On Sept. 30, the United States federal government shut down. Representatives in Congress had been attempting to renegotiate the budget ahead of the current fiscal year ending, but were unable to come to an agreement.
The government has shut down 10 times in total, and protocol requires most federal services to be suspended, while others continue without wages for workers.
Since the beginning of this shutdown, everything from air travel to health research to national parks and museums has ceased operating, while medical services and ICE programs have continued.
Keros Bennett, a Ferris student and former veteran, said he’s worried about the situation.
‘It makes you think (about) how easy it is for this to go away,” he said. Bennett was also concerned about the federal employees who are forced to work without pay and are having their jobs threatened.
The effects extend to non-federal organizations as well. At Ferris State University, the impacts of the shutdown can vary.
According to political sciences professor David Takitaki, the shutdown will likely complicate any federally funded research projects currently in progress.
Additionally, it may be harder for students to begin the process of receiving new financial aid, since the Department of Education has given its employees temporary leave of absence and discinuation of pay for the remainder of the shutdown.
Other than these areas, most students won’t be affected in a major way while on campus.
“The shutdown will not impact students’ study or their access to their already distributed financial aid,” Takitaki said.
Unless it continues for more than a month, that is when consequences may expand towards students.
The last time the government shut down was in 2018 and lasted for 35 days. Takitaki said that the shutdown caused a “brief moment of concern,” though mostly since it occurred between the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019. The government reopened before classes started in Jan. 2019.
“I think it’ll get wrapped up soon,” Bennett said of this shutdown, adding that the government shut down five times while he was in service, but that this time it “does feel different.”
The original disagreement in Congress was over healthcare budgeting. Specifically, Republican-proposed cuts to Medicaid and Medicare that Democrats opposed. When Republicans tried to extend the negotiation period with the cuts embedded in it— a “continuing resolution”— Democrats refused, and the government shut down. It will not reopen until either Democrats agree to the continuing resolution or Republicans agree to alter it.
Multiple funding bills designed to reopen the government have failed to pass the Senate.
Bennet said that he believes both Democrats and Republicans are to blame, and that he hopes they’ll learn to work together as a result of the shutdown.
To end the shutdown, Republicans would need eight additional votes to pass the House’s version of the budget, which would reopen the government with the proposed budget cuts.
“As of today, there are likely three who would go along with the existing budget in order to unfreeze the government,” Takitaki said, leaving Republicans to find an additional five to join them.
For Democrats, the path forward is to convince Republicans to remove the cuts from the budget, when they would then agree to pass it.
“I think that you will see some of those moderate Democrats cave before you would see Republican senators change their mind broadly and risk the wrath of President Trump,” Takitaki said.
Republicans face greater public pressure, though, as their healthcare cuts are generally unpopular, within both parties.
As a result, Takitaki believes that the outcome of the shutdown may lie in the hands of the public, a possible explanation for the varied messaging about it.
He believes Republicans’ strategy relies on placing the blame on Congressional Democrats, claiming they refused to pass the continuing resolution after Republicans cut healthcare funding for illegal immigrants, a claim that’s been mostly successful, though inaccurate. Democrats, meanwhile, haven’t been able to find a successful message, leaving the American people between two agendas.
“My hope is that this type of shutdown elevates this very important issue to a broader matter of public consciousness,” Takitaki said.
He added that many major issues get ignored due to the political conversation around it, but the higher stakes of a full shutdown may “prevent crisis by having engagement.”
Takitaki also believes people need to engage in “broader conversations” around the matter, but that those won’t happen unless “we are tuned in and taking it seriously.”
His students often have a wide array of understanding regarding government. He said some students see politics as “ugly and nasty, and they want no part of it,” especially if they feel powerless to affect anything.
“We have to be a little empathic to those who want to stay out of it,” Takitaki said.
Others may be uninformed and don’t know how to get involved. For them, Takitaki suggests looking for news made by outside sources like BBC and Al Jazeera to see “how the world is looking at us,” to take classes that help inform them and to “seek out reasonable perspectives online,” while keeping in mind that even independent sources are biased and need verification.
He also expressed that students are more capable of making an impact than they may think they are.
“I bet I could get 500 Ferris students in a room and they could come to a compromise. That compromise would look a lot better than what’s coming out of Congress,” Takitaki said.
The distance between those students and members of Congress, he said, is “not light years, it’s steps. Steps that they could cross.”
Some of his students see the ongoing conflict and believe they could do better job at preventing them. Takitaki agrees.
“You could do better. Maybe we need folks to step up and do exactly that,” Takitaki said.
As for the current situation, members of Congress from both sides of the political aisle continue to push forward until a resolution can be agreed upon.