Seventeen days after the government shut down amid a legislative standstill, President Barack Obama has signed a bill to raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government, according to the Washington Post.
Many national parks and monuments reopened earlier this week on their state’s dime, such as the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty, but many will not reopen until Thursday. As the fiscal cliff date of Oct.17 approached, negotiation meetings between both parties took place all week working out a settlement deal, reported USA Today.
When the United States House of Representatives could not pass an annual budget by Oct. 1 because of tension over the inclusion of Obama’s healthcare plan, the federal government was forced to shut down, as reported by USA Today. The government essentially defunded itself until a new plan acceptable to both passed.
“It’s sort of a misnomer because there are things that continue to go. It’s only like 17 percent of government services that have actually shut down,” said Scott Waller, assistant professor of political science.
Some national services funded by the federal government were closed until a budget agreement could be reached and workers paid again. A few of the services furloughed, as explained by the U.S. government’s official website, included “research into life-threatening diseases” by the National Institutes of Health and hundreds of thousands of federal workers who were “furloughed without pay.”
In the second week of the shutdown, treasury secretary Jack Lew warned Congress that Oct. 17 is when the U.S. will run out of emergency funding, and the country will be unable to fulfill financial obligations like paying bills. He advised that the debt ceiling be raised above its current $16.7 trillion limit, or the economic damage could be catastrophic.
CAMPUS PROTECTED FROM SHUTDOWN
Though the government shutdown caused economic instability and furloughed thousands of federal workers across the country, Biola remained untouched by the turmoil in Washington D.C.
“We’re a private institution, although there is federal money flowing to the university through student grants and things of that nature. As far as I know, that’s still part of the 83 percent of the government that’s working. I haven’t heard that we’ve been directly affected by this,” Waller said.
Some students looking to travel abroad for the purpose of missions were unsure about whether they would be able to go unless the government reopened and they could apply for passports or visas.
“I’m supposed to be taking a missions trip over Interterm to India … and with the post offices not really working, I can’t get a passport. So I don’t know if I can get it in time to be able to make it,” said sophomore intercultural studies major Kayla Lane.
Other students who weren’t affected by the shutdown aren’t concerned at all.
“At present, everything that normally would go on, is going on,” said sophomore film major Christopher Sapp. “I’m not worried about it, but certainly intrigued.”
Some worried about the state of the economy and lack of budget stability.
“It hasn’t affected me directly … I do feel kind of bad for all the workers working on furlough right now,” said senior business marketing major Tiana Godard. “I am concerned that we have no budget right now and where is this money going to come from, and people need to be paid.”
