There’s one simple way for the US Government not to be shut down, but it’s the one thing that’s never going to happen: for the US Government to stop overspending and avoid going over the debt ceiling again.
But that’s just not going to happen, is it. Because both major US political parties are infected with the overspending bacillus.
So, instead of actually stopping the overspending, which is what the existence of a debt ceiling is actually designed to encourage, every form of political flunky in town—like every conjuror offering a lesson in misdirection—wants to talk about something else: about Republican miscalculation, or Democratic intransigence, or compromise, or Obamaesque arrogance, or Boehneresque bullying. Anything, anything at all, just don’t talk about stopping that goddamned overspending!
But you know the one good thing about it all, if the shutdown happens? Perhaps folk will be able to see, as they did in 1996 when this last happened, that having some parts of government shut down does not bring about the end of the world—which may just encourage them start a new one predicated on less government rather than more.
I can hope, can’t I?
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