At 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, Obamacare took full effect, opening up new health care markets. Also at this time, the U.S. government began a partial shutdown.

In essence, this means that House Republicans failed to accomplish both of the objectives they set out with, ending Obamacare and keeping the government running.

The shutdown became inevitable when the Republican-dominated House of Representatives became set on tying Obamacare to a bill that would fund the government. They did this knowing the Democrat-dominated Senate would not pass the bill and that even if they did, the President would veto it.

Neither party claims they wanted a government shutdown, but the Senate refused to give in to the demands of the House.

Adding to this is the looming issue of the U.S. reaching its debt limit on Oct. 17. If Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling before this, it would cause a default on U.S. debt.

The irresponsible actions of Congress, especially those in the House looking to satisfy their constituents at the cost of the country’s wellbeing, could create devastating effects nationally and worldwide.

The longer Congress waits to come up with a solution, the more serious, and expensive this situation becomes. Estimates from economic consulting firm IHS Global Insight say this shutdown will cost $300 million a day.

Other effects include the furloughing of 800,000 federal workers, the Center for Disease Control becoming unable to investigate disease outbreaks (right in time for flu season), and applications for visas and passports being delayed.

One thing that does continue as planned is the unrolling of the Affordable Care Act, which was the one thing House Republicans intended to shut down. Meaning this stunt has failed at accomplishing its only goal.

Most attempts at bringing the government back into operations have been nothing but political theater meant to cast Democrats as unwilling to compromise.

The simple fact of the matter is that Obama and Senate Democrats have little reason to defund the ACA, as they were all elected based on their stance on its passing, meaning that their constituents want the law.

This doesn’t mean Republicans don’t have the right, and maybe even the responsibility to their constituency to fight the health care law, but they also have a duty to the rest of the nation to not take down the entire government in their feud with Obama.