Stay Strapped for the Shutdown - Welcome to the New Age

As I write this, the United States Congress has less than three hours to do its duty, as defined in the Constitution, and pass a continuing resolution to fund the government for a little while longer. The consensus opinion is that they will fail miserably and that at the stroke of midnight the government of the most powerful nation in the world will slow to a halt. Again. This curious phenomenon has not been observed since 1995, when it happened twice under President Clinton after he vetoed the budget the Republican-dominated Congress passed (Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House at the time).

This is not a particularly novel phenomenon; according to the Congressional Research Service the government has shutdown 17 times since 1977. Some lasted less than a day, and almost all lasted less than 3 days. The longest shutdown on record is also the most recent, lasting 21 days from December 16, 1995 to early January 6, 1996. There are, however, differences between the looming shutdown and the 1995 event. By the time the 1995 shutdown occurred, Congress had passed a baker's dozen of appropriation bills to allow for continued funding of certain activities. This time around they have only approved a military pay bill to allow payroll for the armed forces and certain Department of Defense personnel.

The effects of a shutdown have been described along a sliding scale ranging from a literally negligible effect to loss of livelihood, income and security, depending on who is doing the describing.
National parks, museums and other attractions will be closed down. Veterans will begin losing benefits fairly quickly, affecting over 3 and a half million veterans, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs. Nearly a million government workers who are deemed non-essential could be furloughed. Economists expect a short shutdown to have only a moderate negative effect on the economy, but a longer term event could have significant implications on economic growth, at a time when the real-world effects of the economic slowdown are still reverberating through vulnerable communities. 

More troubling still is the impending debt ceiling fight promised by Speaker Boehner. The United States has never defaulted on its debts, and the consequences would be global in impact. Raising the debt limit is necessary to provide funding to pay debts that the government has already incurred, and failing to do so would leave the government high and dry with respect to paying its bills.

Polls suggest that the public will lay more blame at the feet of the Republicans than the Democrats, but that hardly seems a fitting gauge for the measure of disappoint, disenchantment and disgust felt by so many Americans for the actions of their government. It seems that this iteration of the American government, in all its tripartite glory, seems hellbent on riding the republic directly into the abyss.  This Congress is completely dysfunctional and its shortcomings are so well documented in all forms of media as to need no mention here. The Executive Branch has seen fit to wage a quiet electronic war against the privacy rights of its own citizens of such scope and breadth that we are still uncovering the intimacies of its violations. The Supreme Court has become a partisan creature, and its Citizens United decision is an abomination and an affront to common sense notions of fairness and democracy.

The cyclical dance performed by the two dominant political parties in America presently amounts to little more than puppet theater, the candidates thin shadows cast on a wall, childish, false and devoid of substance. Neither party seems able to generate ideas powerful enough to muscle us out of the quagmire we find ourselves floundering in, and neither is independent of the will of the puppetmaster - the rich and affluent corporations and individuals who wield disproportionate influence in our society.

A third political party may be the only option for those citizens more interested in solving problems and seeking solutions than promoting ideology and catering to plutocrats. Third parties have not fared particularly well recently, but they can have an effect on the overall atmosphere of political discourse. The obstacles erected to prevent easy ballot access for third-party candidates are formidable and require strong political organization. We saw the the potential raw material for such a movement in the chaos of the Occupy movement that temporarily captivated the public space. The question now becomes  - Is there anyone that can harness that raw material, organize it intelligently and efficiently into an electoral missile and launch it into the heart of the two-headed corporate behemoth that sits astride the republic?

Until then, I humbly suggest everyone strap in and keep trays in an upright position. It looks like this is going to be a bumpy ride into the holiday season.