Friday, October 18, 2013

Shutdown Scorecard. Who won?

Hard to tell.  I haven't seen any real post shutdown polls yet.  Democrats say the Republicans lost, Republicans say the Democrats lost.  Objectively they kicked the can down the road two or three months.  Right now, the Republicans re opened the government with a two month time limit and boosted the debt ceiling enough to get thru Christmas.  The budget was referred to a committee, standard Washington ploy to sweep something under the rug.   The Republicans didn't get any relief on Obamacare.  So for this round, the Republicans didn't get anything and the Democrats didn't give up anything.
   Will the fight continue after  Christmas?  Who knows.  The Republicans certainly are not satisfied with the status quo.  The Democrats like things just the way they are.  The real issue is next year's election.  This whole shutdown/debt ceiling brouhaha was run off in order to influence the voters for next year.  And Obama wanted it just as much as the Republicans.  If either side thinks renewing the fight will do 'em good in the election, they will. If both sides  figure the public is sick of the squabbling, they won't. 
   Obama certainly looked ineffective.  Congress did all the headline grabbing.  By crying "Default" Obama spooked the international currency markets and weakened T-bills.  He did this because without a debt ceiling hike, he would have to chop $1 trillion a year out of federal spending.  A lot of people are feeding off the federal gravy train, and shutting off the flow of gravy would cause a lot of angry takers, who would mostly blame Obama. 
   The shutdown didn't have much effect outside the Beltway.  Up here we hardly noticed.  Son reports North Dakota did just fine.  Thoughtful taxpayers ought to be wondering if we could solve the spending problem by just closing stuff down.  Thoughtful civil servants ought to be scared. The monument closings were an attempt to make the shutdown more painful, so people would care more about re opening government.  It sparked outrage and civil disobedience, but not much political support.
   I'm beginning to think the only group hurt by the shutdown were the civil servants who missed paychecks.  And they are all democrats anyhow.  And they will get back pay for 16 days off.  The government contractors will probably play catchup as they accomplish the work that didn't get done for 16 days. 
   The other thing, we managed to convince the Europeans and the rest of the world that the United States is coming unglued.  That is a bad thing. 

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