long it goes on, it will definitely impact every area or entity that receives or operates on federal funding. We are talking about educational institutions, hospitals, community centers, parks, you name it! If there are some federal dollars involved, things will stop,” said Hill.
Natalie Nicholson, a junior history major from Memphis, Tenn., believes that the public is blowing the government shutdown way out of proportion.
“I feel it’s not really relevant to students right now but if it goes on longer, it will affect us. “On social media there are a lot of my peers who are completely oblivious to what the shutdown actually means. Some people are comparing the movie “The Purge” to the government shutdown which is ridiculous. This whole shutdown thing to me is really Republicans against Democrats. We the people shouldn’t have anything to worry about,” said Nicholson.
Mario Musgrove, a political science graduate student from Laurel, Miss., believes that the government shutdown does affect students.
“The shutdown is probably not going to be anything tangible for the average person to see. The buses are going to run, the toilets are still going to flush, and the grocery stores are going to be open. However, the population that works in the private sector is going to feel the shutdown. Teachers may feel the affect, veterans may feel the affect, people on public assistance or entitlements may realize the affects but it has only been a couple days,” said Musgrove.
Hill believes the shutdown stems from the Republicans stance against the Affordable Care Act.
‘The reason why the Republicans in the House have done this is because they don’t like President Obama. They use the Affordable Care Act to show they will not fund ‘ObamaCare’ if it goes into effect. They are not going to sign off on any appropriation bill until President Obama decides to stop pushing the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act has passed Congress, it passed the House and the Senate, legal suits were filed that got to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said The Affordable Care Act is constitutional,” said Hill.
