Critique of an Editorial on US Government

The critiques are about an article published in New York Times on 30th September 2015 titled Spending Bill Passes, Averting a Shutdown by David M. Herszenhorn on 30th September 2015. Herszenhorn is a renowned news reporter and an editor at New York Times. Herszenhorn started his media career in the early 1990s and over the years, he has become one of the key political news reporters and editors in the US. Given his experience in reputable news agency, Herszenhorn can be perceived as a credible author. The main target audience for the article are the American citizens.

According to the article, Congress approved a temporary Spending Bill in the last minutes of the fiscal year. The Bill aimed at increasing government spending to help federal agencies to continue running efficiently. According to Herszenhorn, the approval of the Spending Bill was due to strong support by Democrats in the House. He indicates that Democrats have been using the tyranny of numbers to force policy changes in the government. According to the House vote, the bill was approved by 257 members against 151 members. Out of 257 votes in favor of the bill, 186 votes were Democrats while 91 were Republicans. All members against the bill were Republicans. This indicates that the Democrats are using the majority power to impose some policies.

Herszenhorn argues that the Democrats support for the bill to increase government spending has increased the battle between Republican and Democrats. The evidence to support his argument are statements made by Mr. McConnell on how Democrats in the Congress for blocking all efforts to implement regular spending bills. Mr. McConnell indicates that Democrats are against all fiscal measures proposed by Republicans such as increasing government spending. Herszenhorn indicates that Democrats have blocked all spending bills that were proposed by Republican and approved by appropriation committees. The strong battle between Democrats and Republican has forced Republican speaker, Mr. Boehner, to express his intention to resign from office. Herszenhorn also indicates that the increased government spending will have a significant effect to the US. He indicates that the country federal debt has continued to escalate and the US can lose it ability to pay.

In my opinion, I agree with Herszenhorn opinion that Democrats are using majority leadership to pass major government policies. Republican have remained powerless since most of their proposed bills especially on fiscal measures have been blocked in the Congress. Nevertheless, approval of spending bill is likely to help the government to accomplish most of their missions such as heightening the security and infrastructure development.