Government shutdown scare

The idea of a federal government shutdown may sound absurd, but it is only history repeating itself.

In Dec. 1995, during former President Bill Clinton’s time in office, the federal government was shut down for 21 days.

In the event that the fiscal year is over and a new government budget has not been put into place, a funding gap leaves programs without money. Shutting down the government is an attempt to get money to the appropriate places with as little hassle as possible. This nearly happened just last month.

“As early as (April 4), news stations began running countdown clocks, ticking away to a government shutdown,” said correspondent Linda Wertheimer in a NPR radio broadcast. “If those clocks had reached zero with no budget deal, parts of the government would have closed and around 800,000 federal employees would have been furloughed.”

Both houses of congress and the president were called to assemble a new budget before the end of the fiscal year.

Eventually, an agreed upon budget was reached and spending cuts of $38 billion dollars of federal funding were put into place.

A government shutdown would have greatly affected the 47 percent of students who rely on federal loans to pay their tuition. If there were no federal government in place, there would not be anywhere to send applications or queries and no one to process the applications for government loans. This would force many students to leave school.

Since the cuts were made, the threat of a government shutdown subsided, at least until a new budget is implemented at the end of the fiscal year.

Sources:

Huffington Post

NPR News