Thoughts on the current government situation and on Boston Globe article

On Monday the government shutdown will enter it's third week, and there seems to be no signs of it stopping any time soon. As the congress continues to debate how to move forward, the situation is proving to be more complicated than it may have seemed going into the shutdown. As congress continues to attempt to work on passing a budget, no political topics seem to be off the table. Now, as we are beginning to near the debt ceiling limit, it adds another complex issue for congress to sort out.

I think that the article in the Boston Globe on Sunday the 13th (Obstacle emerges in last ditch struggle to avoid default) highlights the complexity of the situation. Though we have entered the shut down due to an effort to defund Obamacare, it is clear that that is not the only issue facing any way to get out of the mess that the country is in currently. We are clearly in a political climate that leave a lot of disrespect between sides. Each political party feels that they have to upper hand, and it is leaving the country in a difficult situation.

It feels like there are two US governments. The first government is the one that is constantly in the news. It is the president and the congress and the supreme court. These groups have a lot of say in what happens in the country, and are the ones that are in the fore front of people's minds when we think of government in general.

The second government is the people in the background, the ones that are actually keeping things running. These are the office workers, the forrest rangers, the fire fighters, the NASA employees, the CDC employees. It is these groups that keep things happening in our country and are crucial to making sure everything is working properly.

In most cases, the second group is able to continue working even if the political squabbles of those in power are particularly intense. But now, without a working budget, the second group is feeling the full force of a government unable to get anything done. For now, we all have to wait and see how things turn out.