http://www.rollcall.com/news/obama_invites_leaders_to_white_house_to_talk_shutdown_debt-228072-1.html

I honestly feel that Obama is not responsible for compromising on the Affordable Health Care Act. The act was voted on and went through all of the proper processes needed to put it through and make it official and now that certain people are not getting their way they are resorting to desperate measures. I actually feel a little embarrassed for our country at this point. Democracy does not mean that everyone gets their way all the time, it means the majority of the people choose in which direction this country goes and sometimes people have to sacrifice what they want for the greater good of the nation over all. The people who initiated this shut down, in my mind, are being immature and passive aggressive to the point that I am questioning their right and ability to hold office in a federal government.

http://www.rollcall.com/news/essential_it_depends_whom_you_work_for-228169-1.html?pos=hftxt

I have very mixed feelings about the laying off of government employees as a result of this shutdown. On one hand, I feel that state our economy is in, we really do need to reevaluate what is considered essential and what we can consolidate to make things more efficient. A lot of money is wasted on redundancy in this country. If there is a job being done by four ill trained paid interns that can be taken over and done better by the eight-teen permanent employees, then it makes sense to say that American tax dollars should no longer be paying those interns. However, there are a lot of issues in this country that we seem to not have enough resources to address. Our education system for example has a lot of problems that the government has been trying to work out and laying off people may mean taking away people who have been focusing on it. Even the fact that our economy is in such bad shape could mean we need more people and man hours focused on that issue as well.

I chose these two articles because they show how our political system has a long way to go instead of our government working as a united force with a common goal, it is divided into two sides who are perpetually arguing for the sake of being right in order to gain more leverage over the people of this country. Everyone wants the people of this country to be healthier. More available healthcare along with better education seems to be the most logical way to pull that off. However, instead of trying to work together to reach that goal, congress is caught up in what seems like a childish school yard argument which ended in what seems like the silent treatment. To be honest, I'm not even sure what a government shut down is. We still have laws, I am still paying taxes, there are still people in D.C. working everyday. Our country is still running and the people are still citizens of a country. To me a government shut down just means some people don't want to play anymore cause things are not going their way.