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As the U.S. is in its second week of a partial federal government shutdown, many are placing the blame on the Republican-run House of Representatives.

The bigger issue at hand, however, has more substance than the bickering of some frugal old white men over the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

The real issue is the major polarization of our political system, where Democrats are all for raising the debt ceiling (which is another major topic of concern with doomsday looming on Oct. 17) to cover national bills, and Republicans are against spending any money on anything somewhat socialist, like Obamacare. It’s gotten so bad that the parties cannot make any bipartisan decisions, not even on our federal budget.

Because of a major gridlock over our budget and mainly over Obamacare (which, by the way, went live the day after the shutdown anyway), over 800,000 federal workers are on furlough until further notice. Here’s the kicker: some workers are not guaranteed their jobs back.

Not only are hundreds of thousands of people left jobless, but businesses are getting hit as well. So far, the shutdown is letting about $160 million go down the drain every single day because of national park and museum closures, according to Business Week.

Republicans in the House did attempt to create a bipartisan committee to end the shutdown, but it was rejected by Democratic President Barack Obama on Sept. 30 minutes before the impasse began.

Obama responded by saying, “I’m not going to negotiate.”

There is nothing to negotiate anyway, since Obamacare is currently getting a growing sign-up list.

As far as one can see, the only way this hurtful, painstaking impasse will end is if there is some good bipartisan negotiations. A federal budget cannot be passed without the consent of both the Republican-run House and the Democrat-run Senate.

These party fights have already done enough damage to our government and economy as it is.

Will the Democrats and Republicans learn to embrace bipartisanship to fix this country and get us out of the shittiest shutdown to ever hit the fan?

We’ll have to anxiously wait and see.

Sources:

  1. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/us/politics/congress-shutdown-debate.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
  2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24419564
  3. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57605398/government-shutdown-begins-congress-fails-to-agree-on-spending-bill/
  4. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-10-08/u-dot-s-dot-loses-1-dot-6-billion-from-shutdown-costing-160-million-a-day
  5. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2014/assets/budget.pdf
  6. http://housedocs.house.gov/energycommerce/ppacacon.pdf
  7. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/27/us/who-goes-to-work-during-government-shutdown.html?ref=politics
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