Dear Santa, All I Want For Christmas Is a Government Shutdown

Recently, I sent out a number of distributions from various trusts. As trustee, I have discretion to do such things. I wanted to get the checks out before Christmas. This exercise gave me an inkling of how politicians must feel handing out other people’s money. Even though I’m much more of a Mr. Potter than a George Bailey, I still for a brief moment felt as though I was a generous soul. It’s not my money. I didn’t earn it, but during those few seconds, I felt I was being a warm and generous benefactor to all humanity. It is easy to understand how politicians get dopamine hits from giving away other people’s money. The difference of course is I’m a fiduciary, and must strictly adhere to fiduciary rules, most importantly to preserve wealth and not to waste money.

Yet isn’t Congress also a fiduciary of other people’s money? What has burned my biscuits all my life is the perspective of politicians to regard government and the piles of money it extracts from the private sector as their personal fiefdom. It is at total odds with the values of the independent, self-sufficient commercial class. Convention in this world tells us the customer is always right. One owes a fiduciary duty to a client. Loyalty to the guy who pays you is paramount, and of course “taking” from someone, just because you can is morally repugnant.

Small things matter. One day in law school, I went to the local university run eatery. I knew the undergraduate gal running the cash register, and she tried to give me my food for free. I’m sure she thought I was a prude, and I kind of made a scene as I was offended that she thought I would be ok with stealing from the university. Sure, the university had billions in its endowment, but she had no right to give its food away. This might seem a small matter. I mention it not to extol my virtuous character, but to state virtually everyone in my world would have acted in the same manner that I did. But Washington is a different world. Its rules are the exact opposite as ours.

Is it a good steward of the money it receives from the taxpayers? Not only is the answer no, there isn’t another entity or institution in the United States that is run so poorly, so fecklessly, so negligently, so fraudulently or so mismanaged as the federal government. It’s not hyperbole in any fashion to say that if you Dear Reader ran your business or carried out functions working for your employer in the same manner as the federal government, you would be in jail. This week there are stories about the federal government spending over $500 billion with no legal authorization. The Biden Administration is selling off construction materials for the southern border wall at giveaway prices. In the private sector, spending other people’s money without consent lands you in jail. Willfully and wantonly harming your employer is an intentional criminal act.

I’ve written before on the absolute absurdity of the continuing resolution process and the need to deconstruct the administrative state. Congress can’t do its job and create a real budget, so it blackmails the country by stating “pass this huge pile of pork or Armageddon will happen.” The entire political class and all those who suck on its teat wants you to believe that the world will collapse unless these idiotic CRs, which nobody even reads, get passed. This is the Big Lie. They want you to believe this because if you experience how easy it could be to live under limited government, they become irrelevant. They lose their self-importance and their ability to hand out money for political favors. 

A government shutdown is the perfect method to achieve institutional reform. Now is the perfect time. If not now, when? The government has the resources to run for many weeks without a new funding bill, but will have to trim its sails to do so.  All Republicans campaigned on a platform of limited government. You can’t get more “limited government” than a government shutdown! Republicans already have what they want. All appropriation bills must occur in the House which the Republicans control. They are in the complete catbird’s seat. No CR should include any new money over what is being spent now, and indeed should set a spending limit less than what is being spent now. Think of the economic boom if over the next 4 years, the federal government’s expenditures were reduced by just  5% every year! Capital would flow into the private economy, instead of being wasted in Washington. If the Republicans stick to this plan, there’s no way when push comes to shove, CRs for 95% of funding wouldn’t pass to keep the government functioning. 

This is an historic generational opportunity. When I think of the sacrifices regular Americans have made over our 235-year-old history, Valley Forge, King’s Mountain, Belleau Wood, Bastogne and contrast their courage with the lack of any kind of courage by the soft hands, weenie Republicans, I am filled with contempt.

In late 1944, my dad was in Belgium fighting Germans in the frigid cold, and these pathetic politicians don’t even have the courage to stand up to a hostile news media and make the case as to why the federal government needs to be radically overhauled.

Tar and feathering is too good for them.