Good Call, Emmanuel

You called that one perfectly, Emmanuel. Last Thursday, I was actually sitting in class talking about the potential shutdown with a few of my classmates, and it was honestly shocking. There were so few people in my class that understood exactly what a shutdown would mean to them, individually. With numbers like these, it's easy to see exactly what would happen to us if funding ceased. 
Of course, we did avoid the shutdown. Seeing where some of the last minute budget cuts came from surprised me though. There were several groups that I didn't even realize existed (such as the U.S. Institute of Peace, heating for the poor, the Administration on Aging, etc.). Even more shocking than the existence of these groups is the massive amounts of funding some of them receive.The Administration on Aging, for example, has been receiving $2 billion in federal funding per year for the last few years. Not to say that it isn't an important group, I'm just surprised that we don't hear more about these groups that receive more money than entire counties.
On a side note, seeing these groups makes me realize just how large of a role special interest groups play in our modern government. Without the larger special interest groups, none of these federally funded groups would exist to receive any funding.


Political Competence by Emmanuel Gomez