by Cade Smith
On December 22, President Trump decided to shut the government down from making no progress on getting the funds to build a new U.S.—México border wall. This has set a new record for longest of its kind. With this nine out of fifteen federal agencies were affected, which is also affects about 800,000 federal workers.
Since federal workers don’t receive pay, many have decided to go on the search for a second job to pay bills. The search is difficult because they have to continue going to their main job. According to the job site, Indeed, there was reported a rise in interest from federal workers. The amount of people searching for a job has jumped from around 100 to around 140 people, in data ranged from December 13th to January 12th.
One thing that was most affected by the government shutdown that people were upset about was the shutdown of national parks. Most parks shut down while there were some parks that were still open, though the services were not in operation.
The services that were not in operation were visitor centers, park rangers, garbage pickup, and any other park staff. While they’re still working, they will be directed to a reactive approach instead of a protective one, even though staff search and rescue could be delayed. There were many signs warning people about still being able to walk the trails, but would have to do so at their own risk.
Many parks differ on their condition, while many parks were closed, there were some that were open due to using supplemental funding from partner groups and state budgets. Sadly, some parks have been broken into when they were closed and were vandalized. One case was in Joshua Tree National Park, California, people broke in to the campgrounds, set up a illegal campsite, and then cut down a tree to go off-roading.
While President Trump has the government shut down, he plans to save the government money to fund a border wall. Some people think that the shutdown is costing more money than it is while not shutdown. According to Michael A. Peterson, chairman of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, “There’s nothing good about this shutdown, from a fiscal or a budgetary standpoint.”
For me, I believe that the government shouldn’t have been shutdown to make a new border wall. The government should’ve stayed open and not cause federal workers distress. Along with that, federal workers haven’t been paid, they would be paid after the shutdown has ended from back pay.
According to MSNBC as of January 11, the U.S. economy has lost 3.6 billion dollars, which is about 1.2 billion dollars every week. That would add up to 4.8 billion dollars the U.S. economy lost, if the government is still shutdown by the end of January, that would make the cost of the shutdown more than the cost of 5.7 billion dollar wall president Trump wants.
Not only is the government shutdown hurting national parks and federal workers, it is also hurting the economy. The shutdown cost was predicted by Trump's financial advisers. They said it would be costing a little over 1/10 of a percentage point off of GDP growth every two weeks. Now it’s been upped to 1/10 of a percentage point every week. Which could lead us into a economic contraction.
I’m hoping that the government isn’t shutdown for any longer, federal workers need to be paid and national parks need to be open and in full order again. I’m wanting Republicans and Democrats to come to a agreement and stop the government shutdown.