Government Shutdown Started . Do Not Panic. Just Calm Down

 

🏛️ Government Shutdowns: Disruption, Not Disaster

In the rhythm of American politics, government shutdowns have become a recurring headline—often dramatic, sometimes prolonged, but rarely catastrophic. While they disrupt daily operations and stir public anxiety, shutdowns are not the end-all be-all. They are unsustainable as a governing tactic, and contrary to popular fear, financial markets tend to weather them just fine.

🚪 Shutdowns Are Unsustainable

A government shutdown occurs when Congress fails to pass funding legislation, leading to a pause in non-essential federal services. Workers are furloughed, agencies go dark, and public trust erodes. But this tactic—often used to force political concessions—is inherently flawed. It punishes civil servants, delays critical data, and costs billions in lost productivity. The 2018–2019 shutdown, for example, cost the U.S. economy an estimated $11 billion, with $3 billion permanently lost. That’s not leverage—it’s leakage.

Shutdowns also fail to resolve the deeper issues they’re meant to address. They’re a symptom of gridlock, not a cure. And while they may grab headlines, they rarely produce lasting policy change. Instead, they leave behind a trail of delayed paychecks, stalled projects, and public frustration.

📈 Markets Are Resilient

Despite the noise, financial markets tend to take shutdowns in stride. Investors understand that these disruptions are temporary and largely political. During the 2018–2019 shutdown—the longest in U.S. history—the S&P 500 actually rose. Even in earlier episodes, like the 1995–96 and 2013 shutdowns, markets dipped briefly before rebounding.

Why? Because markets are driven by fundamentals: corporate earnings, interest rates, global trends. A shutdown may delay economic data or shake investor confidence for a moment, but it doesn’t rewrite the rules of capitalism. In fact, some investors use shutdowns as buying opportunities, knowing that volatility often precedes recovery.

🧭 A Call for Stability

Shutdowns may not crash the economy, but they do erode the foundation of good governance. They’re unsustainable, inefficient, and ultimately self-defeating. America deserves better than budgetary brinkmanship. We need leaders who prioritize long-term solutions over short-term standoffs.

And for those watching the markets with worry—take heart. History shows that while shutdowns rattle the windows, they rarely shake the house. The economy is resilient. The markets are patient. And the American people, time and again, prove that unity outlasts division.

RINO…And Proud of It?

Apparently I’m a RINO. And, not just a normal RINO… a “big-spending” one at that!

You see, I don’t care about a repeal of the medical device tax…at this time.

And, I don’t care if the individual mandate is put off for a year, or not.

Although, I do wonder “why not” in light of those organizations already receiving a delay, and/or waiver, from the effects of “Obama-Care.”

No…I want “Obama-Care” repealed in its entirety.

If that make me a RINO, I gladly assume the title. Just so long as we come up with another title for John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and the likes!

You see, I’m a realist. And, I realize the only way to repeal “Obama-Care” is with votes…votes the GOP simply doesn't have at this time!

With that in mind, why risk political repercussions in the 2014 election cycle, with a potential government shutdown today?

“But, Mr. Rooster…certainly the Democrats will take the blame for that”

And, I've got a bridge in New York to sell you…

Democrats control the Senate and the Executive Branch…we’re outgunned on this one!

Even Ted Cruz, God bless his heart, would admit so.

While I respect Ted’s position (and select others), let’s look at the current budget negotiation from its eventual end result…

Read More At Conservative Outcry

To Fund, Or Not To Fund…That Is The Question.

Better stated, is the battle over “Obama-Care” (now) a fight the GOP can win?

Ted Cruz believes so, as do other “Tea Party Anarchists” (as they’re now called). But, they are wrong.

Boehner’s stance today will morph into a compromise with Democrats towards a last minute deal, and GOP “RINO’s” will team with their peers on the left to pass a budget…err…continuing resolution funding the government through December.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a fan of the “Affordable Care Act” and have already experienced its wrath:

I was promised lower premiums, yet mine have already increased by more than $100 a month, with an additional increase expected in 2014.

I was promised I could continue the long term relationship I enjoy with my preferred Doctors. Yet, many of them have chosen retirement than to comply with the new regulations.

I will not qualify for a subsidy to off-set the increased premiums, because I am considered “rich” under the legislation.

I am one of the “Tea Party Anarchists” Harry Reid refers to, and want “Obama-Care” to disappear!

But, I’m also a realist...

Read More At Conservative Outcry

OBAMA'S 2013 BUDGET IS AMERICA'S GREEK TRAGEDY

If we recall those cheesy Greek columns that were the backdrop for the DNC convention at Denver’s Invesco Field stadium in August 2008 we may have initially thought those pillars to simply represent the DNC's pitiful hero worship of some mysterious, unknown, small time Chicago politico named Barack Hussein Obama as their party’s candidate for President of the United States. Little did anyone realize that this garish Greek metaphor was a foreshadowing of the grand plan for the progressive/socialist’s “Apollo” to deliberately destroy America’s economic hegemony and replace it to resemble Greece’s financial decay.

