What is the democrats view on the government shutdown?

For Democrats, they did not want a government shutdown, nor did they think it was a useful strategy for their Republican opponents. As Democrats saw it, the Republican Party had been entirely hijacked by one radical faction, the Tea Party, and this group of about 40 members was running the entire agenda. The Democrats believed they had offered to make compromises on the budget, but the Tea Party refused to give even an inch on their demands about cutting spending, reducing the size of government, and defunding or eliminating the president's health care law. When their demands were not met, they shut the entire government down.

Democrats found such actions puzzling, since a Republican-led government shutdown in 1995 had been a disaster for their party, when the public turned against those tactics. As the days dragged on through the first two weeks of October 2013, and millions of people were forced to remain out of work (while members of congress got paid), many in the public began to turn against the Republicans, and Democrats continued to push for an end to the stalemate. And President Obama said repeatedly that no budget negotiations would occur until the government was allowed to re-open.