Recent government shutdowns have failed to make an impression on Central’s students.
The government shut down twice in under a month’s time, and this doesn’t seem to concern the students of Central, leading one to question whether or not the student body takes the government seriously. “I did hear about it on the radio, but I didn’t hear about it from my classmates,” said sophomore Ryan Bachman. The government shutdown at midnight on January 19, 2018, after congress couldn’t decide whether to cut funding for the DACA or CHIP program. Even a month later, this problem still hasn’t been resolved. Though this shutdown didn’t have as bad of an impact on the general populous as others, this was cause for concern as the shutdown happened during January’s flu season and government Medicare was also shutdown.
But still, the government shut down for two days, and students didn’t seem to be concerned with this incident. Freshman Rhys Vifquain stated, “People used to freak out over government shutdowns, but now people don’t even care about it. Yet in this instance, the shutdown didn’t transpire only once, it occurred again for five and a half hours on February 8th at midnight, and the student’s response was similar: very minimal.
Though this shutdown didn’t impact the school, that wasn’t the case in the past. Other government shutdowns have stopped school meal programs, and others have bled schools of funding, such as the December 1995 shutdown where the government closed for 32 days.
Photo: Closed by James Butler on Flickr
The Pine Needle 