From December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019, the Government was shut down in effect for 35 days. The consequences have affected over 800,000 federal workers directly, but the number of citizens the shutdown affects is much higher. Along with millions of Americans, many WFS students were unhappy and disappointed in the government due to the shutdown. When asked about the shutdown, Olivia Delgado ’21, commented, “It’s just really sad that the people who had government jobs and the people who aren’t getting paid already didn’t exactly have the highest income…” Anniina Lappalainen ’21 simply said, “It is very sad.”

     Kat Harron ’21 mentioned, “I think the government shutdown is bizarre because the same people who voted for Trump and supported Trump are the ones who are starving and jobless. Kinda ironic, I don’t think it’s good either way.”

     It has also come out that the government shutdown will be coming to a temporary end, for three weeks, because Trump and Congress have come to a compromise. The deal seems to be that no extra funding for the wall will be added, but negotiations will resume once the government has been reopened. When asked about what the new development means for the country, Harron commented, “The first thing that the government should do is pay the workers! Hundreds of thousands of workers have been working without pay.” This has caused a minor recession in the United States and it affected the cash flow and economic agility. There will be a bipartisan committee established to help negotiate the budget with the hopes of not causing another government shutdown.

     There are a lot of reasons for why people think Trump agreed to stop the government shutdown, despite Congress not actually completing his demands of granting 5.7 billion dollars to create a wall between The Mexican-American Border Wall. One popular reason is that many Americans blamed Trump for the shutdown, and the percentage of American’s who believed this increased as the shutdown continued. On top of this, his approval ratings were diminishing as well. With the 2020 election not too far away, Trump will be making decisions he believes will positively affect his approval ratings. If the shutdown continued, it would start impacting national and international travel as the airports would begin to shut themselves down. Without many of America’s airports, business would simmer down in commerce-oriented cities. Whatever happens, another shutdown needs to be avoided.