Non-essential

Five years ago, the government told the Americans citizens whose jobs were “essential”, and whose jobs were “non-essential”. That was a slap in the face of many hardworking Americans citizens who contribute greatly to our country and our economy. This week, through this government shutdown, the politicians and the bureaucrats have been told whose jobs are essential, and whose jobs are not essential. The difference is that when the government shut down the so-called “non-essential jobs” and non-essential segments of the private sector, the economy crashed. The Dow dropped 22% in less than a week in March of 2020. And then when those “non-essential” workers in the private sector were allowed to work again, we had the greatest recovery in the history of our country.

With this government shut down, we’re going to see the exact opposite. The non-essential parts of government are being shut down, and 99% of American citizens will not even notice it. The only citizens that will be impacted by this government shutdown, will be the people who are working in the government departments that have been shut down. Everyone outside government, will barely feel the shutdown. The economy is not going to tank because the government is shut down. The markets are not going to crash because the non-essential parts of government are not operating. In fact, after reaching all-time highs in the major stock markets yesterday, the markets are up again today as I type this. The private sector doesn’t care about those parts of government. And that is a big contrast to what we witnessed in 2020.

The Democrats will attempt to tell us that the country is falling apart because these non-essential parts of government are not operating – it’s a lie. They will cherry pick one or two examples across the 350 million people who make up the United States, and try to scare people by showing how those few people’s lives have been hurt by the government shutdown, and then they will blame Donald Trump and the Republicans so they can win in the midterms in 2026 and the presidency in 2028. That is the only reason why we have a government shutdown. The Democrats needed a way to hurt the Republicans politically, and since Trump and the Republicans have been having such a successful year, the Democrats orchestrated this shutdown to hurt them. The Republicans in Congress offered a clean bill which funded the government, and the Democrats tried to attach $1.5 trillion of new spending much of which would be giving free healthcare to illegal aliens.

We went through this in 2021. Joe Biden signed trillion-dollar spending bill after trillion-dollar spending bill in 2021, and inflation went up to almost 10% which in turn caused the Fed to drive up interest rates six separate times to curtail the exploding inflation. And those rate hikes – one of the lasting remnants of the Autopen Presidency – are the main reasons why our housing market is still depressed. This shutdown is a political football that the Democrats are trying to exploit. They offer the ridiculous new spending and threatened a shutdown if it is not included in the Republican bill. If the Republicans don’t give in to this new frivolous spending and the government shuts down, the Democrats will blame the shut down on Donald Trump and Republicans in order to help them in the 2026 and the 2028 elections. If Donald Trump and the Republicans cave and pass the $1.5 trillion of new spending that the Democrats asked for, inflation will go through the roof again, and the Democrats, who sponsored the inflationary spending, will turn around and blame the inflation on Donald Trump and the Republicans to help them win elections in 2026 and 2028.

This dog and pony show proves that the Democrats do not give a damn about the United States of America, and they sure don’t give a damn about the United States citizens. They believe that they are more important than the people who they serve. All they care about is accumulating as much power as possible, and they will hold the Americans citizens hostage to do so. It’s so sad that we have a major political party whose sole approach to governing is what we’re witnessing today from the Democrats. Donald Trump is doing everything in his power to bring America’s greatness back, and the Democrats are doing everything in their power to stop him from doing just that. But the sadder part is that there are tens of millions of people in this country who actually are fooled by the rhetoric and tactics of the Democrats.

If the American people are actually paying attention, this shut down will prove to all of us, once and for all, that the Republicans have been right all along. Our government is way too big. If we can shut down large sectors of the government, and 99% of the American citizens do not feel it or are not impacted by it, then they are not essential and should be shut down permanently. It’s like what a home organizer tells you when you’re trying to declutter your home – take all of the clutter in your house, put it in big boxes in your garage, and wait. Whatever you don’t need over the next six months, is unnecessary; it’s wasteful clutter. If we shut down major parts of our federal government, and the American people do not notice it, then that’s an indication that those parts of government are not needed; they are unnecessary; they are truly non-essential. And shutting down those non-essential parts of government, would go a long way in reducing the $37 trillion of debt that is strangling our country and our government.

Ultimately, the joke will end up being on the Democrats because when the American people finally see how little impact shutting down the government has on their everyday life, the American people will realize that the bloated government which is the primary vision of the Democrat party is completely useless and ridiculous. If you ever wanted a referendum on what was more important, the government sector or the private sector, you don’t have to look at any further than comparing this government shutdown to the Covid lockdowns. When the private sector is shutdown, the country and the economy is destroyed, when the government is shutdown, we barely notice it which means that most of our federal government is non-essential, and not only could be, but should be shut down for good. So, thank you Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries for once again proving how non-essential you really are, and thank you Donald Trump for having the courage to call the bluff of those two charlatans.

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Mr. Garrett is a graduate of Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.