I was there in 1995 when the government closed
because of a budget stalemate. I had to tell most of the Labor
Department's 15,600 employees to go home and not return the next day. I
also had to tell them I didn't know when they'd next get a paycheck.
There were two shutdowns, actually, rolling across the government in close succession, like thunder storms.
It's not the way to do the public's business.
Newt Gingrich got blamed largely because his ego was (and is) so big
he couldn't stop blabbing that Clinton should be blamed. (Gingrich's
complaint of a bad seat on Air Force One didn't help.)
But the larger loss was to the dignity and credibility of the United
States government. When average Americans saw the Speaker of the House
and the President of the United States behaving like nursery school
children unable to get along, it only added to the prevailing cynicism.
Cynicism about government works to the Republicans' continued advantage.
Case in point. House Budget Chair Paul Ryan unveiled a plan today
that should make every American cringe. It would turn Medicare into
vouchers whose benefits are funneled into the pockets of private
insurers. It would make Medicaid and Food Stamps into block grants that
allow states to ignore poor people altogether. It would drastically cut
funding for schools, roads, and much else Americans need. And many of
the plan's savings would go to wealthy Americans who'd pay even lower
taxes than they do today.
Ryan's plan has no chance of passage -- as long as Democrats are still
in control of the Senate (even Democratic deficit hawks like Kent
Conrad and Ben Nelson are appalled by it) and the White House.
But this so-called "blueprint" could be a blueprint for America's future when and if right-wing Republicans take charge.
Which is where the cynicism comes in -- and the shutdowns. Republicans
may get blamed now. But if the shutdowns contribute to the belief among
Americans that government doesn't work, Republicans win over the long
term. As with the rise of the Tea Partiers, the initiative shifts to
those who essentially want to close it down for good.
That's why it's so important that the President have something more
to say to the American people than "I want to cut spending, too, but the
Republican cuts go too far." The "going too far" argument is no match
for a worldview that says government is the central problem to begin
with.
Obama must show America that the basic choice is between two
fundamental views of this nation. Either we're all in this together, or
we're a bunch of individuals who happen to live within these borders and
are mainly on their own.
This has been the basic choice all along -- when the Founding Fathers
wrote the Constitution, in the Civil War, when we went through World War
I and World War II and the Great Depression in between, during the
Civil Rights movement and beyond.
The President needs to remind us that as members of the same society
we have obligations to one another -- that the wealthiest among us must
pay their fair share of taxes, that any of us who loses our jobs or
homes or gets terribly sick can count on the rest of us, and that we
have collective obligations to our elderly, our children, and the rest
of the planet.
This is why we have government. And anyone who wants to shut it down
or cut it down because they say we can't afford it any longer is plain
wrong. We are the richest nation in the world, richer than we've ever
been. We can afford to remain a society whose members are in it
together.