With the recent government shut-down due to the inability of Congress to negotiate and find common ground regarding the budget, (but more truthfully) the Affordable Care Act, (“Obamacare”) Americans have been in an uproar, and rightfully so.

More than 800,000 federal workers have been furloughed and many government services have been cut back.­

News commentators, and journalists have called this “not normal” “very dangerous” and “a perversion of democratic governance” just to list a few.

Despite this, isn’t this the way our Founding Fathers intended it to be?­ Political scientists and historians have argued the framers of our Constitution were fearful of the tyranny behind autocratic rule, and thus designed a system of governance that would prevent such domination of power.

The Founding Fathers were politically active men, with strong ideas regarding what a true republic and a true democracy should look like and how it should function.

As a result, we currently live in a system with elaborate and sophisticated checks and balances that make it incredibly difficult for the passage of any type of legislation.

Like it or not, our system is based upon the principle of compromise.­ In order for legislation to pass, it must be worthy enough for all competing interests to agree and come to a large general consensus.

Make no mistake, this structure is not whimsical, it is the way our founders engineered it.­ It takes an incredible amount of political maneuvering, and finesse for legislation to pass through our structure with effectiveness.

This may not be the most efficient system, but the alternative is easily passed legislation, without general consensus, that concentrates too much power in one particular place.

This argument certainly is not lost upon our Republicans in the House of Representatives, especially those Republicans who are holding the budget hostage in a last-ditch effort to prevent “Obamacare” from taking shape.

As the Washington Post recently reported, this is not the first time the government has “shutdown” due to a lack of compromise.

Since 1976 the government has “shutdown” seventeen times due congressional inability to agree on a budget.

If Congress cannot agree on a budget, the government has no funding to pay for certain services, thus, many of our federally funded programs are forced to “shut-down” a true compromise can be reached.

These notions are worthy for us to consider, and certainly make one consider the real foundation and history of our country, as well as the intent and complexity in the ideas of our Founding Fathers.­ Despite this, would they ever really expect a government to “shut down?”

These “shutdowns” have only been happening since 1976, which is when the modern congressional budgeting process took effect.­ And not since 1980 when Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti reinterpreted the Antideficiency Act, (an act which was passed in 1884) have government services actually “shut down.”­ Civiletti argued the Antideficiency Act required a government shutdown if there was no consensus in spending bills.

So it is possible government shutdowns are not necessary.­ Not only are they not necessary but those hardest hit are ordinary, hardworking Americans.

Congress is still getting paid their usual $174,000 yearly salary, as are many others who work for the government who are considered, “essential.”

Aside from the major departments that will temporarily furlough employees, there is an even larger number of Americans who will be hurt as they are denied services.

For instance, the Women Infants and Children (WIC) program will no longer have funding ”” program that helps feed some nine million Americans.

Also many veterans will be denied their rehabilitation benefits.­ According to the Washington Post, if the shutdown lasts for longer than two to three weeks, nearly four million veterans might not receive their disability claims and pensions.

Although we as Americans certainly have a right to be angry about the inability of our congressmen and women to come to a compromise for not only the general and common good, but for the continued operation of government it is important to remember our system is one in which laws are not meant to easily pass.

Having that said, for one group of politicians to hold our government hostage in order to override even the Supreme Court is a little more than upsetting, and is what makes this shutdown different from others in the past.

The way in which the budget is now being used as political leverage is something that we, as Americans, do not need to passively accept, especially considering the massive amount of people who will face serious financial difficulty as a result of this political power play.

Thomas Jefferson, one of our most prolific Founding Fathers once said with each new generation, the Constitution should be rewritten.­ If this is true, maybe it is high time we start to rethink the connection between budget consensus and operation of government, a silly if not misplaced connection that does very real harm to Americans in a way many of our Congressional leaders will not ever really know.

Toini Hiipakka is a graduate students studying history. She would like to thank Paulette Alatriste for her contributions to this piece.­