Duke community sounds off on government shutdown

On Oct. 1, the government shut down after negotiations on the federal budget came to a halt between Republicans and Democrats in Congress. After 16 days of a partially frozen government, the two parties reached an agreement Thursday night to lift the debt ceiling, effectively restarting the government. Elizabeth Djinis and Georgia Parke talked with members of the Duke community about their impressions of the political event.

"Honestly, I never noticed anything different. I'm not sure if that's because we're a private university or not, but I didn't notice any cutbacks in hours, staff, services anything. Maybe I'm not observant enough, but if I didn't follow the news, I wouldn't have known anything was going on at all."

—sophomore Jeffery Cornelison



—Nicholas Carnes, assistant professor of public policy



—freshman Ana Maria Maganto Ramirez


"About f---ing time."

—sophomore June Zhang.



—sophomore Brendon Colbert



—Pratt graduate student Abraham Chukwuka



—freshman Robert Lee



—senior Caitlin O'Neill



—sophomore Medha Gudavalli

"It's putting people's health in danger. Our foods not being inspected, services crucial to survival were shut down all for a political power struggle. the point of government isn't supposed to be focused on one issue while completely forgoing all others."

—sophomore Joanna Kuang


"The Republicans were just waiting for the shutdown to last 20 weeks so they couldn't legally abort it."

—sophomore Max Staebler

"I am thrilled that the members of Congress decided to cooperate. They sent a strong message to the American public that in the end, true cooperation is the only thing that keeps us going. I'm glad they finally set their egos aside because now that we have our government open, those issues that remained unresolved can be worked on without punishing the American public."

—senior Hannah Ward

"The government shutdown is over? That's pretty cool, I guess. I can't wait for my life to continue functioning as always."

—senior Andrew Yuan

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