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The delusional: "The government shutdown is a good thing!"

It seems that some (many) whom identify themselves as Tea Partiers are happy with the government shutdown and think it's a good thing. I can't say this completely surprises me, yet it astonishes me nonetheless.

A growing number of self-described Tea Partiers believe in minimal government, if any government at all, so a government shutdown to them is like a wet-dream. They can then temporarily skip and gallop naked about the earth, yelling out, "You see? I don't need government! I'm free! Free as a bird! I was right all along! The government is useless and only there to limit my freedom! Make this shutdown permanent so I can always be so free!"

Perhaps if I become addicted to drugs - a hallucinogen especially - and wander away to neverneverland, I too will feel that way. However, as much as I'd love to believe that we're all 100% independent and free, I'd be more delusional than a legally blind person who claims to see voices to think this way.

Here are just a few of the potential negative effects of a government shutdown:

1) Up to 800,000 of 2.1 million federal workers could be furloughed.

2) The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) won't be able to pay its workers and most of its regulatory functions will be put on hold.

3) The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will have to halt a seasonal influenza program.

4) A program to provide healthy food for low-income pregnant women and new moms will have its funding cut (The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children).

5) It will likely add to the budget deficit.

6) Most FDA food safety inspections will be suspended.

7) Most Labor Department workplace investigations on safety and discrimination will come to a halt.

8) National parks, the Smithsonian Museum, and the National Zoo will temporarily close.

9) There will be stock market panic.

10) It will have a negative impact on operations at the Justice Department.

While some love to hate the government, the government provides a great number of services many of us take for granted on a daily basis, until that day when those operations cease to take place and we suffer the consequences as a result. Those repercussions may not be felt today or tomorrow, but the longer the government shutdown is in effect, the more prone we'll be to falling victim to it in one manner or another.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/30/reasons-government-shutdown-terrible_n_4019301.html

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