Government shutdown shows US ‘extremely polarized’: Winograd

Former US Congressional Peace Candidate Marcy Winograd says the government shutdown in the United States shows “a country that is extremely polarized.”

“It makes no sense to stop the wheels of government in order to basically extort the president and Democrats in Congress to defeat or roll back their healthcare reform initiative,” Winograd told Press TV on Tuesday.

She made the remarks after the US government began a partial shutdown on Tuesday for the first time in 17 years.

The shutdown puts up to one million federal government workers on unpaid leave. It also closes national parks and stalls medical research projects.

“I think it’s really outrageous that we have a group of Tea Party Republicans essentially holding our government hostage over healthcare,” Winograd said.

“I do think that it’s very important that we provide healthcare that we make it accessible to the 50 million Americans who have no healthcare,” she added.

Winograd also noted Tea Party Republicans say “we want to drown the government, we want to stop the wheels of government, we do not want Americans have access to healthcare.”

Republicans insisted on attaching provisions that would gut President Barack Obama’s healthcare law. Democrats, however, said Republicans should pass a “clean” spending bill without any strings attached.

“When you look at the entire picture you see a country that is extremely polarized and even though that we have a majority of Democrats in the Senate we have a majority of Republicans in the House and so it is a government deeply divided,” Winograd concluded.