First: Is the federal government really shut down?

Not according to Reason:

They call it a “government shutdown.” But of about 4.1 million people who work for the federal government, about 80% will still be expected to show up for work.

We still don’t have an exact number of federal employees who won’t be working in a shutdown, but most press reports have been pegging the number around 800,000, the number who stayed home the last time the government shut down in 1996.

This is certainly predictable:

Proof positive that government is too large comes in this graphic:

“FLOTUS” is short for “First Lady of the United States.” That would be Michelle Obama, who apparently is far too busy to Tweet herself. (As a Facebook post put it, Michelle’s Tweeter was furloughed.)

Meanwhile, David McElroy reports that because the shutdown shut down national parks, forest, recreational areas and so on (of which Wisconsin has very few controlled by the feds), Gettysburg National Military Park is closed Saturday, thus forcing the Ku Klux Klan to hold their rally elsewhere.

The government shutdown got, well, invaded, reports CNN:

Busloads of World War II veterans, many in wheelchairs, broke past a barricade Tuesday morning to cross into the World War II Memorial, as onlookers applauded and a man playing the bagpipes led the way.

Moments earlier, a few Republican members of Congress had removed a section of the black gates that surrounded the site, allowing a line of veterans to roll past security officers, who willingly stood aside. …

The National Park Service closed all of its parks, including national memorials, as a result of the federal government shutdown that went into effect at 12:01 a.m ET.

But a spokeswoman from the National Mall and Parks Service said efforts were no longer being made to hold anyone back.

“These are important visitors,” she told reporters, adding that they’re seeking guidance from the director’s office on “where we go next.”

“Obviously we did not want to do anything to mar the trip of these people,” she said, saying the visitors came from Mississippi and Iowa. “They’ve come here specifically to see the memorial that was built for them.”

Some Republican members of Congress and a Democratic senator were on site, blasting the federal government for fencing off the memorial. Outraged and baffled, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, crossed through an opening in the railing earlier in the morning–before the breach–and got on the phone to try and reach the secretary of the Department of Interior.

“I don’t get it. I’m furious. I’m trying to get a hold of people,” he said, standing on the other side of the barricade and looking around for help. “But I can’t seem to get a hold of anybody.” …

A few House Republicans were also at the memorial to disparage the government for closing off the landmark on a day that veterans were set to arrive.

“We’ve got park service employees out here,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, before the gates were opened.  “Why wouldn’t you have them here to allow the veterans in, instead of stand and keep them from coming in?”

Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, wearing casual clothes, said she was out walking when she heard about the pile-up outside the memorial and decided to hustle over to the site.

“The last thing we should see in America is a barricade for World War II veterans to be prevented from coming to their memorial,” Bachmann said.

She vowed she and colleagues will be there “today, tomorrow, the next day, however long it takes” to keep the memorial open.

“America is not shutting down,” she said. “If we have anything to say about it, we’re going to keep this open.”

That’s funny. This, from Mike Flynn, is not:

The House first tried to defund ObamaCare. Then, it tried to delay the whole law and then just the individual mandate. In the final hours before the midnight deadline, the House ended with a simple proposal. It would agree to fund the government, if the Senate agreed to scrap the special subsidies lawmakers and staff receive to purchase health insurance. The final House proposal only effected people on Capitol Hill. Harry Reid said, effectively, we’ll shut down the government to keep our subsidies.

When ObamaCare was passed in 2010, an amendment was added by Sen. Chuck Grassley requiring members of Congress and their staffs to enroll in the ObamaCare exchanges. The federal government currently covers over 70% of health insurance premiums for Hill staff, but would no longer be able to do so through the exchanges. The end result is that members and staff would have to pick up the costs of their insurance premiums themselves.

The Obama Administration issued a rule earlier this year that effectively waived this. The federal government could still pick up 70% of the premium costs for members and their staffs. It is this special exemption that LA Sen. David Vitter has focused on repealing.

The final proposal on keeping the government open from the House removed this special Congressional exemption. Members and staff would no longer receive special subsidies from the federal government to purchase health insurance. The proposal would have also suspended, for one year, penalties levied on individuals who don’t have health insurance. This is similar to the waiver granted by the Obama Administration to employers earlier this year.

