Shutdown Theater: Every Play Eventually Ends Its Run

Here we go again. It's time for another performance of American politicians' favorite off-Broadway play, "Shutdown Panic."

"Congress only has a few weeks to avoid a government shutdown," Mitchell Hill reports at WTOP, "but leaders of both parties are still a long way from agreeing on a stopgap spending bill to keep federal workers on the job."

The cast changes but slowly. The plot gets tweaked but little.

Act One: "There's a government shutdown coming if we don't pass a spending bill!"

Act Two: "Let's fight about it!"

( The most common plot tweak comes in here with the occasional insertion of a short supposed "shutdown")

Act Three: "SURPRISE! We made a deal!"

Act Three always closes with a set change: A road, and cast members kicking a can down it.

Curtain call -- the cast takes its bows. They've once again saved the day by borrowing and spending more money than ever before. Please clap.

At this point, I pause to check two numbers. The "National Debt Clock" tells me that the play's producers owe nearly $37.5 trillion to their backers and that 2025's expenses stand at nearly $2 trillion more than box office receipts.

It's Max Bialystock's and Leo Bloom's wildest dream: "Springtime for Hitler" isn't just a money-making (for them, but nobody else) flop, it's history's longest-running such flop!

The last time US politicians actually (and very temporarily) paid off their ever-growing debt was 190 years ago in 1835. The last time they even managed to theoretically balance one year's budget was 24 years ago in 2001.

And, let me emphasize: It's THEIR debt, not YOUR debt.

The organization they run ("the US government"), not you, borrowed the money.

They love to talk about a "national" debt and shake their heads in amazement at how much each American "owes" (about $110,000), but your signature isn't on any of those loan documents. In fact, if you hold the US government's bonds, you're actually among their unlucky creditors.

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