Article from FLN Staff.

In the wake of Democrats’ government shutdown turned three-day weekend, John Stossel took the opportunity to remind us just how much of government is non-essential, more so than the government even admits. Stossel compiled the following list of all the things that keep working as “essential” during a government shutdown: “Law enforcement; Border Patrol; TSA; Air traffic controllers; CDC; Amtrak; Power grid maintenance; Social Security checks; Medicare checks; Medicaid; Food stamps; Veterans hospitals; The U.S. Post Office; U.S. Treasury debt auctions; Federal courts and the EPA.”

Stossel continued, “And don’t forget there are still 50 state governments, plus thousands of local governments. We’re buried in governments.”  With all that government, even the “shutdown” version of government is far more than the Founders envisioned, or further than is legitimate under the Constitution.

For D.C., the risk of a shutdown isn’t that people would die in the streets without government services; it’s that they will realize how little they needed them in the first place. As Stossel wrote, the real threat to America is when the government reopened:

“Even though America is $20 trillion in debt, people still expect our government to be all things to all people.” He concluded: “The real disaster is paying $4 trillion a year to keep it running and getting such poor service in return.”