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Is the mainstream media overhyping the economic impact of the government shutdown for political purposes?\u00a0 Of course they are.\u00a0 Once upon a time the mainstream media in the United States at least attempted to maintain a facade of objectivity, but those days are long gone.\u00a0 In this case, they want to stir up as much public resentment against President Trump as possible in order to try to force him to end the government shutdown.\u00a0 And when NBC News breathlessly declared that the U.S.\u00a0\u201cwould face an economic hellscape\u201d<\/a>\u00a0if this shutdown stretches on for an extended period of time, their article quickly went viral all over the Internet.<\/p>\nBut will it really be \u201can economic hellscape\u201d?<\/p>\n
Here are some of the things that they say we will be facing in their\u00a0\u201cdoomsday scenario\u201d<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n Yes, things would certainly be unpleasant for a lot of people, and there would be a whole lot of anger around the country.<\/p>\n But such a scenario does\u00a0not<\/strong>\u00a0qualify as \u201can economic hellscape\u201d.\u00a0 I would encourage the folks over at NBC News to pick up a copy of\u00a0The Beginning Of The End<\/em><\/a>\u00a0if they really want to know what the initial phases of a major economic crisis scenario could look like in this nation.<\/p>\n The most alarming item on their list is the fact that 38 million Americans could soon lose access to food stamps.\u00a0 According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that will officially happen\u00a0by the end of February<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n By the end of February, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, run by the Department of Agriculture, would be out of funding \u2014 meaning almost 40 million low-income Americans could find themselves struggling to pay for food, said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist for the accounting firm RSM US.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Things would certainly be tough for a lot of low income people, and there would be a lot more traffic at shelters and food banks, but nobody would starve to death.<\/p>\n The worst case scenario would be if mobs of angry people started taking to the streets and rioting in large urban areas.\u00a0 That is definitely a possibility, especially if this shutdown lasts for several more months.<\/p>\n But for the moment, most of the focus is on the hundreds of thousands of federal workers that are not getting paychecks right now.\u00a0 We are being endlessly bombarded with sob stories about how much these workers are suffering after missing one paycheck.<\/p>\n If people can\u2019t handle going a couple of weeks without pay, how are they going to handle things when a real crisis erupts in this country?<\/p>\n With no end to the shutdown in sight, some lower paid federal workers have decided\u00a0that it is time to find a new job<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n Transportation Security Agency officers forced to work without knowing when their next paycheck is coming are no longer\u00a0just calling in sick<\/a>. Now, 18 days into the partial government shutdown, some are resigning, according to Hydrick Thomas, who heads the TSA Council on the\u00a0American Federation of Government Employees.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery day I\u2019m getting calls from my members about their extreme financial hardships and need for a paycheck. Some of them have already quit and many are considering quitting the federal workforce because of this shutdown,\u201d\u00a0 the\u00a0official said in a statement\u00a0posted to the union\u2019s website<\/a>\u00a0on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I can\u2019t say that I blame TSA workers too much for quitting.\u00a0 It is an absolutely miserable job, and the starting salary for TSA security officers is somewhere\u00a0\u201cbetween $25,000 to $30,000 a year\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of course we don\u2019t actually need a TSA at all.\u00a0 Many of us would love to go back to the days before 9\/11 when we could get on flights without having someone inspect our private areas.<\/p>\n Another aspect of the shutdown that is horrifying NBC News is the fact\u00a0that no new beers are being approved right now<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is out during the shutdown. That means the federal government will not approve beer labels or process permits, which translates into no new beers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n At this moment there are literally millions of people around the world that actually have nothing to eat and no clean water to drink, and this is what we are whining about?<\/p>\n I have an idea.\u00a0 Why don\u2019t we shut down the \u201cAlchohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau\u201d permanently and let people make beer without having to get permission from the federal government first?<\/p>\n As I\u00a0have proposed<\/a>, we could save enormous amounts of money by simply shutting down useless government agencies that we do not need.<\/p>\n But that would make far too much common sense to work in America in 2019.\u00a0 We live at a time when the American people expect the federal government to protect them from just about every potential danger that you can possibly imagine.<\/p>\n Look, I don\u2019t want to seem completely unsympathetic to the plight of all of these federal workers that are being used as pawns in this game of political brinkmanship.\u00a0 Because\u00a078 percent<\/a>\u00a0of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, that means that a lot of these federal workers are not going to be able to pay their bills, and that would be extremely stressful for anyone.\u00a0 And at this point, thousands of federal workers have already begun\u00a0filing for unemployment benefits<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n\n
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