Reminiscence

I had forgotten until a few minutes ago, but I was a federal employee at the time of the previous government shutdown(s) in 1995 and 1996. But I was considered "essential" (arbitrarily, you may argue), so it was a non-event for me. The current shutdown may be a non-non-event for some of you, though, and if that describes you, I hope you get through this with minimal pain.

I am almost certainly more rabidly in favor of cuts in non-defense spending than you are, and I support drastically deeper cuts than I have heard even any elected Republican propose. Nonetheless, I don't approve of this mess: the game of "chicken" is no way to run a legislature. And it's even less appropriate when the bits being fought over are chump change that are opposed for the wrong reasons.