Opinion meister John Stossel’s recent piece on Fox News finally let the cat out of the bag. The partial government shutdown ain’t about the wall afterall, it’s about too much government and the need to rid ourselves of non-essential public pimps (ok, my words – not Stossel’s – for those who live off the public teet). Anyways, here is a link to Stossel’s revelations in case you missed them, and, yes, it further conveys the notion that the shutdown really ain’t causing any crises. https://youtu.be/rdVuKNA3naM
As someone with libertarian leanings, I find Stossel’s assertions to be, at best, short sighted. I’m all for shrinking government and government spending, reducing taxes, reducing our national debt, and improving our immigration system and border security, but the shutdown strategy just seems stupid to me.
It always irks me when someone uses their anecdotal experiences under the guise of investigative journalism to espouse their ideology, versus investing the time to sit and talk with those directly affected by the shutdown which, of course, Stossel has not done.
I do give Stossel credit though for clearly illustrating that this shutdown is not really about the wall at all, it’s about getting rid of government employees without any thought as to who we should get rid of, how much it hurts some, and what impacts it will have, because we don’t need em, right? Kind of a scorched earth drain the swamp approach masked behind a battle over immigration and the wall.
Oh, and the fact that our congress and our prez signed an agreement that will pay backpay to furloughed federal employees, eventually, makes me again wonder, wait, what is the point of the shutdown? We actually won’t be saving $s once this idiocy ends? Oh, but it’s the liberal dems fault.
For chrissake, stop it. The prez is the ONLY person who can end the shutdown now. Period.
Soooo … why not get employees back to work to earn their pay instead of having them sitting around? Cause they gonna get paid anyway (and yes, I understand many are working without pay but let’s not go there cause that ain’t gonna last). Help me understand, please … Anyone’s else’s head spinning out of control yet?
Lastly, since Stossel scoffs, from afar, at the notion of “crises” tied to the shutdown, I feel obliged to share one more bit of what is obviously fake news, a brief report from NPR this morning, on the impacts of the shutdown on Paradise CA and larger wildfire planning and prevention efforts in California, which depend so heavily on federal aid. https://www.npr.org/2019/01/17/685880550/shutdown-threatens-to-stall-recovery-in-wildfire-ravaged-paradise-calif
Oh well, just another one of those made up crises that Stossel claims doesn’t exist and that the private sector could step in and more efficiently and safely address, right? Well, as the NPR spot tells us, there are already private public partnerships in Paradise and Butte County that want to continue really important public safety work, but they are stopped dead in their tracks … cause of the shutdown.
So, I still don’t get the point of the shutdown, though thanks to Stossel’s insights, I think I better understand the real motivation behind it. Of course, I could be wrong.
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