Private markets and capitalism work; government and bureaucracy doesn’t. From Joel Bowman at joelbowman.substack.com:
(Vineyards grow beneath the Andes Mountains in Mendoza, Argentina)
“If you cut off that natural force, and substitute a paid bureaucracy, you are like a fool who should pay men to turn the wheel of his mill, because he refused to use wind or water which he could get for nothing. You are like a lunatic who should carefully water his garden with a watering-can, while holding up an umbrella to protect it from the rain.”
~ G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong With the World (1910)
It’s almost over, patient reader. That is to say, there’s a light at the end of Government Shutdown Tunnel. Only problem is, it looks to be coming from an Amtrak train.
Here’s how shame-free newswire, Reuters, reported on the unfolding melodrama…
US Senate passes bill to end government shutdown, sends to House
WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Monday approved a compromise that would end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, breaking a weeks-long stalemate that has disrupted food benefits for millions, left hundreds of thousands of federal workers unpaid and snarled air traffic.
The 60-40 vote passed with the support of nearly all of the chamber’s Republicans and eight Democrats, who unsuccessfully sought to tie government funding to health subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year.
A follow up article, from the same misty-eyed mob, described how duty-bound representatives “braved” real world conditions to do what millions of honest Americans do each and everyday: their job.
Members of the House of Representatives headed back to Washington on Tuesday, after a 53-day break, braving the congestion at the nation’s tangled airports for a vote that could bring the longest U.S. government shutdown in history to a close.
With nearly 1,200 flights canceled on Tuesday due to the shutdown, lawmakers including Republican Representatives Rick Crawford of Arkansas and Trent Kelly of Mississippi said they were carpooling to the Capitol, while Representative Derrick Van Orden said he was making the 16-hour drive from Wisconsin on his motorcycle.
There you have it, dear reader. Carpooling… motorcycle diaries… waiting in lines. Incontrovertible proof that congressmen are flesh and blood human beings, just like the rest of us!
The light is comrade Gavin’s High Speed Rail!
Honk, honk.