What If The Federal Government Shuts Down

           There has been lots of talk about this issue, and Politifact.com and the Washington Post fact checker, two respected fact checking entities, are murky on what exactly will occur.  However, there may be a way to shed some light on this topic.  In an interview Jay Powell, who was the Under Secretary to the Treasury during Bush 41's Presidency and also currently works at the bipartisan Policy Center, said that there would have to be priority decisions about what was most important to keep open.  Interest on the debt would come first, and then there would be a question of what to do next.  National defense, prisons, police, FBI, etc. all would be competing with social programs like Social Security and Medicare.  And it seems likely that since the United States could not simply shut down military and police funding, it is likely that entitlement programs would be the ones who suffer, with Powell saying "But any way you play the game, you can’t cut spending by 44 percent overnight without cutting very popular and important programs."  


           This is a very sobering assessment of the likelihood of what would occur should there be a government shutdown.  The United States government would be sending the message that it could not agree on a deal to increase the debt limit, and would have to resort to making tough decisions about who to pay and what to fund.  There actually is a lesson here, such that if the Republicans could get what they wanted deep down inside, cutting social programs, taxes, and regulation, then the shutdown would resemble more of what they want the country to IDEALLY look like.  People do not like this vision of America at all where seniors are left to fend for themselves and the poorest members of society are not given a helping hand.  Hopefully this lesson will sink into voter's minds when they go to vote for President in 2012.  In a recent poll by Quinnipac University, 48% of voters say they will blame Republicans if the debt ceiling is not raised, compared to 34% who would blame President Obama.  Perhaps this is a sign of things to come.