Chris Drown Freeman Forensics 1 Honors 28 October 2013 Extemporaneous Speech: Who Won the Government Shutdown?

The government is a marriage between two political monsters- the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party. They are constantly clashing with one another, yet they stay together. But what happens when you give up due to a disagreement? What happens when you shut down the system? Who won the government shutdown? President Barrack Obama stated in a speech in mid-October, There are no winners in this. This could not be a more true statement. I firmly believe that the government shutdown resulted in no winners, and that it negatively affected every American in the United States. In the next few minutes I will be discussing a few key points that correspond to the events that occurred. These include economic conditions, personal conditions, and how stubbornness and its effects on the state of the nation. Twenty-Four billion dollars is a lot of money. According to CNN, the 16 day government shutdown added that significant amount of money to the already large sum of money that equals our national debt. This debt was caused due to the lack of funds earned to the government through their apparently not essential services. The Guardian states that all Federal workers, food programs, welfare, and disability were removed from service throughout the time of the shutdown. This amounted to over 1.5 million Americans had no income for over two weeks. Without this income, citizens are unable to purchase things, and were unable to stimulate the economy, this leads me to my next point. The Associated Press states that much of the United States tourism industry is having trouble restarting, due to the lack of funds that normally would have been acquired during this time. Non-essential government workers are still being negatively influenced by this shutdown, and are short over two weeks pay. Millions of American federal workers are behind on bills and

have no idea what to do. Many Americans who are dependent upon Disability and Welfare are also struggling even more so than normal. This includes more than 55 million seniors and people with disabilities, 9 million nursing mothers, infants and children, and 5 million veterans who violently struggled to adjust their budgets just to make it, according to PolicyMic. What could possibly be the reason for this war on Social Services? How could a government be so stubborn as to allow their personal desires to brutally endanger the lives of millions of Americans? The government shutdown was primarily caused by the blatant stubbornness of the Republican Party, and their opposition to the widely popular Obamacare. According to The Atlantic, the government shutdown accomplished primarily nothing. Their