The Senate, however, rejected both provisions. Had it opted to eliminate its own special subsidies, the government would be open today. Preserving its own platinum health insurance coverage drove the Senate to close the government.

I mentioned earlier this week that state finances are superior because if the budget cycle ends without a new budget, appropriations continue under the previous budget until the new budget becomes law. This used to be the case at the federal level, too, until 1980, as National Public Radio reports …

“In the ’60s and ’70s down until 1980, it was not taken that seriously at all,” says Charles Tiefer, a former legal adviser to the House of Representatives, who now teaches at the University of Baltimore Law School. In the old days, he says, when lawmakers reached a budget stalemate, the federal workforce just went about its business.

“It was thought that Congress would soon get around to passing the spending bill and there was no point in raising a ruckus while waiting,” he says.

That easygoing attitude changed during the last year of President Jimmy Carter’s administration. That’s when Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued a legal opinion saying government work cannot go on until Congress agrees to pay for it.

“They used an obscure statute to say that if any work continued in an agency where there wasn’t money, the employees were behaving like illegal volunteers,” says Tiefer. “So they not only could shut off the lights and leave, they were obliged to shut off the lights and leave.”

Civiletti later issued a second opinion with a less strict interpretation — allowing essential government services to continue in the absence of a spending bill. But even with that exception, the stakes of a legislative standoff had been raised — which could be why lawmakers suddenly got serious about making deals.

So the political artifice you’re watching is all Civiletti’s fault. And every attorney general since Civiletti, who simply could have issued the legal opinion that Civiletti’s legal opinion is incorrect. Of course, every Congress since 1980 could have passed a law to negate Civiletti’s opinion and require funding under the previous appropriation, too.

You have read opinions that the shutdown is a disaster for Congressional Republicans. Their proof is in polls conducted more than a year before the 2014 Congressional elections, and the supposed bad things that happened to Republicans from the 1995–96 shutdown. And what bad things were those? Republicans controlled both houses of Congress through the remainder of Bill Clinton’s presidency, despite Bill Clinton’s reelection in 1996.

If the Libertarian Party is correct, House Republicans should refuse to sign off on any deal regardless of what it contains:

There is no impending government shutdown — only a government slowdown. The threat of a “shutdown” is designed to scare voters while avoiding scrutiny of reckless government overspending.

If federal lawmakers do not pass a budget or a “continuing resolution” (CR) by Oct. 1, a government spending slowdown will take effect. This could halt almost $1 trillion in annualized spending that the CR would authorize, which is the size of the current federal deficit. If made permanent, this would cut annual federal spending by approximately 27 percent to $2.7 trillion — the current level of revenues coming in.

In other words, a federal slowdown — if allowed to take full effect — would balance the federal budget. This would greatly benefit the U.S. economy.

“Elected Republicans in the House can stimulate the productive private sector by slowing down Big Government,” said Geoffrey J. Neale, chair of the Libertarian National Committee.

“Why?” Neale asked. “Because a government-sector slowdown equals a private-sector growth speedup of small businesses and jobs. Americans should welcome a government slowdown — and fear the opposite: allowing politicians to continue irresponsible, reckless government overspending.”

Do politicians properly prioritize spending cuts when a slowdown takes effect? Yes and no. Functions that affect life or property generally remain funded, but many needed cuts — such as lucrative government perks, Obamacare, and large volumes of waste marbled throughout government spending — remain intact.

Furthermore, lawmakers have made numerous exceptions to the slowdown. Only a portion of the $1 trillion that would be authorized by a CR will be blocked if a slowdown takes effect.

While the particulars of the impending slowdown are far from perfect, any serious spending cuts are a welcome change from wildly irresponsible government overspending and growing government debt.

Every American should ask himself one question: Is my family better off with a government slowdown that cuts federal spending by 27 percent? Or is my family better off with another trillion dollars in federal government debt?

Transferring wealth out of the government sector and into the private sector creates jobs. Every government-funded job loss is matched by roughly two private sector job gains — a panacea for jobseekers. …

At any time, the Republican-controlled House can do the right thing: Both fully defund Obamacare and refuse to pass a continuing resolution. They control the federal purse strings.

