Shutting Down a Shutdown

Samir Mehta | January 13, 2019
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Scott Hardie | January 14, 2019
What would be an optimistic ending? That it ends soon? That might possibly happen. That it ends in such a way that everyone is thoroughly sick of this shutdown nonsense and never wants another one? Won't happen. We live in shutdown nation now. This is normal now. Not anywhere else of course, according to Wikipedia:

Shutdowns of the type experienced by the United States are nearly impossible in other forms of government. Under the parliamentary systems used in most European nations, the executive must maintain the approval of the legislature to remain in power (confidence and supply), and typically an election is triggered if a budget fails to pass (loss of supply). In other presidential systems, the executive branch typically has the authority to keep the government functioning even without an approved budget.

And this is a new phenomenon in the last 40 years. We basically wrote into law our ability to do this whenever we wanted, and by "we" I mean Congress. "We" love shutdowns. "We" can't get enough of them. "We" get to use them as political stunts all the time, to make our enemies look bad, no matter the cost to millions of people.

On a personal note, I have friends and family affected by the shutdown. This shit really wrecks people's lives. I hope for a swift ending to this irresponsible nonsense.

Samir Mehta | January 14, 2019
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