The Congress has had many ups and downs, but what they want the people, us, to focus on are all the positives. Congress’ increase dysfunction has had lots of impacts on the United States. Most people have taken into consideration if our Congress is still as strong as it once was. The Congress doesn’t out into consideration on how every decision will create a ripple effect on the citizens of America. Congress has so much so much power, then why is it so dysfunctional? Some of the many reasons for Congress’ increase dysfunction over the last couple of decades are the government shutdown that happened last year and less compromise to get things done. For example, the government shutdown that occurred in 2013 impacted millions of Americans. When I had first …show more content…
"Impacts and Costs of the Government Shutdown." The White House. The White House, 7 Nov. 2013. Web. 30 July 2014.
I was surprised the something like “a government shutdown” existed and I was surprised that the government was still arguing about what their budget is going to be. Also in the article, it mentions that it was embarrassing for the president but it doesn’t seem like Trump is doing anything about the government shutdown. Also, I didn’t know that the two parties would fight about something that is important to the government like this and blaming it on each other.
Gridlock is one of the United States leading problems, and the main reason why people find the government to be “useless” or “slow” when trying to come to a consensus on major issues. Congressional gridlock is when neither the House or Congress seems to be able to respond with solutions to our nation’s pressing problems, and fails to enact any meaningful legislation to fix national issues. Gridlock mainly occurs when the president and the majority in one or both houses have different political beliefs and are in different parties. You hear everyone talking about gridlock and how it needs to be fixed, but you never actually see our political leaders doing anything about it.
Is congress a dysfunctional institution? Columnist Ezra Klein contends that institutional deadlock and partisan rancor have paralyzed congress, causing it to lose power to the president and the bureaucracy. Former Massachusetts Senator Mo Cowan describes he has to come view the work of congress along with fellow members after fulfilling the remainder of John Kerry’s term upon the nomination of Governor Deval Patrick.
Prompt: Some argue that Congress is broken, while others argue the status quo should be maintained. In your opinion, to what degree is Congress broken and in what ways could it be improved?
Gridlock is caused by a variety of other factors. Both branches of Congress might have the same party majority, but the President may be of another. If this happens, the President may resort to his veto powers to stop a piece of legislation from continuing and or his executive order powers to progress a specific bill to be passed.. Another cause of gridlock is extreme party polarization. The gap between parties is quickly growing and there aren’t enough independents and moderates to even the scale. Back in 2013, there were only 6 moderates in all of Congress. The officials aren’t all to blame though. The people’s voting habits have an effect on gridlock. Through the years, incumbents have been repeatedly voted back into office. This continuous cycle is going to further increase the presence of gridlock. New ideas and minds are being kept out of Congress and having the same viewpoints in control is going to hinder
Congressional gridlock has been around for centuries in Congress and does not seem to be changing anytime soon. Congressional gridlock refers to the inaction of the government and failure to make a decision or legislative law that satisfy the needs of the people. This inaction of the government and stagnation occurs when two parties cannot agree on a single matter, and they cannot come to a good agreement on how or when the law is going to be passed, thus leaving complex problems in the nation unhandled. Congressional gridlock does not just come and take over the government on its own, though. It is evident that congressional gridlock is a major problem in the American government that needs to be addressed because there are so many root causes that the government fails to fix including gerrymandering and a lack of “bridge-builders.” Solutions to these causes that have yet to be made include improving the system of checks and balances and reducing representative dynamics and some of the nation’s most pressing problems that should not even be examples of congressional gridlock include climate change and the gun laws issue.
Americans have always had a love-hate relationship with Congress. It usually depends on whether or not we believe issues that are important to us (religion, abortion, immigration, jobs etc.) are being brought to the fore front and our elected officials are representing our best interest in these issues. We love them when we get our way and complain when we don’t. Interestingly the 13% approval rating that they have presently may be a little low to what it was in the past, but the past ratings do not suggests that Congress was ever popular. Nicholas Longworth once said, “We were unpopular when Lincoln was a congressman. We were unpopular when John Quincy Adams was a Congressman. We were unpopular even when Henry Clay was a Congressman. We
The legislature's set up allows for corruption to exist in the government. The government shutdown of 2013 ended after a "deal was reached in the U.S. Senate that included a provision that raised the spending cap on a dam construction project in Kentucky" (Hudak). In this case, "2.2 billion" dollars were set aside for this project (Almasy). CNN's article stated: "So much for a "clean" bill" (Almasy). Despite the fact that the major issue occurring was the government shutdown, Senator Mitch McConnell still pushed for his rider to be added to the bill. Salient issues are not being addressed
Congress plays an important role in ruling the United States. Congress job is to represent the citizens of the U.S. by sharing the power with the current president of the United States of America and Supreme Court. Congress is one of the three branches of the United States. One of the main Congress jobs is to make law, basically, America without the Congress is pretty much without no laws. The Congress today is suffering from partisanship, parties are not working together as one hand causing it to fail its job. The Republicans are now controlling the Senate ( both houses ) when they earned it in 2014 elections making the majority Republican in Congress. Some people believe that the Congress is a broken branch and how it is failing America and we need to get it back on track. While the other believe that the Congress is fine and doing it job. I believe that the Congress is a broken branch since the United States of American government has a lot of partisanship.
