Federal Budgeting 101: Making Sense of the Government Shutdown

So why has the United States  federal government shutdown?

The simple answer is that the federal government cannot spend money unless it is appropriated and Congress and the president have not agreed on spending for approximately 25% of the federal government’s functions.  This means that for about one-quarter of the federal government there is no legal authority to spend money and therefore it must close down.

We seem to have a lot of federal government shutdowns in recent years, why?

The federal government process is broken and there is a political polarization over how to spend money.  This is the general answer.  But now, there is a fight between Donald Trump who insists on funding for his Mexican wall and Democrats who refuse to appropriate money for it.  However, to understand why so many shutdowns it is useful to understand something about the history of federal budgeting in the US.

Take us back in time before WW I, there was no federal budget.  If money was needed for something then the president asked for it and Congress simply allocated money for it.  Essentially, when money was needed Congress effectively wrote a check.  Such a process worked okay when the US government did not spend much money.  However, World War I pointed to the need to have a budget so that the government could spend more efficiently.

The 1921 Budget Act was the first effort to create a budget process for the US government.  It created congressional budget committees to centralize budgetary process, and it created the Bureau of the Budget (later the Office of Management and Budget) in the executive branch to bring some order to federal spending.

The Act helped but increased spending starting during the New Deal and then World War II, the Korean War, and then the Vietnam War led to a dramatic explosion of federal spending.    But something else happened while this spending increased, the philosophy and view about the role of the federal government changed.


What do you mean the philosophy and role of the Federal government changed?

There are two parts to this answer.

First, really prior to the New Deal the federal government had a limited role in the economy and in domestic politics.  Fighting wars and providing for the defense were generally accepted as federal government functions, but providing for the retirement benefits (Social Security), welfare, health care, or other social welfare issues were not considered to be federal functions until the 1930s.  The New Deal seemed to change that.  With a new philosophy about what the federal government should do, that meant more federal spending and therefore a need to have a budget to spend this money.

Second, , let’s think about what budgets are.  On one level budgets are simply tools to tell us the sources of federal revenue and how we wish to spend out money.  But budgets are more than that.

Political scientist V.O. Key once argued that budgeting is about the concept of opportunity costs–should we give money to A versus B?  His point was that budgeting is really about an issue of values.  How we spend money reflects normative choices.  Do we want to spend money on defense, health care, roads, or in the case of the current dispute, a wall along the Mexican border, or something else.  Budgetary politics is difficult because it is a fight over values.

But budgeting is also complex because of the multiple purposes attached to budgets.  Budgets are ways to spend money, but they are also tools for planning and measurement.  Budgets are also at the center of interest group politics and varying groups seek spending for their projects or interests.  Finally, for those of us schooled in economics, budgets and federal spending can be tools for economic development.  By that, there is a branch of macroeconomics tracing back to John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s who argued that federal spending can be used to stimulate the economy.  A discussion of Keynesian or social welfare economics is beyond the discussion here, but the point is that there are multiple purposes connected to federal spending.

So why is all this relevant to the present crisis?
By the time Nixon became president in 1969 a major dispute began to emerge, contesting how the federal government should spend money.  The Vietnam War and the Great Society programs of the Johnson presidency came together to create significantly larger federal spending and, with that, disputes over it.  Nixon refused to spend money allocated by Congress, and this led to the passage of the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act.

What did this Act do?
The 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act is the basis of modern US budgeting.  It created the Congressional Budget Office, , it created time dates for budget passage, it required a  presidential budget.  This law took effect in 1976.

In summary, the  President proposes a budget and Congress is supposed to pass it. Congress is supposed to pass an annual budget before October 1, every year.  (On a personal note, I was in college taking a macroeconomics class when this law passed and as required reading we had to read the very first budget of the president submitted to Congress under this law)

The Federal budget is composed of 12 appropriation bills, and different committees in Congress are assigned the task to adopt them, with final votes required of both Houses of Congress and a signature by the president.

If budget not passed, either there is a government shutdown or Congress and president can agree to a continuing resolution to keep government funded.  A continuing resolution simply is a temporary funding mechanism agreed to by Congress and the president to keep the government funded until  they can reach agreement on a budget or another continuing resolution.

However, the government has never really shutdown completely.  By that, approximately 75-80% of the federal budget is composed of legal entitlements or longer term contractual agreements that mandate spending.  Thus, for what is often called mandatory spending the government cannot shutdown because there is legal authority to spend money.  This is the case with Social Security–there is ongoing legal authority to spend for this and therefore grandma should never have to worry that she will not get her check.  The same is true now.

