Pakistan, Oct. 13 -- The ongoing shutdown debate between Democrats and President Donald Trump's Republicans is largely avoiding the difficult fiscal issues clouding the country's future - the rising national debt and the long-term financial health of Social Security and Medicare.

The fifteenth partial federal govern since 1981 has been sparked by Democrats' demand for spending, which would cost about $1.5 trillion over the next decade according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, adding to the nearly $38 trillion national debt.

"We have huge real problems in this country, and we are stuck in a perpetual messaging war between the two parties, instead of real attempts to fix these divisions and divides and do so...