The world may end on Saturday morning, but despite the grim pronouncements issuing from Washington, it will not end because our government closed its doors. In all likelihood, the sun will still rise on Saturday, our cars will start, and when night comes, the lights will turn on, just as they did when the government was running. We will still have to listen to vacuous self-justifications spilling from the mouths of those we pay to make sure that our government stays open, but that is probably true regardless of how the budget war turns out.
Obama and Reid resort to threatening Americans.
Those who seem most concerned about a shutdown are the ones who are causing it. Harry Reid sounds like he is engaged in a heroic effort to rescue us from some sort of highly contagious, incredibly lethal plague:
The time we have left to work on a budget agreement is short. The window in which we can avoid the terrible consequences of a shutdown is closing quickly. It is no longer measured in months or weeks. We are now just days away from the deadline.¹
A more stolid President Obama managed to keep the doomsday tone, though not the underlying threat, out of his words:
It means that people have to recognize that a government shutdown has real consequences for real people. ²
Rather than threatening the nation, Mitch McConnell threw down the gauntlet to coerce the president into signing a bill Mr. Obama has vowed to veto. McConnell placed the blame for a shutdown squarely in the Oval Office, though he failed to mention that aspects of his “troop funding bill” have very little do with our military:
If the President wants to shut down the government over this bipartisan troop funding bill, that is his prerogative. But I would urge him to reconsider his veto threat and join us in preventing a shutdown instead. This is the only bill that would do that. He should sign it.³
Government shutdown is a noble experiment in less government.
Self-important proclamations of doom aside, we have been told by those less self-interested than members of Congress that many, if not most essential services will continue to be provided if there is a shutdown. Mail will be delivered. Seniors and the disabled will continue to receive their Social Security checks. National Parks will close, but early April is hardly the height of the vacation season, and this is more grandstanding than long-term closure, anyway. Instead of succumbing to doom and gloom, we should consider a shutdown to be a noble experiment in less government. In fact, we should give this a shot whether or not Obama, Boehner, and Reid manage to broker a deal on the budget.
The private sector knows how to handle this sort of thing. Furloughs, shutdowns, pay cuts, and work without pay are all time-tested, effective means of weathering financial rough road. The private sector persevered through the recession, and survived to hire again. When the government reopens, we should look at what worked, what failed, tweak the process a bit, and then do it again. Shutdowns can be managed. Furloughs can be planned. Instead of being held hostage by bad politics and even worse politicians, the country should view this as a much-needed opportunity to cut spending. Let’s shut the thing down once a week just to prove how little real difference a well-managed shutdown makes in our lives. If Congress does not work on the days when the government closes, then we also gain one day out of every seven where no more damage can be done to our country.
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