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Walz takes wrong step given ‘pain’ of shutdown

The federal government shutdown is portrayed by many, and many in the media, as a prescription for pain. They say the poor federal workers and recipients of government assistance are made to suffer because politicians cannot get along and resolve their dispute. They blame President Trump.

Another way to view the shutdown is as an opportunity. To gauge the necessity of federal programs and then reprioritize federal spending. It also could be an opportunity to suggest that relying on government is not a good or healthy habit. Perhaps stress to citizens that the best route in life is to do things for themselves, to rely on their own initiative and hard work.

Minnesota’s new governor, Democrat Tim Walz, is missing the opportunity. On Tuesday, he pledged that his administration will not “leave behind” any Minnesotan. Instead the state will spend money to fill funding gaps created by the shutdown.

Walz says the shutdown represents “uncharted territory.” This is a strange thing for a former educator to say, since he knows that government programs came on line over time. At one point, government freebies did not exist, so people had to manage their own existence every day. Sometimes they had to scramble. But they did it.

Walz also is pretending not to understand why President Trump won’t agree to re-open federal agencies that have nothing to do with the impasse over funding the wall Trump wants on the southern border. The other agencies and their programs, touted so much by Democrats like Walz, represent leverage to Trump. And if Democrats want them funded so badly, all they have to do is give the president what he wants. The shutdown will end the next day.

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