America’s Closed! Come Back Later
So apparently the USA has closed. And no one noticed.
Ok, ok, that’s not true. Personally I laughed until my sides split.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that America as a nation annoys me immensely, so there’s a fair bit of pettiness and schadenfreude going into my enjoyment of this. However that doesn’t blind me to the fact that this is not a good thing; over 700,000 US government employees are on unpaid leave and national monuments and parks that should be open to the public permanently are closed. More relevantly (to me) this isn’t going to make a dent in the American Exceptionalism-Nationalist Arrogance that so irritates me.
As far as I can tell this shutdown has been caused by the Republican controlled House of Representatives being unwilling to pass a bill that allows the US government to spend money (apparently because they don’t like the Affordable Care Act but that’s a discussion for another time). I’ll repeat that in case you, like me, grew up in a civilised country without all this insanity; the executive administration of the United States of America has to go begging to its legislature for permission to spend money to enforce the laws passed by that self-same legislature. I’ve heard of checks and balances but this is ridiculous. No one branch of government should be able to hold the entire state to ransom like this.
I know why it’s been set up like this, but the American Constitution is over two hundred years old and was written to govern a nation which, in large part, doesn’t exist anymore. The loosely confederated union of independent nation states, for better or for worse, is dead. In those days the central government would need to be limited, but the federal government has overcome those limitations, the USA is a centralised nation and its government needs the authority to act like it.
The Soviet Union could at least control its constituent republics (disclaimer: the preceding sentence was in no sense meant seriously).
This was an incredibly stupid thing for the Republicans to do; the recession is not over, the global economy is still fragile. Let me enumerate the ways this is idiotic:
- Removes confidence in the US Congress – I’ll grant you there wasn’t much to begin with but displaying publicly how fragile you are is not smart if you want to survive.
- Creates anger with the US Congress – not only are people not confident that you can do your job, but they will be resentful with you creating this problem entirely through your own action. Especially since you Congressmen (and it is mainly men; old, white, wealthy, Christian, heterosexual men) still get paid whilst denying pay to others.
- Deals an easily avoidable blow to your (still-recovering) economy – over 700,000 people on unpaid leave; not only are you not reaping the benefit of their work, but they can’t purchase anything either.
- Causes human suffering and upheaval – bills still need to be paid, food needs to be bought, families need to be supported. And they have no way of knowing how long you’ll spin this out.
- Holds US debt to ransom – the American debt ceiling (another symptom of a badly constructed government) is fast approaching, maybe as early as October 17th, and using that as a political bargaining tool has not become a better idea since the last time you did it. The US defaulting on its debt would deal another easily avoidable blow to confidence in American government and global faith in the dollar. It cannot be overestimated how bad that would be (well obviously it can; I doubt it would cause nuclear war, but it is still something to be avoided).
- Creates resentment against the Republican Party – this isn’t just Republicans putting party before country; this is Republicans putting pride (or sheer obstinacy) before reason. There is no way you can slice this where it isn’t the Republican’s fault; this is not a problem they didn’t solve, this is a problem they created. At best they are well intentioned extremists, at worst they are playing political games with people’s lives and the American (and global) economy. I don’t know how popular the Republican Party was before this shutdown, but I’d be prepared to bet that popularity took a nosedive.
What I’m about to say may sound callous, because it is, but I hope this continues.
Obviously I don’t want any serious damage done; to people or the economy. But if this problem is solved to quickly, or with too little pain, it risks being swept away. There are important structural problems here; this kind of institutional collapse should not be possible! Asking America for governmental reform is like asking Uganda for equal rights for LGBTQA people, but this needs to be fixed.
Hopefully this will result in a serious look at the mechanics of the government of the USA and a diminution, or at least moderation, of the Republican Party. There is the potential for progress to emerge from this mess.
I won’t hold my breath.
The Theodosian Connection 