Earlier this year, the Federal Government had been whispering of a possible “shutdown” due to the fattening growth of the U.S. deficit.

Shortly after, Congress had passed a two-week extension on the continuing resolution in order to avoid the “shutdown.” The extension also dispels any 2011 spending issues.

Congress tested, President approved.

Republican House representatives brutally forced the position of $60 billion in budget cuts.
What’s this mean?

That’s $60 billion worth of cuts in domestic programs. These cuts would last the duration of the next 5 months of the fiscal year. Domestic programs are those which Congress has apportioned specific budgets for; these include education, national parks and monuments, and air traffic control, and scientific research. Acquiring something like a passport or even applying for Social Security will soon become laborious.

Even though this sounds like a difficult yet great start in the right direction, it’s not. The race had just begun and the government lost its footing. The subsidized worth of the cuts only discretely portions a fraction of the overall federal budget. Mind you that all this is simply a short term solution.

So what’s next?
A stop-gap measure. Funding for ObamaCare has been cut by $105.5 billion through 2019. This money is in use to temporarily fund the government until Representatives from both sides can quite bickering like old women and brainstorm for more of a permanent solution to keep the House lights from going out. April 8th saw yet another in a series of short-term resolutions passed extending government funding.

Due to these blatant makeshift measures, the food-spackled lunchroom at the House is becoming a dangerous battlefield.

These decisions are becoming reckless backed purely on the conflicting ideology of both parties. These “quick fixes” are causing more long-term damage then they’re actually helping; causing people to lose jobs and affecting the economy.

“Shutdowns” have happened before. The longest the federal government has gone dark was for 21 days before finally ending in January 1996. Before that, November 1995 marked a 5 day spread.

For those who work in Government jobs, prepare for mired dark days if an immediate furlough is indeed established. Furloughs entail a temporary leave of absence from employment whereby a “non-duty, non-pay status” will be implemented.

So it appears that the fire-belching suits –who instead of creating jobs are creating problems- are fighting each other tooth and nail despite yet another governmental collapse due to ideology. The dictionary definition example for ‘stopgap’ says “candles are a stopgap when the electricity fails.” Candles are exactly what representatives are going to need once they fail to find common ground and can’t afford to keep the lights on.