Dear bloggers: Don't underestimate US budget crisis
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Squeezed dry [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn] |
At midnight on April 8, Republicans and Democrats reached a last-minute budget agreement to nearly avoid the first US government shutdown since 1994. Politicians in the world's only superpower blamed each other for failure to come to a more responsible agreement as well as almost paralyzing most of the federal government's departments. Feeling ashamed, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry was quoted as saying "They've got to be laughing at us right now" in China.
But Senator Kerry is overly presumptuous on this point. Most Chinese do not laugh at the US — they still believe it is advanced in all directions. In fact, some Chinese viewed the recent threat of a government shutdown as somewhat of a political spectacle commonplace in US politics.
Ai Mi, the author of the popular novel The Love of the Hawthorn Tree, is one of these casual optimists.
In her blog post "Who Can Close the US Government", published on April 19, Ai writes: "Government shutdowns are typical in the US….Whether it's the federal government or local governments, failure of the legislative and executive branches to reach a final agreement will not have great impact on people's daily lives. Public servants will be idled temporarily. But society will return to normal after a short period."
She adds, "Although the federal government expenditures account for 18 percent of its GDP, a few days' closure will only slightly affect the GDP. Economists estimate that the impact of a seven-day closure is 0.015 percent [of GDP]."
Pardon me for speaking frankly, but how could this be true? According to a BBC report, the US government's 20-day shutdown during Bill Clinton's administration in 1994 caused nearly a one percent drop in quarterly economic growth. From this comparison, it seems Ms. Ai's figures are quite inaccurate.
Ms. Ai further states in her blog that "most Americans do not feel any shock or care about the government shutdown," arguing that essential services, such as homeland security and defense, disaster relief and social welfare administration would not be affected by a temporary budget impasse. However, Ai forgets the millions of people who would be affected by not receiving a paycheck on time.
Ai also forgets the impact the 1994 government shutdown had in terms of changing US political opinion. Initially suffering from sagging approval ratings, president Clinton gained valuable political capital by taking the political high ground in the budget battle against House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republicans. The GOP plan to weaken Clinton backfired, and the former president easily sailed to re-election. From this, we can see that voters did care about the government handling the budget crisis responsibly. As such, the two parties much preferred a tough compromise this time around than having to a face a vastly unpopular shutdown.
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