I opened my computer this morning and was met by the screaming headline about the "Impending Government Shutdown." Did you realize that the government was about to shutdown? If you said "no", there is a good reason for that. The government is not about to shut down. In fact, the entire government is funded and will continue to operate with the exception of one department: Homeland Security. There is a dispute about funding for that department, but even if no funding bill is passed, the essential functions of that department will continue in operation. That means that all the counter terrorism operations and things like screenings at airports or border security will continue in operation. At least 85% of the department's employees will be unaffected by one estimate, and others place that figure higher at 93%. So what is it that might shut down if no funding bill is passed in Congress? It comes out to items on which the federal government spends between 5 and 10 billion dollars each year. That means that roughly one-fifth of one percent of the government will be affected for a few days until some agreement is reached. In other words, about 99.8% of the government will be unaffected and all essential services will be unaffected. This is the "impending government shutdown" that they were talking about in the media today.
Let's put this into perspective. Remember the so called Sequester? It's the automatic cutback in government spending that president Obama came up with as a means to solve a funding dispute in 2011. It provided that if the Congress could not agree on measures to cut the budget deficit to a certain extent, then there would be certain automatic cuts that neither side to the dispute would like. It cut more than ten times the amount of spending than would be affected by the current dispute over Homeland Security. Of course, Congress could not reach agreement on closing the budget deficit so Sequestration went into effect. At that time president Obama blamed the Republicans for the Sequester (even though it was his idea) and both Obama and legions of Democrats came forward to warn the country of dire days ahead if Sequestration went into effect. Millions would lose their jobs. Airports would become impassable. All sorts of calamities would follow. Then we got actual Sequestration. There were no calamities. There were no major problems. To this day, there is only one federal employee who is known to have lost his job. And remember Sequestration was permanent and ten times larger than the current temporary dispute.
When one puts all this together, one finds that the current dispute over funding for Homeland Security is not an "impending government shutdown". It is not even an impending major problem. It is a small point in a massive government that will be resolved with little, if any, effect.
So why is it that the media keeps harping on the dispute as if it were a big deal? That's easy. By calling it a government shutdown and blaming the Republicans for it, it provides another way for Obama to bash the Republicans who now control Congress. Remember, the reason for the impasse is that the Senate Democrats won't allow that body to vote on the funding. They are the ones blocking resolution of the dispute. So the Democrats prevent resolution and the media blames the Republicans. What else is new?
Let's put this into perspective. Remember the so called Sequester? It's the automatic cutback in government spending that president Obama came up with as a means to solve a funding dispute in 2011. It provided that if the Congress could not agree on measures to cut the budget deficit to a certain extent, then there would be certain automatic cuts that neither side to the dispute would like. It cut more than ten times the amount of spending than would be affected by the current dispute over Homeland Security. Of course, Congress could not reach agreement on closing the budget deficit so Sequestration went into effect. At that time president Obama blamed the Republicans for the Sequester (even though it was his idea) and both Obama and legions of Democrats came forward to warn the country of dire days ahead if Sequestration went into effect. Millions would lose their jobs. Airports would become impassable. All sorts of calamities would follow. Then we got actual Sequestration. There were no calamities. There were no major problems. To this day, there is only one federal employee who is known to have lost his job. And remember Sequestration was permanent and ten times larger than the current temporary dispute.
When one puts all this together, one finds that the current dispute over funding for Homeland Security is not an "impending government shutdown". It is not even an impending major problem. It is a small point in a massive government that will be resolved with little, if any, effect.
So why is it that the media keeps harping on the dispute as if it were a big deal? That's easy. By calling it a government shutdown and blaming the Republicans for it, it provides another way for Obama to bash the Republicans who now control Congress. Remember, the reason for the impasse is that the Senate Democrats won't allow that body to vote on the funding. They are the ones blocking resolution of the dispute. So the Democrats prevent resolution and the media blames the Republicans. What else is new?
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