Oct. 10, 2013
Lawmakers’ failure to pass a real budget by Oct. 1, combined with their inability to agree on raising the debt ceiling before Oct. 17, costs our economy billions of dollars and affects millions of Americans with each day that the impasse continues.
Our lawmakers are not doing their jobs. The government shutdown and impending debt ceiling are not a game, although some lawmakers treat it as such. This situation seriously threatens our lives, our livelihood, and our future.
We must demand a solution. We demand that Congress pass a clean budget – with no strings attached – and raise the debt ceiling, immediately.
And once we are past this crisis, we must make sure this never happens again.
On Oct. 1, 2013, the federal government shut down because Congress failed to do its job of passing a budget for fiscal year 2014. The House and Senate couldn’t agree on even a short-term spending bill to keep the government running largely due to the fact that Republicans hijacked the budget process in an attempt to end the Affordable Care Act.
During the shutdown, government operations across the nation have ground to a halt. Hundreds of thousands of employees are furloughed and many critical federal services have ceased operations.
Read our Government Shutdown Fact Sheet to get the full details.
Oct. 17 is the day the U.S. Treasury has estimated it will run out of funds to pay the bills our nation currently owes, unless Congress authorizes an increase in the debt ceiling. As with the government shutdown, lawmakers are at an impasse because Republicans have said they won’t allow an increase in the debt ceiling without some combination of cuts to safety-net programs like Medicare and Social Security, changes to Obamacare, or tax reform that lowers tax rates and raises no new tax revenue.
If Congress does not raise the debt ceiling, the U.S. Treasury will default on its debt payments as well as lapse on payments to government programs, such as Social Security checks for retirees. This is expected to have a catastrophic impact on the global economy.
Read our Debt Ceiling Fact Sheet to get the full details.
You can end the government shutdown in three minutes! Find contact information for your legislators here. Then, use this script to call your lawmakers and request two critical actions:
Sign our online petition to Speaker Boehner and Congress asking them to resolve this crisis immediately and pledging to hold them accountable to do their jobs.
Tweet directly to your Congressperson -- use these sample tweets to make your voice heard:
Or retweet:
Congress needs to do its job: Pass a budget and pay the bills--just like the rest of us. http://t.co/RrROXQ07oV #shutdown #justvote
— National Priorities (@natpriorities) October 11, 2013
Every hour @SpeakerBoehner refuses to #justvote costs us $9.5 million--every hour! #justvote already! http://t.co/1VLqIXLGOi
— National Priorities (@natpriorities) October 10, 2013
Visit NPP's twitter feed for more!
Activate your social media networks by “liking” NPP’s shutdown campaign on Facebook, and sharing it with your friends.
Crisis has become business as usual in Washington. We cannot let this happen again. Here’s what you can do to take back our federal budget process and hold our lawmakers accountable for their constitutional responsibilities:
