Example Of Pros And Cons Of The Shut-Down Essay

Last month the world watched closely as the most powerful country in the world in terms of wealth and military had much of their functioning halted due to the government’s inability to compromise. The shutdown ended up lasting for sixteen days and it has been estimated that it cost the country $24 billion dollars. What was seen as unfortunate and angered a lot of voters was just how unnecessary the shutdown actually was. It was not the result of a necessity but the result of politicians acting as many writers depicted them “as children.” However, there are some who see the silver lining in the government shut down. Clearly, there were negative repercussions due to the shutdown. But many did not see it as a zero sum game where there was no good that could come out of it. The government shutdown, while avoidable, happened and there are various viewpoints as to what the positive and negative effects of the shut down are.
The term employed by the media for federal government workers who were not paid and asked not to come to work during the shut down was “furloughed.” A vocabulary term that many in the US did not know before the shutdown, but one that many are certainly now familiar with. A Furlough is a temporary leave of absence. The term is more commonly used for military workers, and has applications to mean a temporary lay-off. One pro for some furloughed workers was that they in essence were double paid during the period. Some workers were paid double because of the shut-down. Some federal workers, out of the job, were able to collect unemployment benefits. When the government resumed funding many of these workers were paid for the time that they were furloughed, and were also allowed to keep the unemployment benefits they collected. This, from a worker standpoint, led to receiving more financial compensation because of the shutdown then they would have otherwise received. But while this can be counted as a pro for these individual workers, it is a con for the country because of the fact that the government had to foot the bill for this double dipping. According to ABC News’ Shushannah Walshe, the government paid 3.1 billion dollars to workers who were not working at the time.
The numbers of financial loss for the country are a definitive con without any silver lining. There was 3.1 billion dollars in lost government services, people retroactively paid for services they were unable to preform during the shutdown . The park service nation-wide lost according to Walshe 76 million dollars in being unable to collect visitor fees. Also, many people had their vacation plans ruined since trips to state parks are planned months and years in advance and they were closed for business. So what good then came out of the shutdown. It is hard to say, Americans approval rating of congress and Washington suffered. But this might not be a bad thing. It could lead to ousting of the problem-causing representative that allowed the shutdown to happen to begin with.
Americans are upset that the government went to such an extreme in their inability to compromise. Next year’s midterm elections will be the ultimate deciding factor in determining if the shut-down was worth it. Only then will we see if voters punish lawmakers by instead of laying them off, firing them from the voter booth.