Bad Management

      Congress has ground to a halt, as predicted.  Democrats blame Republicans; Republicans blame Democrats.  It's a dance we've seen before.

     Both sides admit they're far apart.  The GOP wanted a basic, nothing-changes continuing resolution to keep the wheels turning for a couple of months.  Dems, aware the funding was about out for some key health-care subsidies -- money that helps pay for insurance for lower-income Americans -- wanted concessions.  

     Either side could break the jam by giving the other guys what they want.  Both sides could break it by finding some middle ground that everyone would loathe.  Neither side could work out a compromise and so here we are.

     The shutdown comes with something we haven't seen before: the Executive Branch has decided to violate the Hatch Act.  Go the the website for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and (as I write this) you'll be greeted by both a banner and a pop-up reading, "The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need."  The second sentence is just their job.  The first sentence is inaccurate at best; see previous paragraph.*  It takes sixty votes to get a budget bill through the U. S. Senate.  The Republicans haven't got that many Senators and any Senator with five friends could add up the results† and see they were going to have to work something out.

     Nor do the violations stop there.  Set up to prevent abuses under the New Deal, the Hatch Act essentially prohibits any member of the Executive Branch except the President and Vice President from engaging in partisan politics.  Something like, say, sending official messages to everyone working for Federal agencies explicitly blaming Democrats for the shutdown would, in fact, be in violation of it.  So you'll never, ever guess what happened.  Not only illegal but, as explained above, untrue.

     As things stand, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid payments are unaffected.  The mail will still be delivered, the military remain at their posts, air traffic controllers and TSA agents are still at work -- and ICE and the the Border Patrol under DHS will keep on doing their thing.  The latter appears to be the Administration's top priority, so what do they care if the lights are off everywhere else?  The Executive Branch is threatening to use the shutdown as an excuse for further permanent reductions in the Federal workforce, a threat that would probably be more effective if it wasn't what they were already doing anyway.

     In the meantime, if you wanted to ask the FCC or the Social Security Administration (etc.) a question?  Tough luck, kid.  Planned vacation to a National Park?  Better research nearby State Parks.  Many are quite nice, though lacking the Grand Canyon, Old Faithful and so on.  And isn't there a hurricane or two headed for the Southeast?  Oops.
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* This appears to be telling us all Democratic Senators except for Catherine Cortez Masto and John Fetterman, along with independent Angus King, are members of "the Radical Left," as is Republican Rand Paul.  It will come as a surprise to many of them, especially Senator Paul.
 
† I am not going to explain this.