We are now a few days into a divisive government shutdown that doesn’t just impact Washington, but the entire country. The shutdown started on Oct. 1, after disagreements over federal spending, health-care costs and other issues. A few Democrats broke ranks in the Senate, seeking to prevent the shutdown, but even a short-term deal could not be made.
Amidst political debate and theater, many Americans are grappling with the real-life effects of the funding showdown. In the middle of America, off the Missouri River, Straight Arrow News asked people about the shutdown and lawmaker accountability.
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What do people think?
At the “Mighty Mo,” as the river is called in Omaha, the effects of around 750,000 federal workers being furloughed, and many more working without pay, are being felt. Straight Arrow News asked people in middle America not only about the shutdown, but about lawmakers’ accountability.
Lou Harrison, a Nebraska resident, said, “Where we are with our Senate and our Congress is a total lack of accountability, not this year, not last year, but over the last 8 or 10 years, and every year we seem to get more hardened in the division, and that wasn’t the way our government was meant to run.”
Those divisions are apparently very evident at the top of the power structure here in the states, with another resident, Randy Greer, saying, “I’m really disappointed with partisanship that both sides are showing. I think the vast majority of Americans are somewhere in the middle, and want to get along and get things accomplished, and you have the extremes from right and the left that make that very difficult.“
Buffett’s advice
Not far from the Missouri River’s waterfront is the headquarters of Berkshire-Hathaway, where retiring CEO and Chairman Warren Buffett still goes to work. This week, his remarks from several years ago about the federal deficit are receiving attention on social media.
With the Treasury Department showing the national deficit at about $2 trillion at the end of September, Buffett’s idea would have a lot of political implications in next year’s midterm elections and beyond.
