First
and foremost, the US Government did not collapse. It is not the end of the
world for the Americans. The US Government Budget shuts down because the
Congress which involves the House of Representatives and Senate failed to pass
a budget for the FY October 1, 2013 to September 30, 2014.
The US Constitution mandates that “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in
Consequence of Appropriations made by Law”.
Appropriations and Law creation are functions of the Congress. When
Congress failed to pass the budget request of the president, the government
shuts down.
What are the Processes to have a US Gov't
Budget?
The federal government fiscal year begins on
October 1 and ends September 30.
The president submits a budget request to the
Congress no earlier than the first Monday in
January, and no later than the first Monday in February for the succeeding
fiscal year.
Once the congress receives the requested
budget, the United States House Committee on the
Budget (House of Representative) drafts a budget
resolution. Simultaneously, the United States Senate Committee on the Budget
(Senate) does the same.
Once
the budget resolutions of the House and Senate were passed at their respective
floors, selected members from each House negotiate to reconcile the differences
of their respective budget resolutions through a conference report. This
conference report must be approved by both the House and Senate. The approved
budget will be sent to the President for his signature. The President
however, can veto the Congress approved budget but the Congress can override
the veto if 2/3 of the Congress voted to let the budget move forward.
Mandatory Spending
Certain expenditures
are not affected by the US Government shutdown because they are protected by
specific laws. These certain laws authorize the applicable federal agencies to
continue operating indefinitely or for a specific period. Contained in these
laws are permanent appropriations (funding) which become automatically
available every fiscal year regardless whether a federal budget is passed or
not.
Actual mandatory spending for
FY 2011 is $2.025 trillion and accounted for 56% of total federal expenditure.
Mandatory spending
includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, MERHCF, Children’s Health Insurance Program, SNAP, Unemployment compensation, Supplemental
Security Income, Earned income
and child tax credits, Temporary
Assistance for Needy, Child
nutrition, Foster care, Making Work Pay and Other Tax Credits, Civilian
and Military Retirement, Veterans
Income security, Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac, Deposit Insurance,
Higher education, Agriculture and Others.
Essential Services Continue
In a government shutdown, not all employees
are getting furlough. There are 1.3 million essential civilian employees who
continue to work despite the shutdown. However, if the shutdown continues until
October 15, their paychecks will be delayed.
Active service military members will get paid
no matter how long the shutdown lasts because the Congress passed a bill
guaranteeing them of a paycheck even during shutdowns. President Obama signed
it into law.
Here is a partial list of essential
employees:
·
Any
employee or office that "provides for the national security, including the
conduct of foreign relations essential to the national security or the safety
of life and property." That means the U.S. military will keep operating,
for one. So will embassies abroad.
·
Any
employee who conducts "essential activities to the extent that they
protect life and property." So, for example: Air traffic control stays
open. So does all emergency medical care, border patrol, federal prisons, most
law enforcement, emergency and disaster assistance, overseeing the banking
system, operating the power grid, and guarding federal property.
·
Agencies
have to keep sending out benefits and operating programs that are written into
permanent law or get multi-year funding. That means sending out Social Security
checks and providing certain types of veterans' benefits. Unemployment benefits
and food stamps will also continue for the time being, since their funding has
been approved in earlier bills.
·
All
agencies with independent sources of funding remain open, including the U.S.
Postal Service and the Federal Reserve.
·
Members
of Congress can stick around, since their pay is written into permanent law.
Congressional staffers however, will also get divided into essential and
non-essential, with the latter getting furloughed. Many White House employees
could also get sent home.
Non-essential Services Shuts Down
The non-essential services are the functions
of the government which without a budget cannot function.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
recently ordered the managers of federal agencies to conduct reviews to see
which employees are essential or non-essential. Employees classified as
non-essential will be furloughed.
Furloughed is a temporary unpaid leave due to
special needs of a company. A government shutdown resulted in non essential employees
getting furlough.
Here is an example of employees getting
furlough:
Department of Commerce: 87 percent of the
agency's 46,420 employees would be sent home. (The Weather Service would keep
running, for instance, but the Census Bureau would close down.)
Department of Defense: 50 percent of the
800,000 civilian employees would be sent home while all 1.4 million active-duty
military members would stay on. (Environmental engineers, for instance, would
get furloughed, and the agency could not sign any new defense contracts.)
Department of Energy: Thanks to multi-year funding, parts of
the agency can actually operate for "a short period of time" after
Sept. 30. But eventually 69 percent of the agency's 13,814 employees will
be sent home. (Those in charge of nuclear materials and power grids stay. Those
conducting energy research go home.)
Environmental Protection Agency: 94 percent of the
16,205 employees will be sent home. (Those protecting toxic Superfund sites
stay. Pollution and pesticide regulators get sent home.)
Federal Reserve: Everyone would stay, since the central
bank has an independent source of
funding.
Department of Health and Human Services: 52 percent of 78,198 employees would
be sent home. (Those running the Suicide Prevention Lifeline would stay, those
in charge of investigating Medicare fraud would go home.)
