Shutdown Silliness
As things go these days in Washington, this was well ahead of schedule. On Saturday night, Congress passed a continuing resolution to keep the government open with three full hours to spare. Now, an obligatory sigh of relief by politicians, with the promise that we’ll be right back here again in mid-November, because there’s nothing to suggest an actual resolution will happen until the very last minute, if at all.
Yes, government stayed open…but that’s not to suggest that things were “business as usual” for agencies over the past week. As everyone expected a shutdown—politicians on both sides said that’s what was going to happen—agencies were told to develop and be ready to implement a shutdown strategy. So countless hours of otherwise productive time was spent not doing the day-to-day work of government for the people, but instead determining how to close the doors, complete with printing of signs and the like.
A cynical person would say all they had to do was dust off the plan used the last however-many times, because this is not new territory…and I’m sure that’s what was done in many situations…but it’s still complete nonsense.
And it’s not just government…private businesses had to figure out “what if” scenarios. For example, the Federal Communications Commission requires radio stations to file reports at the end of each quarter on the community issues they addressed and programs (both on the air and in the community) used to discuss those issues. The report is due on the first day of the month after the quarter, but they allow you to file it by the 10th and still be considered timely.
The FCC issued notice that it would stay open through October 20th despite a government shutdown, and their on-line portals for filing reports would remain open. But very few were willing to take that chance, given an unrelated system failure at the beginning of this year that screwed up report submission, and the fact that during the last government shutdown, the on-line system was taken down. So last Friday, many of us got word that we should prepare and file our reports on Saturday, ahead of any shutdown, just in case—because if your business depends on having a license from the government, you want to avoid doing anything that jeopardizes that. No one wanted to not file a report, have the system shut down, and have the government hold non-filing against you even though it was their fault…we could all see that happening.
So that’s how I spent my Saturday…preparing and filing reports for our four stations. I’m told it was a record-warm, nice day outside, and that certain sports contests were especially interesting. I wouldn’t know…which was especially aggravating because within an hour of hitting “send” on the last report…the deal was reached and shutdown was averted.
Sure, I now have free time at work this week, time that was set aside for doing reports. And that quarterly burden is off my list for another three months, which is great.
But this whole thing is well beyond silly. And despite the outcome, we all were affected.
