The U.S. federal government has shut down and the last employee who left his office probably remembered to turn off the lights. The dispute over the budget between the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democrat-controlled Senate ended up with the deputies proposing a budget that would delay the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (i.e. healthcare that citizens can afford to pay for) for a year. The senators rejected this budget in less than an hour and without discussing it. When the federal government shut down back in 1995, the Americans held the Republican Party responsible and Bill Clinton won a second term. Today, President Barack Obama feels that the American people are holding the Republican Party responsible for shutting down the government, which means that the party could be paying the price at the mid-term elections next year and also at the 2016 presidential elections. I was in New York last week at the UN's General Assembly when Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, gave a 21-hour speech against the healthcare bill. I did not pay much attention to the man while present at the General Assembly's hall or at the Security Council. Senator Cruz is relatively new and has been at the Senate for less than ten months. Nevertheless, he – and the ultra-rightist wing that he belongs to – succeeded in imposing their say on the party members, knowing that the party leaders were in disagreement. The healthcare law has been on the books for three years now and was upheld by the Supreme Court, which means that this law is final and irrevocable. Nevertheless, the Republican Party's right wing demanded that the law be delayed, thus depriving eleven million poor Americans from any healthcare next year. As he was leaving the White House, Dwight Eisenhower warned against the alliance between the industry and the military. Had he been still alive to this day, he would have discovered that his Republican Party is home to the rich people's alliance and is now fighting a lost war against President Obama. Indeed, despite the government shut down, people who wish to enroll at the health care program will still be able to do so. Perhaps the most serious part of the federal Administration's shut down this time is that the two parties do not want to hold any negotiations. This is an unseen first. The President wants to endorse the budget, including the healthcare law, while the Republicans are refusing that. Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, held Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, responsible. He launched a violent campaign against the failed Republican policies and no public or secret negotiations are being held between the two parties. The Office of Management and Budget ordered 800,000 civil servants to take an unpaid leave. The main services and armed forces (1.4 million individuals) will stay in in their jobs. However, there will probably be a delay in paying people's salaries as well as the state's debts. In a nutshell, the American politics are currently in a place where President Obama is negotiating with the Ayatollah regime in Iran but not with the Republican Party. Obama seems fully convinced that the Islamic Republic of Tehran is more rational and willing to find solutions than the Republican Party. I don't claim to know how or when this crisis will end. I just think that the Republicans will probably lose this battle so I don't understand how they decided to go through with it in the first place and how the leaders of the party accepted to be controlled by a new, reckless senator and the Tea Party. Under this context, I believe that Congress – through its two houses and parties – has blocked the government's work and left hundreds of thousands of employees with no jobs or pay while the members of the two houses are still working and getting paid. At the end, I cannot but make the following comparison: when the U.S. Federal Government shut down, news about this event swept the entire globe; meanwhile, in some (but not all) of our countries, governments have shut their gates and minds for years and no one even bothered to inquire about that. This is perhaps because, by not working, such governments will actually be doing less harm. [email protected]
