Current Events: The Threat of Federal Government Shutdowns Wastes our Tax Dollars. #WasteFraudandAbuse

Paradoxically, many of the pictures I found for a federal government shutdown show the Capitol with a closed sign.  Congress gets paid during a shutdown.

Threats of shutdowns … and, of course, shutdowns themselves … are a tremendous waste of tax dollars … yours and mine.  To say nothing of the stress and hardship for federal government and federal contractor employees … and Americans who rely on services provided by the federal government. 

Are the benefits from whatever political agenda gets advanced from the threat of a shutdown bigger than the cost of a shutdown?    Beats me but I’d love to see the business case.

Here’s how it goes. 

Before the shutdown: 

Of course, it would be management malpractice to not prepare.  Countless hours are spent preparing for the threat of a shutdown.  Hours that could have gone into mission (like national security intelligence) and providing services to taxpayers.  Those productive hours are lost and gone forever.  Think opportunity cost.  If you don’t like to see your tax dollars wasted, this is why even the threat of a shutdown is costly bad news.

During the shut-down: 

“Essential” employees work but don’t get paid.  Most come to work; some don’t.  “Non-essential” employees are furloughed.  They don’t work and they don’t get paid.  Whatever those non-essential people were doing doesn’t get done; it’s just lost time.  After the shut-down, everybody gets paid as if they had worked during the shutdown.  Taxpayers pay for exactly nothing.

My Take & Advice:

This waste of time is over and above the toll on employees … and taxpayers.  Suppose you are a federal government or federal contractor employee single parent and living paycheck to paycheck … and the checks just stop coming. Based on what happened in 2013, suppose you want a Social Security Card, want the EPA to inspect your drinking water, or want the NIH to admit your child as a new patient.  As they say, get in line to get your “tough shit card” punched.

What can we do?  Write, email, or call your elected representatives in Congress and tell them to stop the foolishness.  Don’t vote for your elected representative if they are pro shutdown.

Notes from credible sources:

From the Congressional Budget Office:  “… The federal government employs about 2¼ million military personnel (of whom about 1 million are reservists) and about 2¼ million civilian personnel (of whom nearly 60 percent work for the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security …”  As best I can tell, somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million federal employees have, during past shutdowns, been furloughed.  It’s a big number.

From Goldman Sachs:  “… If lawmakers are unable to pass a new budget by then, large swaths of government functions would shut down, an event strategist at Goldman Sachs estimate would reduce U.S. economic growth by 0.2% for each week it lasted …”  Wow, that’s not good for the whole damned economy.

From Joint Economic Committee Democrats:  “… Estimates show that the 2013 shutdown reduced GDP growth by $20 billion, and the cost of lost work-hours totaled at least $2 billion. Economists estimate that a shutdown would cost the U.S. economy between $6 billion and $13.5 billion dollars each week in total lost economic activity …”