With all of the talk about the government being shutdown, what does this mean? National parks and museums will not be open for business. Many government employees will not go to work, although a sizable portion will still be working (or whatever term you want to use for government employees showing up at their job).
Here is a list of 10 things that won’t happen with the government shutdown.
- Drone bombings in Pakistan, Yemen and various other countries will not stop.
- The various wars and occupations throughout the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere will not come to a halt. The military will not be coming home.
- The NSA will continue to collect data and spy on the American people.
- The IRS will not be shut down. You will still have to pay your taxes or face consequences.
- The Drug Enforcement Agency will still be knocking down doors in the middle of the night, trying to stamp out illegal drug use once and for all.
- The government schools will not be closing.
- Social Security and Medicare will continue to be funded.
- Food stamps (or whatever the politically correct term used now) will not stop being distributed.
- Foreign aid will keep flowing to dictators and various other politicians in other countries.
- The Federal Reserve will continue to expand the monetary base by $85 billion per month, at least until it decides to “taper”.
This, of course, is not by far an exhaustive list. If this is a government shutdown, then what is big government?
I would like to see a real government shutdown. In fact, I would just be happy to see the debt ceiling not raised and for Congress to be forced to balance the federal budget. If Congress had to present a balanced budget, then some of those 10 things really would be shut down. If Congress had to cut spending to balance the budget, then that would be a lot closer to a government shutdown than what we are going through right now.