All that House Republicans need to do is debunk phony “shutdown” talk and pass a new bill.

“Lawmakers do not need to concede to either overspending or Obamacare,” said Neale. “Instead, we must move in the opposite direction: dramatically cut government spending and remove existing health care mandates, taxes, and regulations that stifle human progress.”

Right Wisconsin passes on this:

According to the College Fix, University of Wisconsin Madison graduate student Jason Morgan bucked the administration last week when he refused to attend a mandatory “diversity training” class for Teaching Assistants (TA).

The reason? Morgan objected to the Left-wing indoctrination and was called a “racist” for his objections.

The College Fix adds:

The letter, sent by email Sept. 22, states all new TAs in the university’s history department are required to attend one orientation session, two training sessions, and two diversity sessions. Morgan, in his letter, called the first of the two diversity sessions, held Friday, “an avalanche of insinuations, outright accusations, and suffocating political indoctrination (or, as some of the worksheets revealingly put it, ‘re-education’) entirely unbecoming a university of our stature.”

Morgan’s email begins with …

In keeping with the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea, I am also blind-copying on this e-mail several journalistic outlets and state government officials, because the taxpayers who support this university deserve to know how their money is being spent.

As you are probably aware, all new TAs in the History Department are required to attend one orientation session, two TA training sessions, and two diversity sessions. Yesterday (Friday, September 20th), we new TAs attended the first of the diversity sessions. To be quite blunt, I was appalled. What we were given, under the rubric of “diversity,” was an avalanche of insinuations, outright accusations, and suffocating political indoctrination (or, as some of the worksheets revealingly put it, “re-education”) entirely unbecoming a university of our stature.

Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and students at probably every other public institution of higher education in this country, have long since grown accustomed to incessant leftism. It is in the very air that we breathe. Bascom Hill, for example, is roped off and the university is shut down so that Barack Obama (D), Mark Pocan (D), and Tammy Baldwin (D) can deliver campaign speeches before election day. (The university kindly helped direct student traffic to these campaign events by sending out a mass e-mail encouraging the student body to go to the Barack Obama for President website and click “I’m In for Barack!” in order to attend.) Marxist diatribes denouncing Christianity, Christians, the United States, and conservatives (I am happy to provide as many examples of this as might be required) are assigned as serious scholarship in seminars. The Teaching Assistants Association (TAA)–which sent out mass e-mails, using History Department list-servs, during the attempt to recall Governor Scott Walker, accusing Gov. Walker of, among other things, being “Nero”–is allowed to address TA and graduate student sessions as a “non-partisan organization”. The History Department sponsors a leftist political rally, along with the Socialist Party of Wisconsin, and advertises for the rally via a departmental e-mail (sent, one presumes, using state computers by employees drawing salaries from a state institution). In short, this university finds it convenient to pretend that it is an apolitical entity, but one need not be particularly astute to perceive that the Madison campus is little more than a think tank for the hard left. Even those who wholeheartedly support this political agenda might in all candor admit that the contours of the leftism here are somewhat less than subtle.

