Special
It Affects Us All
Staff Members: Andrea Aranda Jennifer Bussey Cydnee Drake Baliea Elam Arrion Ellis Faculty Adviser: Fred Stewart
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The Special is published as part of the Texas A&M University - Commerce student publications. Content and design are the responsibilities of the journalism and multimedia students.
Table of Contents
A brief history on the government shutdown...................................................................4 by Jennifer Bussey Commerce student worries about concequences of the shutdown.................................5 by Andrea Aranda A Department that could’ve been affected but wasn’t......................................................6 by Cydnee Drake Lion athletics not affected by shut down............................................................................7 by Arrion Ellis
The Special is published as part of the Texas A&M University - Commerce student publications. Content and design are the responsibilities of the journalism and multimedia students. 3
A brief history of the government shutdown
by Jennifer Bussey
The United States government began a partial shutdown on Dec. 22, 2018 that became the longest shutdown in history. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget website, “every year, Congress must pass, and the President must sign, budget legislation for the next fiscal year (a year for taxing and accounting purposes), consisting of 12 appropriations bills, one for each Appropriations subcommittee.” The government was only partially shut down because only five of the appropriation bills were signed, leaving the last seven without funding. One of those bills was the Defense budget, which included funds for a border wall between the United States and Mexico. President Trump and Congress disagreed on funding for the wall which resulted in the partial shut down. “The shutdown in an executive power move by the President. He uses it usually as a leverage when the executive and legislative branches (Congress) have a disagreement. In this case, it was how to fund a wall,” Dr. Ozum Yesiltas, assistant professor in the political science department, said. The Budget website describes what happens in a shutdown: “Federal agencies must discontinue all non-essential discretionary functions until new funding legislation is passed and signed into law. Essential services continue to function, as do mandatory spending programs.” Some examples of essential services are law enforcement, air traffic control, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Examples of non-essential services are the Bureau of Reclamation and Energy. “The government shutdown is affecting the entire government which means certain aspects of it are either slowing down or completely stopping. Basically what’s happening is we aren’t functioning fully at 100% right now. So, if Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
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people are not getting paid or the state departments are not fully functioning, then that affects us all,” Dr. Yesiltas said. At this time, federal workers are asked to work without pay in the hopes that the shutdown will end quickly and that they will receive back pay for their labors. “They try to keep working because they believe the government will come to a compromise in a few days and they will get their checks. But, in this case, it was 35 days and employees just stopped trying. They can’t pay rent, medical bills, get food, or support themselves in general, which will cause people to be upset,” Christian Aleman, a journalism and political science major, said. In the time it took for the government to come to a compromise on the border wall issue, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents, air traffic controllers, and other federal employees walked out or refused to show up for their jobs in protest of not receiving their wages. There have been other shutdowns such as this one in American history. According to the Budget website, “two happened in the winter of 1995-1996, when President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress were unable to agree on spending levels and shutdown the government twice, for a total of 26 days. Another was in 2013 when the House and Senate standoff on funding the Affordable Care Act resulted in a 16-day shutdown.” “It’s not unusual to see a government shutdown...the federal government, unfortunately, has some experience with dealing with shutdowns. So, the employees affected won’t be in shock during this period and the immediate effect won’t be bad,” Dr. Jangsup Choi, associate professor in the political science department, said.
Commerce student worries about consequences of the shutdown by Andrea Aranda On Dec. 22, 2018, President Trump decided to shutdown the government when Congress didn’t agree with the idea of building a $5 billion border wall between Mexico and The United States. Senior and Political Science major, Brian Stephens, talks about his views and concerns on the shutdown: What is your view about the government shutdown? I think the government shutdown sort of an unnecessary political infighting and we see government shutdown in history, usually because presidents aren’t getting their way. Now that the government is reopening, how do you feel about that and what are your aspects? I’m weary because its opening for about three weeks. I’m happy that the federal workers are getting back pay and that things getting as they should, but I’m worried whether or not it’s going to get solved in the near future. Since the Democrats took over Congress, are they doing the right thing of not acceding to his demands? If it were the Republicans, would they have already provided the money he wants? If the republicans wanted it, they would’ve done it when they had both houses. Now that they don’t, it’s going to be hard. On the other hand, Democrats are doing the right thing to not fall into his demands. Is it necessary to call a national emergency? That is very irresponsible because it’s not a national emergency. If it were a national emergency, it wouldn’t be taking three weeks to get to that point. With the stock market decreasing, is there a chance that the country may be going into a recession? The idea of us going into another depression is a serious one and its worrying. We don’t know how a recession or a depression would impact us both economically and emotionally. If the government shutdowns again after the period President Trump gave to reopen the government, who knows how the country will end up or how long it will it take to recuperate from all that was lost. Will this be the beginning of another recession leading to a depression? Photo courtesy of VectorStock.
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Photo courtesy of news.tamuc.edu/personalizing-the-process.
A department that could’ve been affected but wasn’t
by Cydnee Drake
Texas A&M University- Commerce (TAMUC) hasn’t been severely affected by the government shut down. It has affected the people who work for the federal government in many ways such as people not getting paid enough for their jobs. One department on campus that has been affected is the Financial Aid Office. Due to the shutdown, students are unable to gather the required documents for their financial aid. “We require tax transcripts here in the financial aid office. However, if you didn’t know the IRS was down, you couldn’t get the transcripts,” Russell, student service specialist, said. The reason why there aren’t many departments at TAMUC are affected is because the college is state funded. “We are a state funded school, meaning that the state funding is appropriating and set aside way before they close the shutdown. They cannot set back money that they have
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
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already given us, which is why we aren’t affected,” a history professor said. “No, it’s not affecting us directly there is an aspects of funding education in scholarships . I’m not entirely sure about this, but maybe Financial aid might not be dispersing in a timely manner because certain departments aren’t able to disperse money to the University. There for we are getting delays dealing with Financial aid, but with that I’m not sure what the delay would be causing,” Brian Stephens, Political Science Department student worker, said.
Lion athletics not affected by shutdown
by Arrion Ellis
An NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision team is allowed 85 scholarships per year for 85 athletes, with Texas A&M University-Commerce being a Division 2 school they don’t get that luxury. Now, with the Government being shut down that may cause some problematic concerns since that scholarships and grant money are funded through the government. However, Assistant Director for Compliance Austin Weyant said “ Lions athletics are not having any problems with scholarships. Even the athletes who were late on Free Application for Federal Student Aid are good.” According to Weyant the government being shut down does not affect their athletic grants nor scholarships, because whatever money the school was supposed to get was received before the shutdown. Since everything seems to be okay, let’s look at things from a different perspective. For instances, think about how our society would be affected if athletes could not receive scholarships or grants because of the government shutdown. Would athletic programs be the same? Would TAMUC still be able to recruit the same if they were not able to give any scholarships. “Worst case scenario we would have to worry about how we would take care of the loans for athletes.” Weyant said. Freshman athlete Dovan Grey who is on an athletic scholarship said “ If I was not able to receive my scholarship because of the government shutdown I would be kind of upset. I would also have to go get a job because I don’t know how else I would pay off school.”
Photos courtesy of Lion Athletices.
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