President Obama’s Greek recipe for America’s financial demise is undeniably laden with poisonous ingredients (deficit spending, mounting debt, and class warfare tax threats), but at least the manner in which he “stirs the sauce” has one saving grace; it’s predictable. During his tenure as President his 2010, 2011 and 2012 fiscal year budgets had a consistent theme to dismantle America’s economic fabric. Those three budgets were systematic plans to spend in excess of revenues and balloon America’s national debt instead of fostering economic growth.

Now, in the face of a national debt crisis wherein the national debt exceeds GDP and a downgrading of America’s global credit rating, President Obama continues that theme with his 2013 fiscal year budget. In baseball vernacular he’s four-for-four. To support this notion The Wall Street Journal deftly summarized President Obama’s annual budget proposals from 2010-2013 that illustrate his uncanny resolve year in and year out to bankrupt America:

• Four years of spending of more than 24% of GDP, the four highest spending years since 1946. In the current fiscal year of 2012, despite talk of austerity, Mr. Obama predicts spending will increase by $193 billion to $3.8 trillion, or 24.3% of GDP.
• Another deficit of $1.327 trillion in 2012, also an increase from 2011, and making four years in a row with deficits above $1.29 trillion.
• Revenues are at historic lows because of the mediocre recovery. The White House budget office estimates that for the fourth year in a row tax revenues won't reach 16% of GDP. The last time they were below 16% for any year was 1950.

Also according to the WSJ all of the above has added an astonishing $5 trillion in debt  during President Obama’s first presidential term. National debt held by the public will approximate 74.2% in 2012 and keep rising to 77.4% next year (see below chart 1). Economists believe that when debt to GDP reaches 90% the economic damage begins to risk--think Greece.

Chart1: The public portion of the national debt is now approaching 80% of GDP. Economists believe that when public debt-to-GDP ratios reach 90% the economic damage begins to rise.

Holistically the Obama 2013 budget is fundamentally just a cut and paste from his previous three spending spree budgets freshened up with some new and improved class warfare tax hikes and updated with his perennial smoke and mirror accounting and spending gimmicks. A topside review of President Obama’s latest schematic for bankrupting America comes courtesy of the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, with the committee’s overarching comment that “President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget increases spending every year, proposes the largest tax increase in history, burdens the country with more debt, and never balances the budget”. The following are the RPC’s highlights:

Spending, Spending and more Spending

• President Obama’s 2013 budget spends $3.8 trillion, runs a deficit of nearly $1 trillion.
• The 2013 budget includes total ten year spending of $47 trillion, $11 trillion of it borrowed.
• Proposed fiscal year 2013 spending is 23.3% of GDP. In FY 2022, well after the White House says the economy should have recovered, spending is 22.8% of GDP, far higher than the country’s 40-year average of 20.6% of GDP.

Deficits, Deficits and more Deficits

• President Obama’s budget can barely bring the deficit below $1 trillion; the fiscal year 2013 budget deficit is projected to be $901 billion.
• At the end of President Obama’s 10-year budget window in FY 2022, there is still a deficit of $704 billion.

Debt, Debt and more Debt

• President Obama’s budget calls for $11.2 trillion in additional gross debt from fiscal year 2012 to fiscal year 2022.
• Under the President’s budget Gross National Debt will total $26 trillion in fiscal year 2022 under this budget, and annual interest costs on the debt will be $850 billion.

Class Warfare Taxes, Taxes and more Taxes

• The Obama budget raises taxes by nearly $1.9 trillion from 2013 to 2022, the largest tax increase in U.S. history.
• President Obama raises taxes on people making more than $200,000 or couples making over $250,000. The two new tax brackets for those making over these amounts would be 36% and 39.6%.
• The President’s budget reinstates the limitation on itemized deductions for high-income earners; provisions could add 2% or more to a taxpayer’s rate.
• Limits the value of itemized deductions for high earners to 28%.
• For upper-income taxpayers, capital gains would be taxed at 20%. The current rate is 15%.
• The estate tax would be reinstated at 2009 levels.
• President Obama calls for his favorite class warfare tax known as the "Buffett Rule", but does not include an actual proposal for how to implement it.

Additionally any of the President’s future deficit reductions are basically accounting shell games. They are Budget Control Act cuts already in place and $848 billion in discredited phantom “savings” from the wind-down of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, in a word, President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget has no actual deficit reduction measures.

When it comes to managing the greatest threat to America’s economic system, and the cause for Greece’s economic downfall, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security entitlements, President Obama has again kicked the can down the road. According to the Heritage Foundation “by the middle of this century, these three programs and ObamaCare will consume about 18 percent of GDP, soaking up all the historical average of federal tax revenue”.

Critics of the Obama budget are not limited to the RPC or conservative think tanks. Dana Milbank, hardly a card-carrying conservative, reviewed the President’s 2013 fiscal year budget and made the following rebuke,

“The White House’s budget for fiscal 2013 begins with a broken promise, adds some phony policy assumptions, throws in a few rosy forecasts and omits all kinds of painful decisions. Even then, the proposal would add $1 trillion more to the national debt than Obama contemplated a few months ago — and it is a non-starter on Capitol Hill, where even Senate Democrats have no plans to take it up.”

Another Obama budget, another blueprint for bankrupting America and another display of cowardice and inability on the part of President Obama to display any semblance of leadership to present a serious plan for reinstating America’s solvency. Predictable? Yes. As will be the American version of a Greek tragedy unless true leadership is installed in America’s Oval office.