The political climate today is increasingly becoming more turbulent as Republicans and Democrats volley for superiority in Washington. The two parties are becoming more polarized by the hour, and this is affecting the ability of the government to move forward and pass legislation and continue to improve America. The Senate is in a state of gridlock on some of the most important issues to the people of the United States to date, and yet the senators which the people elected are instead caught up in fighting the people on the other side of the aisle. They should be listening to what their constituents need and want. Today Republican senators are using filibusters, scare tactics, and even entire news networks
On October 1 the U.S. Government shutdown, that’s right the only thing keeping us from complete and total anarchy shutdown for 16 days. So why are we treating it like this is some common media trash. Our Government may be acting like a bunch of kids when it comes to the debt crisis but having to shut down over a disagreement seems like a bit of a drastic measure. The shutdown caused many programs to shutdown, though many more where still able to function. If the shutdown had lasted longer there would have been an even bigger issue. Something this big isn’t a joke this could have turned out significantly worse and people need to understand this.
The definition of congressional gridlock is the inability of the government to act because different parties (usually rivals) control different parts of the government. When two major partisan parties have a differentiating stands when it comes to ideology that’s when gridlock occurs. The House of Representatives and the senate are controlled by different parties, and this is when congressional gridlock can occur. This situation is very common and is a bit complex because in order for bills to be presented, the house has to be in agreeance with it first. Many members fear losing control with the decisions they make, without Congress all being controlled by the same party. If congress were to side with the opposing party on an issue that could benefit many lives, they won’t because they feel that they will not be loyal to their colleagues’ beliefs and stand on that
In recent years, congress has been incredibly adversarial to the president, providing that it is not controlled by members of his (the president) political party affiliation. The main source of this weakness is that congress and its members are defined by partisanship, they value tribalism, and are rewarded based on their loyalty to their party and antagonism to their opposition. This makes congress a breeding ground for viscous opposition where any room for compromise between parties is villainized, because of this the president can only govern efficiently when his party controls a significant percentage of both or either house. The major cause of this new political culture is highly contested, some say it is because political parties have come to gain too much power by way of their influence and ability to build campaign war chests. Others believe that political parties are too weak, citing that special interests and third party intervention has made members of either party less responsive to their leaders causing them to govern based on their fiscal supporters, which, would not allow compromise between two single groups. Regardless, it is very appropriate to cast the blame of a dysfunctional congress upon party politics. To illustrate this relationship between the executive and partisan congress we will look at the presidency of Barack Obama,
October 1st, 2013 began the 16-day long shutdown for the United States government. Although the reason for the shutdown originated with disputes between the President Barack Obama and the United States Congress over “Washington [overspending] their projected budget,” the final nail in the shutdown boiled down to the dissimilar views of the House of Representatives and the Senate. As a result, the government shutdown further intensified the lack of unity between the two political parties. Along with a divided country, every government-run functions ceased, “cost[ing] the Federal government billions of dollars.” Emily Jarvis, an editor for GovLoop as well as a writer for research guides and whitepapers, established that “[M]ore than 800,000
Congress has one key duty in the Constitution. This duty is to pass spending bills that fund the government (Yan, 2013). If Congress does not pass a funding bill, most functions of government, such as funding agencies, paying out small business loans, and processing passport requests, will halt and some services, like Social Security, air traffic control and active military pay, will continue to be funded (Yan, 2013). A government shutdown is the closure of non-essential offices of the government due to lack of approval on the government programs budget for the upcoming fiscal year (Investopedia Staff, 2011). From the time that the United States of America gained independence, until January of 2017, the United States has experienced eighteen government shutdowns. The most recent government shutdown in modern United States history is the government shutdown that took place in late 2013. The government shutdown of 2013 lasted sixteen days with the shutdown starting on