by Essential services continue as non-essential workers discover they were right all along
WASHINGTONThe federal government shutdown, now in its seventeenth week, continues to have minimal impact on daily American life, leading to uncomfortable questions about what exactly the government was doing before it shut down.
“I keep waiting for society to collapse, but my garbage is still being collected and Netflix still works,” reported Portland resident Amy Chen. “Starting to wonder if we needed all those agencies in the first place, or if we were just being polite by keeping them around.”
The ongoing government shutdown has affected approximately 800,000 federal workers, who have spent the past four months discovering that very few people miss them. National parks remain open via an honor system, which is working surprisingly well now that there’s nobody around to explain the rules. The IRS has ceased operations, leading to an unexpected outbreak of tax compliance as Americans nervously continue filing returns to an empty building, unsure if this is a test.
President Trump celebrated the shutdown’s success during a press conference in the Rose Garden, where he stood surrounded by furloughed workers holding signs that read “We Tried Our Best” and “It Was a Good Run.”
“Folks, we’re saving billions of dollars every week by not paying people to do things that apparently don’t need doing,” Trump declared. “Beautiful, really. Some people are saying it’s the most efficient government in history. People are saying that. Smart people.”
The White House Office of Management and Budget released a report indicating that the shutdown has saved taxpayers approximately $12 billion, though it notes this figure doesn’t account for “intangible losses” like food safety inspections, disease surveillance, or whatever it was the Department of Education did.
Former employees have adapted to their new reality with varying degrees of success. Janet Morrison, previously a specialist at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, now sells homemade candles on Etsy under the brand name “Bureaucratic Wax.” Her bestseller is a scented candle called “Appropriations Committee,” which allegedly smells like “disappointment and manila folders.”
“I thought my work mattered,” Morrison said while pouring wax into a mold shaped like the Capitol building. “Turns out America functions just fine without someone monitoring affordable housing compliance in Akron, Ohio. Who knew? Everyone, apparently. Everyone knew except me.”
The shutdown has created unexpected winners, including private contractors who have assumed government functions at triple the cost and with half the accountability. “It’s basically the same service, but now it’s disruptive innovation,” explained tech entrepreneur Brandon Wheeler, whose app ShutdownSolutions charges $47 monthly to file FOIA requests that will never be processed.
Some government functions have been creatively replaced by volunteers. The FDA is now crowdsourcing food safety inspections through an app called “Is This Expired?”, while the EPA has been replaced by a Facebook group where concerned citizens post pictures of suspicious-looking water.
As the shutdown stretches toward its fifth month, political analysts predict it may simply become permanent, transitioning from “government shutdown” to “government minimalism” to eventually just “situation we’ve all accepted.”
Congressional leaders from both parties issued a joint statement that reads, in its entirety: “We should probably do something about this eventually. Maybe after lunch. Or next week. We’ll see how we feel.”
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/government-shutdown/
SOURCE: Government Shutdown Enters Month Four, Nobody Notices (Aisha Muharrar)
