Dear Reader,
Today I bear the gravest news. On Dec. 20… in a mere nine days…
The United States government will partially “shut down” barring fresh congressional funding.
If the two political parties cannot sink their differences…
Uncle Samuel’s doors will swing partially shut — and Pandora’s notorious box will swing fully open.
Horror upon horror will ensue.
The ranger patrolling the National Park of American Samoa will be thrown into idleness…
The Federal Theatre Project will be thrown into darkness…
And the visiting seventh-grader from Topeka, Kansas, will be thrown out of the Washington Monument.
These are merely examples.
How the nation can possibly endure such dark days… I do not know.
A Glimmer of Light
Yet take solace…
Federal workers deemed essential to the safety of the Republic will remain in post — the customs official at Ketchikan, Alaska, for example.
The Transportation Security Agency will continue guarding the aerial ways against infants, great-grandmothers, wheelchair-riders and related devils.
In event of armed invasion, the Marines will leap from their barracks.
Social Security checks will still go issuing through the mails.
That is, the nation will peg along substantially uninterrupted.
The Real Reason They Don’t Want a Shutdown
I hazard elected officials fear government shutdown not because it injures their constituents — but precisely because it does not injure them.
These constituents would begin to raise… questions.
“The National Endowment for the Arts has been shuttered for three months? I haven’t noticed. Why do we even have one?”
“The Peace Corps is idle? The world isn’t very peaceful these days. It’s clearly failed at its mission. Maybe it’s time to end it.”
“The Office of Government Ethics? Is that some kind of joke? Might as well have an Office of Circular Squares. Why are we paying for these things?”
But Wasteful Government Spending Isn’t Really Wasteful!
Drummers for wasteful government argue it is not truly wasteful.
They say government spends money on these agencies. That money goes fanning out into the broader economy. It creates demand.
Thus the “wasteful” spending represents an economic stimulant.
If government did not expend that money, they maintain, the gross economic product would endure a contraction.
It is therefore economically evil to shutter these agencies.
Yet is it true?
Government Is a Parasite
We must recognize that government lacks all resources. It must pluck them away from the productive economy that sustains it.
Imagine a parasite dining on a host. Now imagine a government.
You have imagined the very same thing.
You may argue that portions of government’s parasitic enterprise are useful… even necessary.
The parasitic arrangement obtains nonetheless.
Explains “Austrian” school economist Peter St. Onge:
- We have to remember where [the money comes] from. The government, after all, doesn’t actually create anything. Every dollar it spends came out of somebody else’s pocket. Whose pocket?
- Part of the [money is] bid away from private borrowers like businesses, and the rest [is] siphoned from people’s savings by the Federal Reserve creating new money.
And if this money is not siphoned away? If it stays unsiphoned and in taxpayer pockets?
- This means that, yes, GDP would decline sharply. But wealth would actually grow, perhaps substantially. The businesses would be able to buy things they need, while the savers keep their money that was doing useful things like paying their retirement. So GDP drops, wealth soars…
Kind heaven, can it be? Wealth soars as the gross domestic product plummets?
Who is this St. Onge heretic?
Paul Krugman would denounce him as an arm of Satan, rope him to a stake and set him aflame.
Yet like a Hollywood movie set… a false set of teeth… or a politician’s handshake… GDP often gives a deceptive appearance.
The numbers tell fantastic lies.
GDP and the Torture of Statistics
Assume the government pays a fellow to shovel a hole. Assume further this government pays him to shovel it back in.
In the official telling, you have just witnessed an increase to the gross domestic product.
Have you? Or have you merely witnessed an idiocy?
You have witnessed an idiocy. You have witnessed a juiceless pursuit.
You have witnessed a squandering of time, of effort, of resources.
I maintain that vast amounts of government enterprise sort into this category.
Yet I stray from the central topic under consideration. Let us then come back.
Will the federal government “shut down” on Dec. 20?
No Shutdown
The answer — of course — is no.
What politician will risk blame for a government shutdown… five days prior to Christmas?
He will be denounced as the fiendish combination of Grinch and Scrooge.
Believe it: Congress will hand down another continuing resolution, so-called.
That is, Congress will boot the budgetary soda can further down the roadway.
I will devour each and every word I write today if mistaken — without salt.
They’d Never Allow a Real Government Shutdown
Congress will never allow a true government shutdown worthy of the expression.
Too many would stand to lose too much.
There are simply too many angling to get a bucket in the stream. To get a snout in the trough. To catch a penny…
To pick a pocket… or two pockets… or 330 million pockets.
None is willing to quit the game.
Thus the combats before us reduce to theater.
Politics Is Professional Wrestling
They resemble a professional wrestling bout — with its artificial blows and false blood.
In the congressional example one fellow attempts to wring concessions from the other… to make his eyes blink first.
The other fellow pursues an identical result.
Each knows that to get, he must give.
And so horses are traded, backs are scratched, palms are greased.
A deal is reached.
Honest Men Need Not Apply
What about the honest few who demand a square and honest budgeting?
Their arms are twisted and their skulls are bashed.
Thus you will get a continuous resolution by Dec. 20. Thus you have a nation that spends money it does not in fact possess.
Thus you have a nation $36 trillion in the red.
If you expect officials to make courageous choices guided by sound principle… if it is responsible statesmanship you seek… you will not find it in Washington.
You have come to the wrong address.
Regards,
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
