Plenty of others are discussing the government shutdown in the United States, and so I won’t try to cover the whole story. What I consider most noteworthy is just how much it says about our priorities. Not everything that is part of the government’s budget is actually shutting down. “Essentials” such as military activities are continuing without interruption. It is only “non-essentials” such as many health services, and national parks (I know of a school that had to cancel their annual field trip for this reason).
That there are representatives who would rather shut down the government rather than make even slight improvements to the state of health care coverage in our nation says a lot about them. But how the rules work when a shutdown occurs, what actually stops and what doesn’t, says a lot about our country as a whole.
And that Congress can bring about a government shutdown that doesn’t affect their own pay, but only that of others, is a disgrace that needs to be rectified.
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