Lincoln and the Potential Government Shutdown

In the past few months, Congress has been struggling to pass a budget for the upcoming year. Congress’s inability to lay out a budget caused a shutdown in 2013, and many people feel as though history might repeat itself this year. Passing the budget for 2016 has been particularly difficult because Republicans won’t agree to it unless it defunds Planned Parenthood. Congress had to decide on a budget before October 1st, which they did, successfully avoiding a government shutdown for now.  However, this budget only lasts until December 11th. Now the government will have to butt heads over the budget and face a potential government shutdown once again.

In his 1830 speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Lincoln talks about citizens who become fed up with an ineffective government. He specifically mentions people “seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better,” and losing faith in their government. This very much applies to our government today. Republicans and Democrats spend so much time arguing back and forth over the same issues, and very often it fails to result in any real change. So much division within Congress over the budget makes it incredibly difficult for the government to function. This leads to anger and frustration among citizens who witness so many political disagreements and very few decisions actually being made. The American people have already “become tired of, and disgusted with, a Government that offers them no protection; and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose.”  We as a nation can only take so much of the stalemate within the government before we have to take action ourselves, which, as Lincoln describes, may even involve violating the law.