The Government Is Going to Shut Down Again (and That's Bad) - YouTube

Hello I’m ethically-sourced Andrew Heaton

and you’re sustainably watching Mostly Weekly.

Put down the tide pod.

Congratulations, we survived the Government Shutdown!

this is our 19th shutdown since 1976.

when we hit 20 we get a free coffee!

But brace yourself for another government shutdown.

And another.

And another.

And another.

Congress avoided a shutdown this time due to the revolutionary technology of,

and I’m not making this up… a “talking stick.”

Apparently Congress couldn’t talk about immigration policy without a talking stick

to determine who can talk.

Which is juvenile and I think we can all agree that in 20-

Excuse me I have the talking stick, Sarah, please, please would you please, thank you.

Thank you.

Congress stopped the shutdown this time by passing what’s called a “Continuing Resolution”

which just means that government funding continues as-is until Congress actually passes a budget.

Continuing Resolutions work, but not well.

They don’t account for reallocating funding if the value of programs has shifted,

or if they can be retired.

And sadly, the last time we went an entire year without resorting to a CR was 1997.

We’ve been running on Continuing Resolutions since October,

and, presumably, we will be running on them

up until the Winfrey administration takes over.

Now it's true, many libertarians

view the federal government as one big Human Resources Department with guns.

And I can understand why you might think a shutdown

would be cause for libertarians to celebrate.

But you’d be wrong.

Yes, The government is bloated and inefficient,

and we should amputate several of its appendages.

But a government shutdown doesn’t actually accomplish anything.

It doesn’t shrink the size of federal agencies, it doesn’t save money;

it’s even counterproductive to limited government in the long term.

Let me explain.

No shrinkage.

As soon as the federal government reboots:

all the government agencies, drug wars, and bureaucrats are still there.

In fact a lot of them never left.

Here are some government functions that are unaffected by shutdowns:

Expense.

Nor do we save any money during a government shutdown.

Social Security, entitlements, and defense spending

don’t get their funding cut or reformed.

Plus, like something out of the Twilight Zone,

government shutdowns actually costs America more

than if the government had just stayed active.

Portrait of a country where government costs more to shut down than to actually run,

where non-essential employees get paid in the future for past inactivity.

A country within… the Twilight zone.

And shutdowns are expensive.

According to Standard & Poor, the US economy lost $24 billion dollars

during the two weeks of the 2013 government shutdown

that's $1.5 billion per day.

How?

Shutdowns cause mass inefficiencies

that take a heavy economic toll on the private sector.

The shutdown delays business transactions requiring federal permits,

it postpones court cases, and restricts travel by withholding passports.

Plus museums and parks can’t collect fees

which takes revenue from the agencies, and hurts tourism.

In 2013 about 40% of non-military federal employees were considered non essential

and they were furloughed, which is a way to say, temporarily laid off.

But as soon as these forlorn furloughed federal employees come back, they get backpaid.

In other words, a government shutdown

is basically a mandated, paid vacation for federal employees.

So the government winds up spending the same amount than it would have if it stayed open,

but without providing the services our tax dollars are paying for.

That means veterans may not get their checks, unemployment benefits stop,

tax rebates cease, and vacations to our finest national monuments get scuttled.

Backlash

A government shutdown may even hurt the cause of small government in the long-run.

When societies lose faith in their institutions they tend to embrace authoritarianism.

When the government doesn’t work, people tend to respond by seeking,

you guessed it, more government.

It’s like trying to drink yourself sober,

or dealing with playground bullies by giving one of the bullies a chainsaw.

It would be great if we shrunk the government.

But the government we have should be lean and efficient, helpful and simple.

Sort of like-

A talking stick.

The way towards limited government is through debate and legislation,

and giving people and markets time to adjust.

Shutdowns are the opposite of that

they’re a combination partisan, squabbling and incompetency,

hash tag parti-squab-petency.

The only way past perpetual shutdowns

is if our elected leaders act like civil adults trying to solve a common problem.

Bipartisanship--