Thoughts on the Shutdown

Well, the government shutdown is over and the debt ceiling has been raised.  This was an unmitigated defeat for the Republicans.  What the Democrats got was Obamacare is being funded, and the expansion of Medicare is going to be a reality.  What the Republicans got was a drubbing in the court of public opinion.

The conventional wisdom is now that the party that shuts down the government, or does not agree to raise the debt ceiling, will end up the loser in the fight.  The Democrats will now use this to expand the scope and scale of the Federal government.  It will work like a ratchet: whenever possible, the Democrats will create a new entitlement.  Then, to be fiscally responsible, taxes will have to increase to pay for it.  If you don’t want to be fiscally responsible, that’s okay, because the Chinese will be happy to loan us the money to pay for the goodies.  What could go wrong with that?

Since we are going to go through this again in three months, the Republicans are going to have to change their game plan.  One possible change is that they just go along with whatever the Democrats suggest.

But I think they could learn from their defeat.  On a tactical level, here are the things I think the Republicans could do the next time around:

1)    Hook together raising the debt ceiling with defunding entitlements.  Fiscally responsible people don’t default when they don’t have to.  The Republicans thought that threatening default increased their leverage.  Instead, it worked the other way around.  Next time, make the Democrats reject the extension of the debt ceiling, and precipitate the real crisis.  Remove the entitlements, and the debt will take care of itself.

2)    Redefine the National Park Service as an essential government service, just like the military and the air traffic controllers.  The primary means of inconveniencing the public during the shutdown was the closure of the parks.  Keeping them open makes it really hard for media stories about how bad the shutdown is to gain traction.  What is they gave a shutdown, and nobody outside of DC noticed?  After all, it was really only a partial shutdown.

3)    Resist the urge to retroactively pay furloughed workers.  That way, you can shape the narrative into how much you are saving the taxpayers every day.  The message is “We saved over $1 billion today.  Did you miss anything you really needed?”  

The philosophical divide between the two parties is deep and profound.  The Democrats want to increase the size of government, and increase taxes to pay for it.  The Republicans want to shrink the government, and use the money saved to cut tax rates.  We are going to dance this dance again.