Shutdown? Schmutdown!

The lights of the federal government didn’t go out Wednesday. After the self-removal of House Speaker John Boehner, the steam went out of the shutdown effort, with conservatives losing their key point of leverage. The House and the Senate each passed a spending extension.

But the bill only funds the government until Dec. 11, and that’s when the next big showdown is expected over a longer-term spending bill, as well as an anticipated need to raise the federal debt ceiling.

So even though the government has stayed in business, it may well go dark in December. Merry Christmas.

While the buildings may get chilly with the heat turned off, there’s still plenty in all of this to warm your heart. There are pros and cons to a government shutdown, and many of the cons don’t look so bad. Not compared to what Planned Parenthood is doing to fetuses.

The pros and cons of a government shutdown:
First, the cons. How will Americans be negatively affected by a government shutdown if it does occur in December?

CONS:
1. National Parks will be closed. So, if you are hoping to see Old Faithful or the heads of four presidents in stone, you’ll have to change your plans and go to private-sector-run Disney, instead.
2. Federal zoos will be closed. You will not be able to get your panda, leopard, or penguin fix during a government shutdown.
3. Put the bicycles back in the garage; bike trails are temporarily unavailable. (Offroading is fun, though!)
4. Free museums are closed. You will have to get your art jam online, or in a coffee table book. (Remember books?)
5. FDA food inspectors are closed. Hmm … hire a food-taster? Or, depend on the USDA food inspectors, who will still be working.
6. U.S. Capitol is closed for tours. You may have to get your government history and D.C. architecture needs met a few days later than you’d hoped — or, watch “House of Cards” on Netflix.
7. More than 800,000 workers may be affected if furloughed during a shutdown, which leads to two obvious questions: There are that many workers who aren’t necessary for the government to function? And will the movie theaters just be packed?

PROS:
1. Essential services continue without interruption. Public schools will be open, trash will be collected. Planes will fly, trains will run. Earth will revolve.
2. Prisons will remain staffed, immigration services will most likely continue, and the WIC program will, too.
3. The Veterans Administration would remain open for both inpatient and outpatient care — claims will slow down, though.
4. Food stamps will continue to be dispersed.
5. Federal websites may be down. No wrangling with the Obamacare website! No new photos of John Kerry yawning while his boss delivers a United Nations speech!
6. Facing an Oct. 15 IRS deadline? Plan ahead for this; the IRS may be closed. Not facing an Oct. 15 deadline? Yeah baby, the IRS is closed!
7. All military branches will be staffed by needed personnel. Don’t get any ideas, Vladimir.
8. D.C. Superior Court and the Patent and Trademark office will still be open. So keep tinkering away on your invention.
9. There will be way less traffic! Nonessential workers will be home rethinking the private sector. (Oh, and you’ll be paying them for unscheduled time off.)
10. The Kennedy Center will remain open, leading many of the D.C. elite to say, with highballs and Champagne flutes in hand, “What shutdown? Was there a shutdown?”

Shutdowns, as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich wrote in a 2013 essay for Time magazine, are part of doing business. Government business.

“Back in 1995-96, there was the understanding that government shutdowns were an unpleasant but integral part of the legislative-executive power struggle,” he wrote. “That power struggle is built into the American Constitution.”

But then, there’s this: A government that can’t even govern — is that in the Constitution, too? No. Article 1 Section 8 sets out what Congress is supposed to do. Come shutdown time, lawmakers will not be doing what we, the taxpayers, pay them to do.

Which brings to mind Mark Twain, who said: “There is no distinctly American criminal class — except Congress.”