If you’ve been following U.S. politics during the last few weeks, one issue is looming larger and larger: the possibility of a government shutdown Oct. 1.

Just what exactly is meant by “government shutdown”? Well, it means that all nonessential personnel who work for the federal government will no longer be paid. That doesn’t mean they will be working for gratitude. Any personnel deemed nonessential actually will be legally barred from coming to work.

Those who are “essential” include employees who are involved in national security, the military, those responsible for sending out benefit checks, the president and some other White House employees, and Congress. The offices remaining open will also keep some support staff, so that they can actually conduct business.

Joe Davidson, columnist for the Washington Post, said in a recent NPR interview: “Previously, about 800,000 out of a little more than 2 million federal employees were hit by the shutdown or at least the potential of a shutdown.”

That might sound like a whole lot of governing going on in a “shutdown,” but that number comes from the 1995 government shutdown, where Congress actually had passed funding for some federal programs, unlike the current situation. This means the actual number of workers sent home could be higher.

Why is this even a possibility then?

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a stopgap bill Thursday that tied defunding the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) to keeping the federal government running.

The Democrat-controlled Senate has vowed to remove the amendment that calls for defunding Obamacare, and the president himself has said he would veto any legislation defunding the Affordable Care Act.

The question still remains, if everyone agrees that we should fund the government, why did the Republicans add an amendment that made this issue so contentious?

That is a question that has baffled many who follow politics, even some Republican lawmakers. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., recently said that expecting the Senate to vote for a measure that defunds Obamacare “is not rational.”

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, has publicly stated that he is against a government shutdown, but he is the one who allowed a bill on the floor of the House that the Senate and the president both claimed would be a no-go.

Either Boehner was convinced by a wing of his party led by those like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that it is better to take the nation down than to allow a law (named after a president who was later re-elected) that was passed just two years ago to exist, or he is hoping for a compromise.

Such a compromise could come in a number of ways, but some of the more likely stipulations would be delaying implementation of Obamacare or removing some of the smaller, more unpopular portions.

This would be a resounding win for the Republican party, essentially allowing them to take our federal government hostage and come out with at least some of their demands met.

With a Pew Research Center Poll conducted earlier this month showing 39 percent of the public would blame Republicans for a shutdown — compared to 36 percent who would blame the Obama administration — it is essentially a tie between who the US would blame.

It is not totally clear what these numbers would realistically mean for the next election cycle, but they seem to suggest that there is no reason why Democrats should cave to the Republicans. If they are going to be blamed just as much as their opponents, they would not want to be the only ones to actually give up something.

The only thing Republicans would lose by dropping the defunding amendment would be to let a signed law stand. With control over only one of the three involved parts of our legislative government, it is hardly to be expected that the Republicans should get what they want just because they want it really, really bad.

If the Republican House wants to continue signing bills that defund the Affordable Care Act (they have now signed 41) fine. If other republicans want to scream and yell that Obamacare is destroying our nation, fine.

Until they actually have the political power to repeal it, they should listen to the more reasonable members of their party and stop trying to gain attention by threatening to put innocent workers out of their jobs.