Since December 21st, 2018, the United States has been in economic turmoil as a result of President Donald Trump shutting down the government as a result of not getting enough funding. Enough funding for what, you might be asking? For the border wall separating Mexico and the U.S. apart. During the 2016 electoral campaign, that was one of Trump's main promises - have the U.S. build a wall, and have Mexico pay for the whole thing (which the Mexican government politely disagreed with).

Believe it or not, the finances for the entire year of 2018 for the government have mostly successful. The reason why the economy took a turn for the worse, however, was because lawmakers did not want to fund the estimated $15 billion President Trump was asking for. Republicans wanted to set aside approximately $5 billion for the wall, while democrats agreed to pay upwards to $1.3 billion. The U.S. Senate passed a short-term spending bill on December 19th to allow lawmakers and other members of the House to come to a compromise on where they stand with funding on the wall and other developments.

The president, however, refuses to sign the bill until Democrats agreed to fund the wall, causing the government to partially shutdown. Since the shutdown, many local businesses and people who live off of day-to-day paychecks to stay alive, like the federal government jobs mentioned earlier, have been suspended.

National museums and monuments like the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. and New York, as well as the National Zoo, have been closed; visitor centers to other monuments, along with bathrooms, campsites, and trash collections have also been halted at the moment. Along with that, over 800,000 federal government employees have not been paid since a day after the shutdown on December 22nd.

To put statistics into play, according to dogonews.com, these business will have employees affected the most.

• 68% of the Internal Revenue Service will be laid off.

• 86% of the Department of Commerce will be laid off.

• 80% of the U.S. Forest Service will be laid off.

• 96% of NASA and all of their employees will be laid off.

(This is the article of where this information was provided - https://www.dogonews.com/2019/1/7/the-partial-government-shutdown-explained)

At the time of writing this article, the government has been reopened on Friday, January 25th as a result of the 800,000 federal workers needing to be payed and going off without a paycheck. The bill that declared the temporary reopen states that the government will close down again on February 15th unless lawmakers can agree with Trump on funding of his wall.

The government shutdown is affecting so many Americans both young and old, and while the country is doing well financially and economically - no doubt as a result of the president’s swift call to action - this marks as a reminder that leaders should be just that: leaders. The action of our president NOT opening the government so that he can secure his wall is absolutely ludicrous.