So you want a government shutdown? Let's have a real one. If the solons in Congress can't find a way to find compromise amidst their admittedly huge differences with respect to the federal budget, let's skip the halfway measures. Shut the whole darn thing down. No maintaining of "essential" services -- after all, as the Tea Partiers will tell you, nothing the feds do is really essential to the nation's well-being. Well maybe some things, like the Social Security checks many anti-government demonstrators routinely pocket and perhaps a farm subsidy or oil depletion allowance or two, but almost nothing. And by their accounting, lots of what the feds do is downright harmful.
So let's have an object lesson in where all those taxes and borrowed dollars actually go. First to go has to be defense, since it is the biggest item in the budget (yes, bigger than Social Security or Medicare or interest on the debt and much, much bigger than foreign aid). No flyovers or aircraft carrier patrols or, for that matter, field operations. The troops on the ground will have to make do with what's left in the commissaries and supply depots plus what they can scrounge off the land abroad and at home. Of course the defense contractors -- and their usual beneficiaries on Capitol Hill -- will put up a big squawk, but they have lots of cash on hand.
And that's just the beginning. Closer to home, the airports will have to shut down for lack of traffic controllers. Anyway, the pilots wouldn't have any weather alerts to guide them since the Weather Bureau will be shuttered. That may be inconvenient for both businessmen and vacationers, but all must share the burden of saving the nation from mounting debt or higher taxes.
Happily, some of the costs will be borne by foreigners. Take, for example, the folks who smuggle undocumented workers across the nation's borders. No reason for anyone to hire their services when there won't be any border patrol to stop anyone who wants to from strolling across the border. No Coast Guard to stop seaborne arrivals either. (Though boating enthusiasts will want to be extra careful not to capsize, unless they can count on other boaters -- or the free market -- to rescue them.) Of course the new undocumented arrivals will have to compete for work with the hordes of freed inmates from federal prisons, but hey, that's all part of the competitive enterprise system.
You might want to be careful what you eat and drink during the shutdown -- the Food and Drug Administration and the Consumer Protection Agency won't be monitoring things, and it will be a lot easier for foreign exporters as well as domestic producers to dump any dubious goods on U.S. consumers. But think how free you will feel without all those bothersome regulations interfering with your God-given rights to buy and sell whatever the free market provides.
And here's some other good news: Come April 18, the tax collectors at the IRS won't be on the job. So dump all those bothersome tax forms in the trash. True, if, like millions of Americans, you were looking for a refund, that won't be in the offing either. Also, if and when the government gets back in business, people with outstanding tax liabilities will be subject to penalties for late filing -- and don't try to protest that you mailed your check in on time -- no postal service will have been operating to deliver it to the IRS. And even if you or some delivery service hand delivered it to the IRS's doorstep, who is there to say it ever got inside in time to make the deadline? (Check the tax code -- anything in there about delays caused by collapse of the government?)
Open access to the nation's nuclear arsenals may be of some concern, but handling that stuff has its own hazards for the unwary poacher. But a stop at the vacated Bureau of Engraving and Printing where they churn out all that currency should provide much easier pickings. So too will the treasures now unguarded in all those Smithsonian museums -- though watch out for those lions and bears let loose from the National Zoo as they make their way down Rock Creek Park to the Mall.
Yes, there will be some collateral damage. A bunch of hungry kids may start wailing about the termination of the federally funded school lunch program, but food stamp allotments and welfare checks can be stretched out for a while and the destitute have not been much featured in the budget debate anyway. Also, with no one patrolling the national parks they can hang out there and live off the land untroubled -- except maybe by the worsening quality of the air and water as the watchdogs at EPA take a snooze. Oh and then there are all those veterans who may miss the $140 billion or so in benefits and services they were supposed to get this year. Well, maybe we can take up a collection...