In her report at CNSNews.com Emily Ward provides the following transcript from the Mark Levin radio show:
So, this government shutdown business: Will the government shut down, or not? Friday night, midnight! Will the government shut down, or not?
They don't even tell you --what does that mean, "the government shut down"?
First of all, that phrase is a lie; the government doesn't shut down. You'll be long dead -- your children and your grandchildren too -- before this government shuts down, unless it shuts down from a financial and economic collapse.
But, legally? No.
"Seventy-five percent of the government['s] already been funded" -- are you aware of this? -- as they point out at CNSNews.com.
He signed a minibus appropriations bill -- the president did -- "that funded the Department of Energy; Military Construction [and] Veterans Affairs; [and] the . . . Legislative Branch for the entirety of fiscal [2019]."
That doesn't end until September 2019, the 30th.
"Then, on Sept. 28, Trump signed another 'minibus' law funding the Departments of Defense, Labor, Health [and] Human Services [(HHS)] and Education through the end of [the] fiscal year" again
-- September 30, 2019.
And, so, 75 percent of the government's funded.
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are specifically, as a matter of statute, carved out to be protected. The United States military and federal law enforcement: specifically carved out to be protected, should there be a government shutdown.
Now, that's 25 percent of the government that's subject to a shutdown -- but that's not even true -- because, of that 25 percent, they have what' called essential and nonessential employees and tasks.
A significant percentage of the 25 percent is said to be essential. And as I've told you before, many years ago, when I had Paul Ryan on this program, when he was actually conservative -- I think he was heading the appropriations committee -- he said, that under the worst of circumstances, 17 percent of the government is effectively shut down when we have a full shutdown.
So, we cry crocodile tears.
Now, those of us who live in the private sector, a shutdown is a shutdown.
Those of us who live in the private sector, when you're given a pink slip, you're not reimbursed, later, for every dollar you would've earned but for the fact that there was quote, unquote, a shutdown.
So, even nonessential employees never lose out. They might be inconvenienced, but in the private sector, you actually lose your d--- job.
I just discussed with you, in 3 1/2 minutes, something you have never heard on a cable TV show, on a network TV show or a satellite TV show -- something you have never heard on a prime-time news program.
Moreover, since the 1976 Budget Act -- excuse me, 1974 Budget Act -- 20 different occasions in which the government has shut down, quote, unquote shut down.
Do you remember any of them in any significant way? Were you harmed by it? Were you harmed by it?
No, you weren't harmed by it, and yet, it is the only tool available to a president to get spending under control or to force his priorities on left-wing radical kooks, like Pelosi and Schumer, who do not believe in protecting the American people from criminals, terrorists and drug lords.
To Levin's comments I would only point out that when you hear today the phrase "Government Shutdown," note that the government in mind is the Federal Government.
All other levels of government are still operating -- state, country, city, etc., governments are still operating.
As our Declaration of Independence makes clear, the American ethos is not rooted in government.
Rather, our republic of human freedom and dignity is rooted in a real-world, testable Creator who endows unalienable and publicly actionable human rights.
In this body politic, government is good -- but not ultimate. Government per se is good -- but not ultimate.
The federal government is merely one level of order in the American political ethos -- an expression of order among many other levels of order in the American ethos.
A free and strong people can easily survive the temporary shut down of the federal government.
We created it. It did not create us.
