Shutdowns Reveal A Bigger Problem - Not A Threat

As I write this, America is in the middle of another government shutdown. Do not worry, I am not going to talk about who is at fault. While I would love to, I will spare our community that firestorm. Instead, I want to explore why shutdowns are ultimately not the threat many believe them to be.

A government shutdown in the broadest sense is when the federal government cannot agree on a budget or spending proposal, and thus, all spending gets frozen until both sides of the aisle come to an agreement. It is a multi-trillion-dollar game of chicken until both sides of the aisle come to an agreement, often after weeks of political theater..

Now there are a lot of things that cannot take place during a shutdown. This includes things like federal paychecks and certain regulatory functions. This is not to mention the fact that some administrations have been accused of amplifying inconvenience to sway public opinion. Again, I will not go into specifics.

Let us focus on a few things that could be delayed: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a number of welfare benefits. However, I ask why these are on the federal level. It seems to me that these could not only be more efficiently done at the state and local level, where there would be more oversight. This would also keep them out of harm’s way in the event of a government shutdown. The presence of these programs under the federal umbrella highlights a deeper issue: how dependent we have become on federal centralization.

There are a lot of regulations that control just about every aspect of our lives. While I am sure that the vast majority of these regulations are passed with good intentions, many are not. Furthermore, recall that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Please allow me to grossly oversimplify an extremely complicated topic. To put it simply, imagine a factory that makes widgets. Before they can be sold, each widget needs a stamp from a bureaucrat to say that it is safe. If the bureaucrat is not working, this stamp cannot be given, and no widgets are sold. However, the free market does a much better job of keeping products safe than the government does. This has been shown in almost all industries. Therefore, these widgets could still be made if the government were not in the way. Again, that was overly simplified, and there is always nuance to any conversation.

In other words, politicians and regulators want to feel important and thus pass laws and decrees to ensure their importance. Shutdowns do not expose a fragile nation; they expose how deeply the government has entangled itself in areas where it never belonged. That is the real issue worth debating.