In October, the House of Representatives had approved an increase in the debt ceiling until December 3. Without another extension, a shutdown was imminent. The US government is close to the limit on the total amount it can borrow. If the ceiling is not raised in time, the country will no longer be able to meet all its financial obligations. Then certain government departments would have to close. Such a shutdown has occurred 22 times since 1980.
‘National security in danger’
That happened, for example, twice during the presidency of Republican Donald Trump (2017-2021). In January 2018, nearly 700,000 officials were sent three days of leave and national parks closed. In December 2018, a dispute over the financing of a wall on the border with Mexico led to another shutdown. This lasted a whopping 35 days – the longest shutdown in US history. In fact, sending hundreds of thousands of officials home led to airport closures, significant backlogs in processing tax returns and even “endangered national security” according to FBI agents.
Trump’s predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama (2009-2017), also had to deal with a shutdown of more than two weeks in 2013. Democrats wanted to introduce “Obamacare,” a plan to make affordable health care accessible to all Americans. But Republicans did not like that and refused to raise the debt ceiling as long as the Democrats did not agree to cut Obamacare. Only when credit rating agency Fitch warned that the US credit rating would be downgraded, did the two parties find each other.
The government’s own investigation found that this shutdown had delayed important scientific and medical research, cost 120,000 private sector jobs and delayed access to credit and benefits for millions of Americans.
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