Shutdown aftermath: The fight we'd like to forget

YT&Twebzine
Shutdown aftermath: The fight we'd like to forget

    Someday, historians will look back on the 16-day succession of cringe-worthy moments that collectively formed the U.S. government shutdown and wonder why.

    It was, after all, political theater of the worst sort. While the shutdown was not the longest – the government closed for 21 days in December 1995 and early 1996 – it came at a time when economic conditions remain perilous. As of early October, the U.S. unemployment rate hovered at 7.3 percent.  During the 1995 shutdown, the unemployment rate was 5.6 percent. The construction industry expects to build 918,000 homes this year. There were an estimated 1.4 million housing starts in 1995.


    In the wake of a fragile economic recovery, the international stakes were more pronounced, too. Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned politicians that their dangerous game could trigger worldwide recession. Fitch Ratings, the credit rating agency, put the country's AAA rating on review for downgrade. And the Chinese media called for a “de-Americanized” world.
    After all was said and done, Congress agreed upon a deal to fund the government and federal employees returned to work. Opponents of President Barack Obama walked away disappointed. The Affordable Care Act, the president's signature legislation, remained in tact.
     We will miss the shutdown the way we would miss a broken leg, poison ivy or a case of small pox.  The last metaphor is most fitting. The shutdown was a pox upon all of our houses. It was also a crap shoot, with the financial welfare of the world at stake. As the dust settled Thursday, world newspapers reacted.
     Budgetary policy is difficult anywhere, but Ireland's difficulties “might be thought of as small beer compared to what is going on in America,” wrote Chris Johns of The Irish Times.
      “Just why the Republican Party has engaged in its near-suicidal tactics is something of a mystery: there are plenty of theories but even insiders are hard-pressed to come up with a coherent explanation. The simplest narrative is that these people are crazy: they threatened an implosion of the US economy in the hope of getting a repeal of President Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act. … The really interesting question is why the Republicans thought they could get away with it.”
        The Guardian newspaper editorialized, “The next round of this soap opera, which the house speaker John Boehner called fighting the good fight, will take place much closer to the mid-term elections.” That should matter, the paper pointed out, but, “Let us not forget that we are dealing with a group of people who don't accept that they lost the last election, in November 2012.”
       The biggest losers  were furloughed federal workers, according to News.com.au, an Australian website.
     “Although the Senate deal approves back pay there will still be severe financial consequences. Standard & Poor's estimates the economy lost $24 billion with growth forecasts lower in the fourth quarter."
      Tourists and brides were put out, the website notes. "Panda lovers also had to find something else to do as the beloved panda cam at the National Zoo was out of action."
      China Daily called the shutdown deal a temporary fix that fails to address the problem: “Washington's political dysfunction is the apparent reason why international investors doubt its ability to honor its signature.”