by Prof. Robert Reich

Last week, the Federal Government shut down. While it is back up and running again, the "continuing resolution" did not solve the problem.

The underlying issue is not just the tradeoff between a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants and funding a border wall. It is also, more basically, coming up with a federal budget that reflects our national priorities.

In the Budget Control Act of 2011, Democrats and Republicans agreed to match changes in defense spending with changes in domestic spending. Currently, Republicans in Congress are demanding that the Federal Government spend as much as $180 billion more in defense spending.

This joint video by the Sanders Institute and Inequality Media outlines this complicated issue.