Federal Government Shutdowns Are Partial, Routine and Bipartisan

           The federal government is currently said to be “shut down” because of the expiration of spending authority.  However, United States government continues to operate, only without spending money.  Indeed, as other commentators have observed, the partial “shutdown” is more like a “slimdown,” as 83% of the federal government remains open.  All essential employees have continued to report for work.

            The partial shutdown reveals the extent of what the federal government does, which, on the one hand, can make people grateful for it, but on the other hand reveals how obtrusive the federal government is and why it is $17 trillion in debt.

            The current partial shutdown is nearly the twentieth time the spending authority of the United States has expired.  Such shutdowns used to be more routine, especially from the 1970s to the 1980s.  A variety of issues have triggered them, usually because liberal Democratic-controlled Congresses wanted to continue to engage in deficit spending, which prompted Republican Presidents to veto spending bills, thereby shutting down the government.  Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush admitted that their actions shut down the government, but complained that the Democratic Congress had left them with the choice either of more irresponsible deficit spending or a shutdown. 

The liberal media blame of Presidents then is inconsistent with their current position that it is now the fault of the House of Representatives, with the only consistencies being that they want to continue deficit-spending and that they blame the Republicans for every shutdown.  Liberal Democrats and the allies in the media portray the shutdown as a disaster caused by Republican irresponsibility and reopening the federal government as an end unto itself.  Their love of big government is thereby exposed, as is their inconsistency when they triggered them, by their own definition. 

            In my post, Only Presidents, Not Congress, Have Shut Down the Government, in April of 2011,

http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2011/04/only-presidents-not-congress-have-shut.html, I did theorize that the Congress, and particularly, the Senate could effectively shut down the federal government by declining to approve funding measures approved by the House of Representatives, where constitutionally they must originate.  In the current situation, because the liberal Democratic-controlled Senate has, in fact, shut down the government, backed by the threatened veto by Democratic President Barack Obama, it is legally the Democrats who have shut it down. 

            As in 1995, the liberal Democrats and the media have falsely portrayed the Republicans as having a shutdown strategy, but their strategy has been to reduce the deficit and the debt, or at least not to increase it, by giving the Democrats in the Senate and the Democratic President the choice either of accepting spending cuts or shutting down the government.  The Democrats chose the shutdown, knowing they could count on the media to blame the Republicans.  Their position is that Republicans in the House are unreasonable not to accept all Democratic demands to continue to fund the government at the current deficit-spending levels and to continue to raise the debt limit without using their leverage to force spending cuts.  In other words, deficit-spending is the norm and any attempt to use constitutional means to impose some fiscal responsibility is not reasonable.  In addition, the actions of the Obama Administration to close open-air federal facilities, including monuments, parks and even the ocean are unnecessary efforts to inflict maximum pain on the American people for political gain, even though allowing people to continue to visit such facilities does not represent any expenditure.  Clearly, the actions of the liberal Democrats in regard to this budget dispute are what have been unreasonable.  In contrast, conservative Republicans have been standing on principle of opposing the increase in the debt and the federalization of health insurance, which would add dramatically to the deficit.

           The current federal government shutdown will be resolved and furloughed workers given back pay for their time off.  The United States will not default on its debt.  The sky will not fall.  There are likely to be other partial shutdowns or disputes over the debt limit.  We shall survive all of them, just as we have routinely before.