Department of Homeland
Security: 14
percent of the 231,117 employees would go home. (Border Patrol would stay.
Operations of E-Verify would cease. The department will also suspend
disaster-preparedness grants to states and localities.)
Department of Housing and Urban Development: 95 percent of the 8,709 employees would go
home. (Those in charge of guaranteeing mortgages at Ginnie Mae would stay, as
would those in charge of homelessness programs. Almost everything else would
come to a halt.)
Department of Interior: 81 percent of the
72,562 employees would be sent home. (Wildlife law enforcement officers would
stay, while the national parks would close.)
Department of Justice: 15 percent of the
114,486 employees would go home. (FBI agents, drug enforcement agents, and
federal prison employees would stay. The department would continue running
background checks for gun sales. Some attorneys would go home.)
Department of Labor: 82 percent of the
16,304 employees would be sent home. (Mine-safety inspectors will stay. Wage
and occupational safety regulators will go home. Employees compiling economic
data for the Bureau of Labor Statistics will also get furloughed.)
NASA: 97 percent of the 18,134 employees
would be sent home. (Scientists working on the International Space Station will
stay. Many engineers will go home.)
U.S. Postal Service: Everyone would stay,
since the Postal Service is self-funded.
Social Security Administration: 29 percent of the 62,343 employees
would be sent home. (Claims representatives would stay; actuaries would go
home.)
Supreme Court and federal courts. Federal courts,
will continue to operate for approximately two weeks with reserve
funds. After that, only essential employees would continue to work, as
determined by the chief judge, with the rest furloughed. (The Supreme Court
will continue to operate when it opens Oct. 7, as it did in previous
shutdowns.)
Department of Treasury: 80 percent of the
112,461 employees will be sent home. (Those sending out Social Security checks
would stay; IRS employees overseeing audits would go home.)
Department of Transportation: 33 percent of the
55,468 employees will get sent home. (Air-traffic controllers will stay on;
most airport inspections will cease.)
Department of Veterans Affairs: 4
percent of the 332,025 employees would go home. (Hospital workers will stay;
some workers in charge of processing benefits will go home.)
Why the House and Senate are at Odds with One
Another?
The US congress is composed of the House of
Representative and the Senate. Both are distinct and separate legislative body.
A budget cannot be passed without the concurrence of both bodies.
The current gov't shutdown is due to the
disagreement over the budget between the House of Representative controlled by
the Republicans and Senate held by the Democrats. This impasse leads to a
budget not getting passed.
At the heart of the House and Senate impasse
is Obamacare. Republican controlled House wants to delay or defund Obamacare. The
Democrat majority Senate wants to remove those provisions in the budget, and so
is President Obama. Remember, President Obama is a Democrat.
Republicans and Democrats have their own
political ideology. Here are some of the differences:
|
|
Democrat
|
Republican
|
|
Philosophy:
|
Liberal
|
Conservative
|
|
Economic
Ideas:
|
Favor minimum wages and
progressive taxation i.e. higher tax rates for higher income
brackets.
|
Believe taxes shouldn't be increased for anyone (including
the wealthy) and that wages should be set by the free market.
|
|
Stand
on Military issues:
|
Decreased spending
|
Increased spending
|
|
Stand
on gay marriage:
|
Support (some Democrats disagree)
|
Oppose (some Republicans disagree)
|
|
Stand
on abortion:
|
Should not be made illegal; support. Roe v.
Wade (some Democrats disagree)
|
Should not be legal; oppose Roe v. Wade (some Republicans
disagree)
|
|
Stand
on Death penalty:
|
While support for the death penaltyis strong among
Democrats, opponents of the death penalty are a substantial
fraction of the Democratic base.
|
A large majority of Republicans support the
death penalty.
|
|
Social
and human ideas:
|
Based on community and social responsibility
|
Based on individual rights and justice
|
|
Traditionally
strong in states:
|
California, Massachusetts
|
Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas
|
|
Symbol:
|
Donkey
|
Elephant
|
|
Color:
|
Blue
|
Red
|
|
Founded
in:
|
1824
|
1854
|
|
Website:
|
www.democrats.org
|
www.gop.com
|
|
Senate
Leader:
|
Harry Reid
|
Mitch McConnell
|
|
Chairperson:
|
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
|
Reince Priebus
|
|
Famous
Presidents:
|
Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Woodrow
Wilson, Jimmy Carter
|
Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, George
Bush, Richard Nixon
|
Sources:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/1105
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_process
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_spending
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33074.pdf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/30/absolutely-everything-you-need-to-know-about-how-the-government-shutdown-will-work/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/09/18/omb-to-agencies-start-making-shutdown-plans/
http://www.gao.gov/legal/lawresources/antideficiencybackground.html
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Democrat_vs_Republican
According
to our 1987 Constitution, Article VI, Section
25 (7) states “If, by the end of any fiscal year, the Congress
shall have failed to pass the general appropriations bill for the ensuing
fiscal year, the general appropriations law for the preceding fiscal year shall
be deemed reenacted and shall remain in force and effect until the general
appropriations bill is passed by the Congress.”
