The fear of a government shutdown has a weird effect on people. Case in point: The Washington Post’s Philip Bump asks “What would happen if the government shut down and never reopened?” In theory that’s an interesting question, but it becomes decidedly less interesting if you willfully ignore a number of facts about the situation. There’s no question, for instance, that the large portions of the budget that go under mandatory spending would keep functioning – something Bump only acknowledges in passing — and that large discretionary parts of the federal government are also now designed to keep functioning during a “shutdown.”

But the question is worth considering, if considered fairly. Unfortunately, Bump’s approach prompts little more than the rolling of eyeballs.

The first problem: Bump attempts to determine a plausible outcome from a completely implausible premise. If the federal government is going to cease operations, it will come about in one of two ways: an intentional, orderly deconstruction (which I assume would be preceded by radical shifts in our political order) or an unintentional, disorderly collapse. Instead, Bump proposes a hypothetical in which the government stops getting appropriated funds and policymakers never agree on a new funding measure — not in any way a likely scenario. Relying on the opinion of two political scientists (both of whom hold the view that less government spending is a bad thing), Bump then attempts to figure out the order in which federal activities would get chopped under this scenario. And that’s where “bad things” start to happen.

For instance, Princeton University political historian Julian Zelizer says that programs with the weakest political support would naturally be the first to get cut:

So what goes first? “Programs for vulnerable people. The food stamp program. Child care. Infant care. These are important programs but they are vulnerable because their constituencies are not constituents with a whole lot of political power,” Zelizer said.

Food stamps simply wouldn’t go first since they’re mandatory spending, which is probably why a political scientist shouldn’t be your first source on this question. Leaving that aside, the statement makes sense in theory, but the reality is that federal programs for the “vulnerable” and food stamps in particular have been expanded to include a lot of people who would hardly starve on the street in the absence of Uncle Sam’s caring hand. The result is that just like with entitlement programs, there’s a huge number of people now collecting benefits and it’s proven extremely difficult to roll back the safety net in any way, even to restrain fraud and abuse.

Then there’s this:

Next in line, regulatory agencies. Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) or the EPA or financial regulators would likely see their budgets slashed. There are political benefactors for these things, but compared to other budget priorities, it’s easy to see why they’d be cut quickly.

Would that be such a bad thing? Granted, an orderly dismantlement of the most egregious parts of the regulatory state would be better, but it’s no reason to ignore that much of what these agencies do is destructive and never subjected to proper oversight. Bump then goes on to talk about the tragedy of cutting funding for the arts and scientific research – often just welfare for corporations, large nonprofits, and flush universities. Where would art come from if the federal government didn’t fund it?! Needless to say, the same is true for museums and parks.

Again, notice how there’s no conversation about the ways we could all benefit if there was less government spending, less debt, and less transfer of wealth from younger Americans to older ones. The article is premised on the idea that reducing government spending has only negative effects — maybe a conventional view, but no less lazy and inaccurate for it.

But the article doesn’t stop there. Next Zelizer tells Bump, “It would affect the housing market, as loans from the federal government stop.” Well, it would certainly annoy the housing and realtor lobbies, who rely on federal mortgage guarantees to inflate housing prices and home ownership levels. But the fact that the recent housing market collapse that was fueled in part by federal manipulation of the housing market . . . yeah, never mind that, less government support for home loans would be an unmitigated tragedy. (A view, by the way, not even held by many liberals now.)

But there’s more. Next Zelizer says that federal subsidies to state and local government would “dry up.” Wait, so state and local politicians would actually have to ask their voters to pay more in state and local taxes in order to pay for government services that only they “benefit” from? I like it actually.

That reminds me that you should read the new book by William F. Buckley’s brother, James L. Buckley, on this issue, Saving Congress From Itself. Chris Edwards at Cato had a good piece about the book:

James L. Buckley’s new book, Saving Congress from Itself, examines federal aid-to-state programs. The federal government spends more than $600 billion a year on 1,100 such programs for education, welfare, and many other state and local activities.
The whole system is a damaging mess, and Buckley proposes in his book that Congress “eliminate all federal grants-in-aid to state and local governments.” That action would “have a profound effect on how we govern ourselves.” A profoundly positive effect, that is, which is a bold claim, but I’ve come to the same conclusion in my writings on the aid system (here, here, and here). …
He notes, for example: “Congress’s current dysfunction is rooted in its assumption, over the years, of more responsibilities than it can handle. As a result, its members now live a treadmill existence that no longer allows them time to study, learn, and think things through. Instead, they substitute political reflex for thought.

Edwards adds in another post:

Why is reviving federalism a politically appealing reform? Because the public has a much more favorable view of state/local governments than the federal government. Samples and Ekins find that 58 percent of people have a favorable view of local government, compared to just 32 percent for the federal government. Asked which level of government provides the most value for their tax dollars, 33 percent said the federal government and 67 percent said state/local governments. Asked whether government provides “competent service,” 31 percent agreed with regard to the federal government and 48 percent agreed with regard to local governments. On average, Americans believe that the federal government wastes 60 cents out of every dollar it spends.

In other words, it would be a good thing to get rid of federal aid to states, shutdown or not.

But it’s at the very end where the piece really gets good. Bump asks Jack Rakove, a professor of American studies at Stanford University, who delivers the most unintentionally hilarious comment in the article:

Asked what that would look like, [Rakove] was blunt. The federal government would “not look like anything” if a permanent shutdown kicked in, Rakove said. Instead: “You can imagine a radical devolution of authority to the states.”
That would not necessarily be the paradise that strong states-rights advocates might imagine. “We remain a nation where lots of aspects of government remain truly national,” Rakove said. “It would be hard for Idaho to build a new effective, four-lane superhighway system from Coeur D’Alene to Pocatello.”

I don’t even know where to start with this. Most transportation projects could and should be funded by the private sector, the state and local governments or by private-public partnership at the state levels; the experts who argue otherwise are basically just arguing for more, ill-directed spending that only federal appropriators want. Second, considering the incredible amounts of cost overrun and waste that take place with these projects, the way the infrastructure decisions are made, and the existence of private alternatives, it’s hard to imagine this is really the example of where we simply can’t live without the beneficence of the federal government.

It’s an interesting question what would happen if we got rid of large portions of the federal government. Unfortunately, that’s not actually what a government shutdown would do, and Bump’s article takes a wholly one-sided view of such effects.