A government shutdown in Washington? Well not quite, but...

If you’ve been watching CNN or Fox news, or if you’ve had your eyes glued on the mass media’s dark foreboding headlines during the past few days you might be nerviously twitching your fingers, chewing your fingernails and wondering if and when the U.S. government is going to lurch to a "shutdown." You might even think to yourself: "Has the world gone topsyturvy? This kind of thing can’t happen to the U.S., maybe some country in the Third World, but not to the U.S." It could happen, true, as it did twice in the 1990’s, but the term "shutdown" appears to be a bit extreme.

Whether or not some 800,000 government workers have to surrender their paychecks, whether national parks are closed down, whether or not garbage awaiting removal in the streets becomes a hayday for rats, whether or not taxpayers are forced to forego their rebates...the military will continue to fight in Afghanistan and Pakistan and officers will get their pay, as well politicians; mail carriers will do  their jobs, border guards and police will continue doing their work and collect their paychecks...

Democrats and Republicans are haggling over the budget but the real issue is the role of the government in society. The conservatives are aghast at the thirteen billion or so dollars of debt that government has stacked up. Down with the debt, they say, and want to hack away first at programs they consider economically or morally wrong, such as planned parenthood and the Obama Admininistration’s recently approved public health program... 

Nevertheless, Democrats told the press yesterday that they were near reaching a deal with Republicans on a $38 billion dollar cut.You read right: a $38 billion reduction! In the tug-of-war the Republicans want to do away with programs such as Planned Parenthood, which among other activities provides federal funds for abortion.

The conservatives are opposed to anything that smacks of government intervention in the economy or in the social life of the country, while the Democrats in general believe that the role of government is to control and regulate economic and social abuses.

Most observers--except for rightwing Republicans--trace the cause of the present world financial crisis precisely to a lack of government control over speculative financial operations. If the conservatives were to inch their way back into power--Obama has already announced his desire to run for a second term and the Republicans are sizing up their possible candidates-- they probably would drastically reduce government spending and remove what they consider to be regulations which disrupt the "laws of free enterprize," and then it would be the turn of the Democrats to cry out against their eternal rivals.