For some inexplicable reason, Ted Cruz and his merry band of nihilists were unable to convince Barack Obama to defund Obamacare, so the University awoke last Monday to news of the first federal government shutdown in 17 years. Shortly after, news trickled out of 800,000 federal workers furloughed, websites ending in “.gov” no longer operational, and numerous critical services suspended.
While some aspects of the shutdown may not directly affect the University itself, there are ripple effects for the substantial contingent of students whose parents work for the federal government directly and indirectly and/or whose families rely on the federal government for endangered benefits like the WIC program. The greatest effect on the University is the looming threat of an unresponsive federal grant system. The National Institutes of Health’s contingency plan states that those who already have received grants will continue to be able to spend them, but the agency is largely unable to respond to those who are applying for new grants, seeking renewals, or need to contact the agency about issues of funding. University President Teresa Sullivan indicated in an Oct. 1 email that the University is working to identify alternative funding sources should the shutdown be prolonged.
More ominous is the threat of a breach of the debt ceiling entailing a default on the sovereign debt obligations of the United States. Under this scenario, any funding the University received from the federal government is likely to disappear as the government would be forced to spend only what funds it has in the Treasury. While such a scenario would undeniably be traumatic for the University and higher education nationwide, the harm of the debt ceiling would go well beyond this with market convulsions, halted Social Security checks and suspension of Medicare and Medicaid payments on the horizon.
As the nation and student body are faced with the gravity of these dual threats being used by the Republican Party to extract otherwise unattainable policy concessions, the situation raises a puzzling question: Where does this situation leave the University’s student activist?
Although there is obviously no specific group at the University dedicated to properly funding the federal government, a host of organizations have a strong incentive to publicly voice their dissatisfaction with the situation. They do not seem to be doing so. In recent years, the University’s environmental groups such as Green Grounds have been leading an effort for University divestment from fossil fuels, but during a government shutdown that disproportionately harms the Environmental Protection Agency, they have been largely silent. According to the EPA’s contingency plan, a shocking 94 percent of the EPA’s staff has been told to stay home, and everything from mileage requirements, greenhouse gas standards and water regulation will be mostly halted.
The Living Wage campaign and Students United for Undergraduate Socioeconomic Diversity haven’t made any public statements or demonstrations because of the shutdown either. These CIOs have been fighting the good fight for AccessUVA funding and decent wages for University employees, but they have not protested the disproportionate harm to the poor that the shutdown is causing. With states like Arizona suspending federal assistance programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families payments and Head Start centers closing nationwide, the government shutdown is decidedly a social justice issue.
Most baffling has been the silence of the University Democrats. Just over a week ago, Rep. Robert Hurt visited Grounds, and there were no large organized protests to pressure him to vote for “clean” funding of the government that does not defund Obamacare. While it’s true that there is an election going on that demands their resources, the group should be doing more to provide grassroots support to party leaders as they fight to reopen the government. If Democrats are not successful in raising the debt ceiling and funding the government without sacrificing a hostage to the GOP, it will be devastating for their ability to govern as progressives, or to govern at all, for that matter. Allowing a losing party to extort the majority party until they implement the Romney-Ryan economic agenda is an affront to the causes of good government and American liberalism.
Those to the left of the Democrats and disillusioned with them on many issues may not feel the need to support a party that has acquiesced to the surveillance state and passed a Heritage Foundation-inspired health care plan. To sit back from the current battles, however, would be a grave mistake. Any context in which America has politically potent socialist groups will require a resurgence of the New Deal framework of an activist government and end to the Tea Party as a powerful reactionary force. Giving the Democrats a victory on the legitimacy of government to gradually institute universal health care will lay the groundwork for leftists to build a stronger social democracy that can truly empower the American working class.
In the past week, media reports have gradually trickled out with Republican House members like Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Virginia Beach) calling for clean government funding. Robert Hurt, however, has only commented to the Lynchburg News and Advance that he was receiving a “variety of opinions from many constituents” and released press releases on Twitter generally sticking to standard Republican talking points. If progressive groups formed a united front and protested the hollowing out of the federal government in the name of a Tea Party agenda that Americans rejected by 5 million votes, they could pressure Hurt and others to reconsider their stance on toeing the GOP party line.
University students have a stake in a functioning federal government for the sake of their direct benefit from grant funding, but for those on the left, their entire vision of a government being able to improve people’s lives is at stake. It would be wise for them to express their discontent.
Gray Whisnant is a Viewpoint columnist for The Cavalier Daily. His columns run Wednesdays.
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