At the “diversity” training yesterday, though, even this fig leaf of apoliticism was discarded. In an utterly unprofessional way, the overriding presumption of the session was that the people whom the History Department has chosen to employ as teaching assistants are probably racists. In true “diversity” style, the language in which the presentation was couched was marbled with words like “inclusive”, “respect”, and “justice”. But the tone was unmistakably accusatory and radical. Our facilitator spoke openly of politicizing her classrooms in order to right (take revenge for?) past wrongs. We opened the session with chapter-and-verse quotes from diversity theorists who rehearsed the same tired “power and privilege” cant that so dominates seminar readings and official university hand-wringing over unmet race quotas. Indeed, one mild-mannered Korean woman yesterday felt compelled to insist that she wasn’t a racist. I never imagined that she was, but the atmosphere of the meeting had been so poisoned that even we traditional quarries of the diversity Furies were forced to share our collective guilt with those from continents far across the wine-dark sea.
It is hardly surprising that any of us hectorees would feel thusly. For example, in one of the handouts that our facilitator asked us to read (“Detour-Spotting: for white anti-racists,” by joan olsson [sic]), we learned things like, “As white infants we were fed a pabulum of racist propaganda,” “…there was no escaping the daily racist propaganda,” and, perhaps most even-handed of all, “Racism continues in the name of all white people.” Perhaps the Korean woman did not read carefully enough to realize that only white people (all of them, in fact) are racist. Nevertheless, in a manner stunningly redolent of “self-criticism” during the Cultural Revolution in communist China, the implication of the entire session was that everyone was suspect, and everyone had some explaining to do.
You have always been very kind to me, Prof. Kantrowitz, so it pains me to ask you this, but is this really what the History Department thinks of me? Is this what you think of me? I am not sure who selected the readings or crafted the itinerary for the diversity session, but, as they must have done so with the full sanction of the History Department, one can only conclude that the Department agrees with such wild accusations, and supports them. Am I to understand that this is how the white people who work in this Department are viewed? If so, I cannot help but wonder why in the world the Department hired any of us in the first place. Would not anyone be better?
There is one further issue. At the end of yesterday’s diversity “re-education,” we were told that our next session would include a presentation on “Trans Students”. At that coming session, according to the handout we were given, we will learn how to let students ‘choose their own pronouns’, how to correct other students who mistakenly use the wrong pronouns, and how to ask people which pronouns they prefer (“I use the pronouns he/him/his. I want to make sure I address you correctly. What pronouns do you use?”). Also on the agenda for next week are “important trans struggles, as well as those of the intersexed and other gender-variant communities,” “stand[ing] up to the rules of gender,” and a very helpful glossary of related terms and acronyms, to wit: “Trans”: for those who “identify along the gender-variant spectrum,” and “Genderqueer”: “for those who consider their gender outside the binary gender system”. I hasten to reiterate that I am quoting from diversity handouts; I am not making any of this up.

Please allow me to be quite frank. My job, which I love, is to teach students Japanese history. This week, for example, I have been busy explaining the intricacies of the Genpei War (1180-1185), during which time Japan underwent a transition from an earlier, imperial-rule system under regents and cloistered emperors to a medieval, feudal system run by warriors and estate managers. It is an honor and a great joy to teach students the history of Japan. I take my job very seriously, and I look forward to coming to work each day.

It is most certainly not my job, though, to cheer along anyone, student or otherwise, in their psychological confusion. I am not in graduate school to learn how to encourage poor souls in their sexual experimentation, nor am I receiving generous stipends of taxpayer monies from the good people of the Great State of Wisconsin to play along with fantasies or accommodate public cross-dressing. To all and sundry alike I explicate, as best I can, such things as the clash between the Taira and the Minamoto, the rise of the Kamakura shogunate, and the decline of the imperial house in twelfth-century Japan. Everyone is welcome in my classroom, but, whether directly or indirectly, I will not implicate myself in my students’ fetishes, whatever those might be. What they do on their own time is their business; I will not be a party to it. I am exercising my right here to say, “Enough is enough.” One grows used to being thought a snarling racist–after all, others’ opinions are not my affair–but one draws the line at assisting students in their private proclivities. That is a bridge too far, and one that I, at least, will not cross.

I regret that this leaves us in an awkward situation. After having been accused of virulent racism and, now, assured that I will next learn how to parse the taxonomy of “Genderqueers”, I am afraid that I will disappoint those who expect me to attend any further diversity sessions. When a Virginia-based research firm came to campus a couple of years ago to present findings from their study of campus diversity, then-Diversity Officer Damon Williams sent a gaggle of shouting, sign-waving undergraduates to the meeting, disrupting the proceedings so badly that the meeting was cancelled. In a final break with such so-called “diversity”, I will not be storming your office or shouting into a megaphone outside your window. Instead, I respectfully inform you hereby that I am disinclined to join in any more mandatory radicalism. I have, thank God, many more important things to do. I also request that diversity training be made optional for all TAs, effective immediately. In my humble opinion, neither the Department nor the university has any right to subject anyone to such intellectual tyranny.

Keep this in mind the next time you read complaints from the UW System generally or UW–Madison specifically that either doesn’t have enough taxpayer money. This is where your tax dollars are going … you racist.