Well Said, Bernie Sanders!

[Jonathan Whatley]

The federal government shutdown reminds me of this thread where we got to debating a 10% "across-the-board" government spending cut. I think some of the problems we're seeing with the government shutdown are problems we'd also see in an across-the-board spending cut – and the government shutdown is not absolutely across-the-board.

If anyone is still around who supports an absolutely across-the-board spending cut, would it include national monuments to veterans? Look how badly closing the gates at national monuments went within less than one day. Would we cut 10% from national cemeteries? They're partially exempt from sequestration, partially not. Arlington National Cemetery is operating but expects to perform about 160 fewer funerals per month. (This is the rate. I badly hope this doesn't go on a month.)

It seems veterans won't be turned away but funerals will be delayed. With a truly "across-the-board" spending cut the morgue, now dealing with an overflow of caskets in queue, will probably be told to do its job for less than it had even before the overflow.

I can live in a world with with across-the-board spending cuts that are either widely across-the-board but very small (1% each from every county department), or larger but targeted to non-core services (10% across every branch of the tourist promotion department). Though I'll usually still oppose these cuts.

But if two days temporary furlough from a targeted list of federal government functions is creating the mess we see already, cuts of 10% to every federal agency "no exception" would be intolerable. The incidence of the cuts isn't exactly the same but they're close enough that the shutdown is instructive, a lesson in how not to run a great country. Which, a great country, we are.