WIFLI October 13 – 19 2013
Kurt Nimmo nicely summarizes October’s first 16 days in American politics with this title, “Yawn. Government Non-shutdown Ends.” An examination of the government’s own figures shows that only 17 % of the government actually did shut down.
Which 17%? The 17 that caused Americans to lose access to services despite the fact that the government itself would lose revenue doing so. “Tasked with selecting which functions of government should be shut down, the Obama administration created a firestorm of negative publicity this week when it ordered rangers to barricade otherwise fully accessible public areas in Washington, including war memorials. An angry Park Service ranger indicated to Washington Times columnist Wesley Pruden that there is a political motive behind the closure of the open-air memorials. “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can,” he said. “It’s disgusting.”” http://www.wnd.
As you may recall the government shutdown occurred because America had reached its debt limit and could no longer fund its liabilities without raising the debt ceiling. You would think under the circumstances that expeditious movement and rapid resolution would be the order of the day. Not so.
According to Standard & Poor’s the US government opted instead to rack up a $24 billion price tag for its 16 days of political jousting. “The financial services company said the shutdown, which ended with a deal late Wednesday night after 16 days, took $24 billion out of the U.S. economy, and reduced projected fourth-quarter GDP growth from 3 percent to 2.4 percent.” http://swampland.time.com/
The spiteful action of closing the National Parks cost the government $76 million in daily revenue and about $3.1 billion in lost government services.
Feeling sick yet?
Unsurprisingly Obamacare was at the heart of the logjam. This is because Obamacare is an economic time bomb about to explode on the American middle class. It is so costly that much of the disastrous rollout of healthcare.gov was due in large part to the government not wanting people to see the likely costs they would incur before signing up.
One of the most alarming trends in American politics is the lack of pretense being displayed by authority. Like a ravening beast that loses its fear of humans, government becomes more dangerous when it loses the need to pose as a public servant who performs legitimate tasks. In short, government becomes more dangerous when it doesn’t care what you think of it. The sentence-long version of the argument for pretense is this: the need to pretend is a restraint upon authority.