What is congress saying about the government shutdown?

Answer 1

It depends on which side you asked. Moderate Republicans were not happy about the shutdown, but they felt that had to go along with it, since the most dominant faction in their party, the Tea Party Republicans, pushed for shutting down the government, and pressured moderates to go along with it. The extremes in the Republican party told Fox News and other friendly media that a shutdown would not be so bad, since they believe the government is too big and this was more of a "slim-down," closing agencies that were not all that important. Of course, when public opinion about national parks and war memorials turned negative, the Tea Party Republicans immediately blamed President Obama and said that the shutdown was his fault, when in fact it was they who had said they wanted it. The leaders of the Republican Party insisted the shutdown was about "Obamacare"-- they wanted it defunded or repealed, and when the president refused to do either one, they said he was being unreasonable. Led by Senator Ted Cruz, the Tea Party said they were standing up for the American public, which wanted them to stop Obamacare and curb government spending.

Democrats saw the issue very differently. They believed that Tea Party extremists had taken over and that moderate Republicans had been stifled. The Democrats believed the Tea Party was willing to do anything to stop the president from being successful, and they saw the Tea Party as petty, unfair and stubborn, willing to inflict pain (and a loss of income) on innocent government workers who had done nothing wrong yet were pawns in a political game. Further, since the President's health care law was in fact a law, it could not be immediately repealed. The Democrats were puzzled that the Tea Party was willing to shut down the government just to make their point. (And several moderate Republicans did express their dismay about the shutdown, which they did not see as a productive way to change Washington. In fact, it turned many in the public against the Republican Party.) In the end, when a compromise was reached at the last minute, the moderates were pleased that the shutdown had ended, while some in the Tea Party believed they had done the right thing and suggested they might do it again if they felt their demands about decreasing the deficit and curbing government spending were not being acted upon.