H/T to Jean who reminded me that there was indeed a government shut down in 2013. A pretty serious one. Apparently, I was actually alive then and blogging about it.
I do remember a state government shutdown years ago when I was working at the University of California. Easier to remember when you've been directly affected in your paycheck.
This was a wonderful article by Glenn Ford at the time:
[F]or the sake of the almighty dollar (blessed be its name) – and because the shutdown has already achieved its purposes – the GOP will call a halt to its action before any money-changers get hurt. The Republicans will have shown their willingness to fight The Obama. Obama will appear to be defending the people from The Republicans. And then they will both slash away at social spending, as was the intention, all along.
[...]
The clock has been stuck with both hands on “austerity” since Obama came fully out of the closet as a GOP fellow-traveler following the 2010 midterm elections. From that moment on, Republican-imposed gridlock has been the only barrier to Obama’s long-sought Grand Bargain to eviscerate entitlement programs. When the current theatrics are over, Obamacare will remain intact and the president will be back on his ever-rightward stride. The GOP will take Obama up on his offer, earlier this year, to cut Social Security and will probably be offered other bits and pieces of the social safety net in the interest of “shared sacrifice” and domestic peace.
In the interim, while the re-enactors haul their cannons around the cow pasture, waiting for the rich people who call themselves “markets” to signal an end to the charade, rest assured that national security is sacrosanct.
Glen Ford – Black Agenda Report
Obviously, I wasn't working for the government back then. I was, in fact, in the middle of a move from Galveston, Texas, to mid-Missouri. THAT I can remember.
Hopefully, if there's a shutdown coming again, I'll be as unaffected by it as that one (by luck, and by no means because I have stashed away any wealth), but a very large portion of the country can't take any more stress. The GOP is working quite quickly at destroying the government, which some of us recognize as our country.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE:
I've been sleepwalking through life.
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