I’m proposing a new public observance by presidential proclamation – Government Shutdown Week. It would be in addition to 51 special days, 23 special weeks and 46 special months already on the books including National Dairy Goat Awareness Week. Every year about the start of the fall season, the U.S. government should be required to shut down for a whole week as if they were dealing with a budget impasse. The last few shutdowns have revealed some advantages, so much so that we should institutionalize the practice and reap the benefits annually.
First, shutting down the federal government ensures that national politicians, federal civilian employees, and just plain taxpayers fully appreciate each other’s functions more than ever before. Politicians come to realize that when they are not in a position to give away someone else’s money or trade tax breaks for votes nobody cares what they say. That’s probably why they all say incredibly stupid and disingenuous things during shutdowns – they know that no one is listening.
Shutdown week will help civilian federal workers appreciate their very good jobs; you can’t really appreciate something until it is threatened. Missing some paychecks will help them realize that someone actually funds their employment. They always get the money back one way or another anyway, so there is no real harm done. Finally, ordinary taxpayers would come to realize that they couldn’t survive without government help. This is unlike big political contributors who can get the government to stop “helping” them on a day-to-day basis. This lack of mandatory “help” is why the big donors make a lot of money.
The government is essential because most Americans want to be on the bailout list with General Motors, Freddie Mac, and AIG. The taxpayers’ function is to elect the wrong people and make bad decisions – the government’s primary function is to bail out everyone from the consequences of those bad decisions.
Those items alone are enough to justify a shutdown week, but if you need more reasons, they are certainly available. For one thing, the last shutdown helped identify real government priorities – funding military service academy travel to play college football. In the non-government world the powerhouse college teams pay small schools like the academies millions of dollars to lose by 70 points. Why can’t the taxpayers get that same deal?
Another justification is that shutdowns allow the government to demonstrate one of its best capabilities – cost shifting. By the clever use of cost shifting the government manages to spend twice as much on security preventing people from visiting the national monuments than it would have cost to keep the monuments open. Ah, but the money comes from a different pocket – as if that matters.
The shutdown would help the average American discern the difference between the nation’s two primary political parties – one party says no to everything and the other party cannot say no to anything; of course, sometimes it’s the other way around depending on the issue. Shutdowns give the president an opportunity to call everyone to the White House for a fake meeting where they pretend they are working on difficult issues, pat each other on the back and laugh themselves silly over the idea that the rest of us don’t realize that what they’re actually working on is their next election campaign.
On second thought, forget it. With my luck, Congress and the administration would formally adopt regular government shutdowns and make the whole week a paid federal holiday.
