Government Shutdown

Title/Source/Evaluation: The article I chose for this assignment is “Congress approves stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown” (Mascaro 2015). The article was written by Lisa Mascaro and published in the Los Angeles Times. Mascaro graduated from UC Santa Barbara with degrees in economics and political science. She has also written for the Las Vegas Sun. During her time at the Las Vegas Sun she contributed to a group of stories that won the paper a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. In this article Mascaro does her best to remain neutral by reporting facts and quoting both sides, but a slight liberal bias bleeds through. The Los Angeles Times has been in circulation for more than 100 years and has won several Pulitzer prizes. The paper has been known to have a liberal bias, but usually tries to keep their stories balanced. I believe the papers history and Mascaros attempts to remain neutral in this story make both credible sources.
Summary of Main Points: In this article Mascaro explains how a government shutdown was narrowly avoided (Mascaro 2015).
Functionalists study how all of the parts of a system must work together in order for it to function correctly (Carl 2013:8). Functionalists believe that compromise between two parties is how we reach the middle ground between two extremes (Carl 2013:120). The stopgap bill was passed through compromise between the two political parties and their compromise kept our government from shutting down (Mascaro 2015). Conflict theory believes that there is a constant ongoing struggle to either hold onto power or gain power (Carl 2013: 9). This power struggle can be seen in the refusal of either party to back down on the funding for Planned Parenthood (Mascaro 2015). President Obama is refusing to sign a bill that contains cuts, while Republicans are adamant that funding must be cut to reach a deal (Mascaro 2015). They are caught in a power