What Shutdown?

Well, how was your first day of the Government Shutdown?

Mine was very normal and actually productive. I left the house in the morning and bought my $4/gal gas without any problem and headed to a client’s office listening to the radio that was broadcasting and enjoying the drive on our highways. Later, I had lunch at a famous burger joint where they gladly accepted my hard earned money and offered me service in exchange. In the afternoon, I met with a friend and discussed a potential business deal. And later in the evening, I went out with a large group of car enthusiast, where we had a great dinner and enjoyed our mutual interest.

I did all of this without any problems and didn't notice the government shutdown at all. I guess if you are not relying on the government to support you, you may not see a lot of changes. Oh and on top of that, the stock market went up and so did my investments. I say the first day of the shutdown wasn't bad at all!

Please realize that this shutdown is partial and most of the government is still working. We all received our mail yesterday, went through airports with the help of TSA, Social Security and Medicare continued and the military got paid.

I watched the 10:00 o’clock news last night to hear more about the shutdown and was surprised that their headline news was about how a few highs school students couldn't visit Alcatraz Island due to the shutdown! Really?

All kidding aside, I tried to write my blog about another topic but this government shutdown overwhelmed all other subjects so I had to say something about it.

As I was reading the various news channels on the Internet, I came across an article on Yahoo News which caught my interest. Actually it wasn't the article itself but it was the number of comments made by the people, which was over 18,000 and were very interesting.

I decided to share some of these comments with you as I was surprised to see how people felt about this situation. I will add my commentary at the end.

There were so many good comments and I added a lot of them here. So you may have to skim through them to get the gist of it.

“Over and over we post comments of dissatisfaction and anger every time something like this happens. Yet, posting comments on the internet will not bring the types of real change needed to bring our government accountable to its people again. Until that happens don't expect our state of affairs to improve. We will simply meet here again and post our rhetoric as usual.”

“They can shut the government down permanently for all I care. People that actually take care of their own business won't notice the difference.”

“American people are going to have to do something they haven't done for a long time! Unite & work together to fix this broken government! We have to vote ALL incumbents out! Regardless what party you support, incumbents have to go! This is only way to show politicians that Americans are sick of their incompetent performance and we want our country back! Voting is only power we have and it only works with huge number of participants! Voting does not cost you anything, but it costs if you don’t! How much more proof do we need?”

“I woke up with the biggest smile on my face this morning, knowing that the government had shut down. I think it's just wonderful. Of course we have the press that makes it as if "the sky is falling" (just like it was with the Sequester). Sorry, no sky on the ground here.”

“We have had 18 shutdowns since 1976. Most people didn't even notice.”

“This is happening because we let it happen. We elect these people to run the country that serves the American people the best, not themselves and each other. We don't elect them to fight, we elect them to work together for our benefit, not theirs. We need to take a long hard look at who we are electing.”

“This needs to be repeated as often as is possible. The government has become so cancerously rotten and criminal to its core, that only a large scalpel cutting out the entire insides and replacing with clean replacement material will save it. Vote them out. Vote them ALL OUT.”

“Ironically Government officials are immune from this shut down.... No matter what happens, they will all continue to get paid... It's easy for a group of people with nothing to lose, to play Russian roulette with the lives of other individuals... We need a Government that has to live by the same standards it forces on its people.”

“The problem is with the American people. We keep electing these politicians who care more about their party lines than they do about the people. They are supposed to be public servants. What a joke. We hard working Americans are their servants. They're not working for us. We are working for them. We need to start voting on independent people who care about our country and the people. To hell with republicans and democrats. All they care about is their party and supporting one another.”

“First order of business needs to be regulating the number of terms by any single elected government official.”

“The men and women who were elected to run this country are tearing us apart - as a private citizen, I feel violated and angry about their seeming indifference to the damage they are doing - I have been active in campaigns since I was old enough to vote but it appears to have been a waste of time and effort, so here's one American who is through - there are tears in my eyes as I say this.”

“Term limits, term limits on the Congress. How do these people in Congress keep getting re-elected? There must be a lot of people who just don't care about our future and just vote one party or the other or these Congressman would be gone.”

“Luckily, shut down is one thing. Come Oct 15^th, when the government literally has no money, the government will default on their bills. Oct 15^th is the big one. If we don't get bills paid it might not matter if they want to raise the debt ceiling because nobody will give us a loan. That is when their fits hit the fan. Can't borrow and they have no money. The only good I can possibly see out of this is it would force them to live within their means.”

“They will still be reelected, People vote party over priority. Nothing will change until voters stop allowing big money to run the country.”

“Go ahead and stay shut-down for a bit and give us a chance to recover financially from all of your frivolous spending and stupidity. I do not see a downside to this shut-down and if there is I think the benefits far outweigh the cost!”

“You all point fingers at one party or the other, just like congress points its finger. Away with parties all together. They are at the root of the problem. No one cares for the people, only for their party and what it represents. America does not matter to them. Pay them minimum wage to serve and the ones who really want to do the job will apply for principle not a fat paycheck.”

These were certainly interesting comments. It appears most of them were not directed at either party and were aimed at how the Government and the Congress should operate.

People seem to be angry with the entire system. They seem to understand the issues and want major changes but feel helpless as how to make them.

Unfortunately, the media is not helping with providing the facts. Every media outlet, whether it’s on TV, in the newspaper or on the Internet, has a tendency to lean to the Right or to the Left. A lot of people pick one side and only get their information from their trusted media source and mostly get one side of the issues. For example, if someone routinely watches MSNBC they probably will never watch FOX News. This further puts us in separate silos and keep this division among us which ultimately shows its results in the people we elect to the Congress.

I don’t know when this shutdown will end and how it will end. But I think we can all conclude that at the end we the people will suffer and not our congress people.

What do you think?