Andrew Malcolm for Investors.com, here:
What if an intransigent Obama forced a partial government shutdown, the 18th in recent decades? And what people noticed was that things actually seemed to run pretty well with nearly 900,000 "non-essential" federal workers furloughed from Obama's bloated workforce of 2.2 million? Why should American taxpayers pay for any non-essential workers? If we can do without nearly 900,000 "non-essential" personnel today with all their costly benefits and accruing pensions, why not tomorrow? And next week? And next year? Which is the smaller government argument that so many conservatives will make in advance of Nov. 4, 2014. Now just 399 days away.