But did you know that this is not the first time that the US government had a shutdown? The US government has had seventeen shutdowns. How do these events impact the ordinary citizen?
- All government employees receive their back pay. All affected workers seemed to enjoy extra paid vacations. It is not true that federal employees starved because of the shutdown.
- It looked like the government was not very serious about the shutdown. In fact, the Department of Defense continued its $5.5 billion worth of purchases just hours before the shutdown.
- The federal government realized that the Americans did not miss the White House. Traffics were just as heavy as before the shutdown. Journalists cannot find any interesting stories related to the shutdown.
- Investments seemed unaffected. The stock markets seemed unfazed by the shutdown. The GDP did not show any down trend.