Crisis or Lesson

            The federal government shutdown hit 26 days today. Should we consider the shutdown to be a crisis as so many media outlets do, or should we consider it to be a lesson in the need to cut much of the government?  I have not been inconvenienced at all! I have empathy for the federal employees who live from pay check to pay check and wonder how they are getting along. However, I think that the shutdown has shown how little the American people actually need the federal government.

            If 800,000 people can be laid off from the federal government with their absence barely noticed, why do they have jobs in the first place? There are plenty of tasks that government employees do – such as emptying the trash cans in national parks – that civilians or even volunteers could do. If federal employees have time to plan their weekends or to schedule their next vacation on government time, they are not essential and should not have a job.

            John Stossel posted an interesting article at The Daily Signal, and he sounds as though he is in agreement with me. Even though the media keeps up the cry that the nation is in crisis, the average American does not see it. Stossell writes, “Looking around America, I see people going about their business – families eating in restaurants, employees going to work, children playing in playgrounds, etc. I have to ask: Where’s the crisis?” 

            The shutdown is showing plainly that Americans need only limited government. Stossell says that “We could take a chainsaw to so much of government.” I agree,