A Few Comments on the Government Shutdown

Everybody is talking about the federal government shutdown, so maybe I should, too.  First, I suppose the proper libertarian response to the shutdown is that it is unfortunate – that it will eventually end.  (Just to be clear, that is a joke.)

Second, you can tell something about a presidential administration not only by the President himself (someday, herself), but also by the way the people in the administration act.  In that regard, the response of the lower down people in the Trump administration to the shutdown is so much better than the response of some of the lower down people in the Obama administration in 2013.

When the government shutdown in 2013, the Obama administration put barricades around the Lincoln Memorial and even the World War II Memorial on the Mall.  I guess it was on the theory that the National Park Service was shut down.  But it was silly.  If you have seen the World War II Memorial, you know what I mean.  It is on ground level, with a few sets of steps.  Nothing dangerous.  There was no reason people couldn’t go there without a park ranger.  But people in the Obama administration tried to shut it down.  I say “tried” because eventually visitors moved the barricades and went to see it anyway.  There were flights organized for World War II veterans to come in and see the Memorial, “honor flights,” but the people in the Obama administration, instead of trying to figure out a way to let the veterans see their memorial, even with the shutdown, tried to keep them out.  It was mean-spirited.¹

There have been complaints about the intention of the Trump administration to leave some of the national parks open.  Kate Kelly of the Center for American Progress said, “Trying to run national parks without park rangers not only creates unnecessary dangers for visiting families, but puts the parks’ natural, cultural and historic resources at risk.”  Her comment makes me wonder if Americans are really that dumb.  I remember a trip to Germany in December 2010.  I had promised our son, when we were in Germany in 1994, that we would try to see the Olympic Stadium in Munich.  Because of car problems, we couldn’t.  So, in 2010 we tried again.  There was snow in Munich, but the Olympic Stadium was open.  The aisles and rows were full of snow, but they let you walk around inside.  The Germans treated people as responsible adults.

Finally, Senator Diane Feinstein of California, a Democrat, worried about the effects of a shutdown:

“Shutting down the government is a very serious thing.  People die, accidents happen.  You don’t know.  Necessary functions can cease. …  There is no specific list you can look at and make a judgment: ‘Well, everything is going to be just fine.’  You can’t make that judgment.”

On the other hand, Senator Feinstein obviously thinks there are worse things than a government shutdown because, when the Senate voted Friday night on the bill that passed the House, a vote that would have prevented the shutdown, she voted against it.  She obviously decided that voting for the House bill was a worse thing than a government shutdown.  That is a legitimate decision.  But before you talk about people dying because of a shutdown, before you accuse the other side of doing something which may result in people dying, think about what you are, and are not, willing to do to prevent that shutdown.  In other words, think about what you are willing to do, and what you are not willing to do, to prevent those possible deaths that you accused the other side of risking.
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¹ You sort of wonder if some people in the Obama administration would have tried to shut down the interstate highway system back in 2013, on the grounds that it was 90% paid for with federal government money, if they thought they could have.  (Once again, a joke.)