I'm forgetting we ever had a government: Isn't it wild how the government shutdown keeps going on and on and yet it's barely driving the news?
To be fair, "government shutdown" was always a stupid misnomer: The many so-called "essential" services that remain up and running—and the fact that backpay is typically paid out to furloughed workers—make it so shutdowns don't do so much to either save taxpayers money or to permanently slash the size of government. They do, however, simulate what life would be like without certain programs and departments, and one takeaway from this one is that lots of government functions can and should be put on the chopping block.
