Kayla Langmaid/Winonan

America’s government shutdown may be a national event, but it is affecting Winona State University students as well as the rest of the United States.

The government shutting down is affecting various agencies and workers.

More than two million federal workers will see their checks delayed and 800,000 of them may never get repaid.

The government shutdown also means that government websites are not allowing access to data or they are no longer being updated. This includes government sites students may need for research purposes.

College students have also been affected in serious cases regarding sexual assault investigations at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and at the University of Virginia because the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is pausing these cases.

Opinions vary on why the government is in the current situation. Regardless, the House of Representatives and the Senate were required to agree on a spending bill by Oct. 1, and they failed to come to a conclusion.

Winona State student Erik Oviatt said, “I think it is embarrassing to both Democrats and Republicans. It reminds me of a bunch of kids bickering back and forth. I’m still trying to figure out what party I support, but it’s hard when both parties look like morons.”

Political science professor Liu Xinmin said, “Government shutdown derived from fiscal gridlocks is not so unusual in a pluralist democracy like the United States, because legislation is just a tool for political competition and the legislature just a battlefield.”

Xinmin said these topics are important for students to understand.

“This urges us, especially students in my Comparative Politics classes, to be critical of the pluralist political competition pattern in many democracies,” Xinmin said.

Mass communication professor Thomas Grier, said it comes down to an argument between Democrats and Republicans.

“The question is ‘why couldn’t they come to agreement?’ The Republicans want to make the Democrats look foolish, and the Democrats want to make Republicans look foolish, and in the end, it’s the American citizens that get hurt,” Grier said.

“The more citizens are negatively affected by the shutdown, the greater chance it will have an impact on they way they vote in future elections,” he said.

Contact Langmaid at [email protected]