Tips For A Pending Federal Government Shutdown
The shit is coming down.
-Georgetown at Shelly’s Back Room, November 7, 1995
It is nostalgia time in The District this week as the Reality Check News & Information Desk unveils “alternative” plans (schemes) to successfully piggyback a 2011 federal government shutdown that many of our sources, several of them tanked on numerous and varied cocktails and thus kind (stupid) enough to reveal to a pack of beer-addled reporters late Friday. This is what happens when we take this operation on the road—and not for a whisk down memory lane, as was the case this past December when I was ushered into town by my brothers-in-law for a long weekend of measured debauchery. This time we planted our ears to the ground, displaying a fairly (shockingly) sober attitude. This was bad news for the loose lipped and good fortune for those with the whirring digital recorders at the ready to flip into journalism.
Word is, now that a complete federal government shutdown is more than a threat, it is imminent, and with a far more stinging result than in ’95 when the above infamous quote from a long-lost friend and colleague rightly predicted it. Apparently a Democrat in the White House and a Republican turnover in congress result in a system seizure. The last Republican revolution rapidly turned things into the New Gingrich/Bill Clinton follies. But nowadays we’re deep into a damaged economy, a fractured Republican base and an aggressively liberal president wounded by what has turned into his legislative Iran/Contra overreach in the unconstitutionally mandated federal health care laws.
Place this beside the growing national backlash over a corporate lackey governor of Wisconsin trying to crush the over-compensated bloat of the state worker union’s collective bargaining powers, has put the “hard-choices” mantra of the new year into light. The same jack-asses who were waving ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ flags to slash the power and scope of the federal government have broken them out to keep the state entitlements coming. As predictable an occurrence as possible has put many of the Left in a feisty mood, something beaten out of them by a round pummeling last November, The same week the hardcore Tea Party types on Capitol Hill were able to shed dismal light on the speaker of the house, who was caught ceremoniously dumping his “cut the budget at all costs” rhetoric to back a needless Pentagon expense because it benefited his hometown coffers. This crap on the heels of his “let them eat cake” moment when he dismissed the hundreds of jobs he aims to eliminate at the federal level with a blithe “So be it.”
Hypocrisy and vengeance, the precious fulcrums of government, are once again in the air, and we the people, as usual, are powerless to stop it. But fear not, as our loving parents would say, and whatever queer tomes of vapid self-esteem nonsense motivated them to do so; “When you are handed lemons, whip up some lemonade.” Or as we like to say here, ‘Never surrender.’ Isn’t that what this damnable space has been whining about all these years? Hell yes! And it is with that rugged American spirit of forging ahead that we offer the following survival guide to the looming federal government shutdown.
Firstly, if the federal government enters a forced hiatus, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will go dark. If you cannot extrapolate a stream of good times from this, you’re not paying attention. There’s a recession on and people are in dire need of questionably legal forms of mind-numbing substances and outrageously potent instruments of random violence. This is nirvana for those eager to return to the time of our forefathers, and what better way? We suggest none.
In addition to free reign on unchecked rage fueled by inebriation is the halt in border patrol. This will add to our fun by the unfettered load-in of imported drugs, easing the Mexican cartels’ murder spree. Consider it a holiday, allowing even blood enemies to put hostilities on hold for a chance of share hassle-free windfalls.
Where to exhibit our newfound freedoms from restraint; how about the entirety of our nation’s parks when the National Park Service closes shop? If you think nightly video footage from a frenzied Cairo was entertaining, you wait. While on a roll, we propose there be a run on national monuments and museums—and by run, you know, a safe and responsible run, or as safe and responsible as gun-toting, heavily medicated boozers can muster. Things are so mellow in Arizona these days, they will be happy to welcome a surge of lunacy to the Grand Canyon, as in ’95 when angry tourists were turned away for the first time in 76 years.
Oh, and a federal government break will put a hold on freeloading do-overs, as all bankruptcy cases will be suspended. This will offset the delaying of delinquent child-support cases. Kids eat enough, at least according to the first lady.
Hey, you may ask; didn’t this asshole decry the Egyptian revolution as anarchy just two short weeks ago and now he’s advocating anarchy here at home? Sure, and the irony is not lost on me. However, since we work on a federalist system, I am sure our wild abandon will be curtailed by local law enforcement officials and other buzz kill organizations, but we merely offer a cogent response to the abandonment of our mamma leash to the whims of the political animal we’re asked to tame every two years in our voting booths. If we’re going to take it to the streets, we may as well have some laughs.
After all, the shit is coming down.
James Campion is the Managing Editor of The Reality Check News & Information Desk and the author of Deep Tank Jersey, Fear No Art, Trailing Jesus and Midnight For Cinderella.
