In the third week of January 2018, the whole world, particularly those who don’t know about the USA legislation process, surprised to read the news of USA shutdown. After all the United States of America is the largest economy of the world and USA shutting down means halting the World economy. But hold on. USA Shutdown is nothing but a temporally stopping of some of the US Federal government agencies working and services. Due to USA shutdown, many federal government services became unavailable since January 20, 2018 (00:01 local time).
So what is USA Shutdown: The US federal government financial year starts on `1 October. It means US federal budget must be passed before that deadline. But hardly budget deadline is met. Because negotiations on some controversial issues take time to resolve. In most of the cases issues are resolved in New Year till then federal agencies run on previous year’s extended funding. But this time US congress failed to agree on extension that would have maintained government funding till February 16, 2018.
Reasons behind current shutdown: This is the first time that US federal government shutdown has happened when one party (here Republican) has not only full majority in the both the houses (Senate as well as Congress) but also controls the White House (US President). Senate Republicans and Democrats were not on the same boat on a stopgap funding measure to continue government services. The Republicans are demanding fund for border security (border wall included) as well as more military spending. The Democrats want that undocumented 700,000 immigrants, who entered the USA as children, should not be deported.
Consequences of shutdown: Due to shutdown many federal government agencies closed their business starting midnight of 19 February. Many government employees will be placed on furlough. It means they will not come to office. Although essential services will remain available yet certainly it will affect the daily routine and small businesses.