The current fight now is over that 20-25% of the budget which is referred to as discretionary spending.  This is money that Congress and the president have to authorize every year.

How well has the 1974 law worked?
Not well.   A good budget process only works if there is a consensus on values and spending.  But since 1976 the two parties have become more polarized, leading to more and more disagreements over taxing and spending priorities. 

Since 1976, only four budgets passed on time (the last time 1997).

Most of time operating on continuing resolutions.

Since 1976,  there have been 20 budget or funding gaps, some have resulted in government shutdowns, other unnoticed.

Under Reagan three one day funding gaps not noticed.

Under George H.W. Bush a 1990 weekend shutdown.

Under Clinton two shutdowns.  In 1995   for 5 days over budget disputes, and in 1996   for 21 days over budget disputes.

Under Obama there was one shutdown in 2013 that last for 15 days over a fight over the Affordable Care Act.

Under Trump there were two prior shutdowns to this one.  In 2018for two days in January and an overnight funding gap in February.

Are there costs associated with a shutdown?
Yes.  There are costs with the government closing down, laying off people, and then rehiring and starting up again.  In 2013 the shutdown cost the economy and GDP more than $24 billion and it affected the US bond rating.  The current shutdown is affecting confidence on Wall Street, the stock market, and leading to additional economic problems.  Forecasters were already predicting an economic slowdown in later 2019 and 2020 and this shutdown could hasten or worsen the problem.  Simply put, everyone pays for the shutdown.

What do we know about the current shutdown and dispute?
The current dispute is over spending for Trump’s Mexican wall.  Remember, when he ran for president he said he was going to build a wall and Mexico was going to pay for it.  Now he wants taxpayers to pay for it.  Trump has made funding for the wall a non-negotiable item.  Congress, including Democrats, have offered enhanced border security but in a Twitter message on Sunday Trump rejected that compromise. 

In many ways, Trump understands that this may be his last chance to get funding for the wall.  With Democrats taking over the House in January there will be even less of a chance to get this funding  Trump has made the border wall a campaign promise and wants it to appease his base, Democrats oppose it in part to appease their base, but also because less than a majority of Americans support it. 

How long with the partial shutdown last?
It will go until late this week but I could see the current Congress simply passing this problem down the line to the next Congress (and Democrats in the House) to solve.  For the outgoing Republican majority, they have nothing to lose by not resolving the partial shutdown and they can then pass the problem on to the Democrats.  The recipe here is for a long partial shutdown.

Who are the winners and losers?
Federal employees and taxpayers are the clear losers.  Generally the party who is tagged with the responsibility for the shutdown pays politically which is why the blame game now.  Republicans in the House can escape responsibility since they are no longer in the majority in a week.  Trump at one time claimed ownership of the shutdown but now he is trying to blame Democrats, especially in the Senate.   If it lasts till next year, he will blame House Democrats.  In some ways, if Trump does not get the wall he gets to use it as an issue in 2020, but if he does get funding then he loses it as an issue.

Final question, assume the money is appropriated, is the wall feasible?
No.  From an engineering perspective it is impossible to build along rivers and lakes, and it poses environmental problems.  In addition, even in the places where the wall already exists, people dig under it or find ways around it.  The wall will have little impact on immigration.

Unhinged: The Predictable and Overdue Collapse of the Trump Presidency

Aren’t we where many of us always thought it would be when it came to the Trump presidency?
Not quite half way through his presidency it is at a point where it is unhinged, demonstrating clear incompetence, unethical, if not illegal with Trump himself, trailing all the way down through his administration and all that he touches.  The government is partially shutdown, the stock market is tanking, law suits are mounting and grinding Trump to a halt, and Republicans in Congress are at war with him.  All entirely predictable, the only question is why it took so long.
For all those who wrung their hands with worry after the 2016 elections your greatest fears were realized and not.  On the one hand the fear was that Trump would pursue an anti-Obama agenda, seeking to reverse all that he did and more.  Trump is doing that, but also to those who feared there would be no checks on him, the fears were overblown.  Contrary to what many thought, it was not only Trump’s basic incompetence and perhaps crookedness that is bringing him down, but the irony of it all is that the system is working.  Courts, even those increasingly packed with Trump appointees, are coming to bear as they limit many of his government decisions.  The Mueller investigation, along with parallel ones by the New York Attorney General and New York federal prosecutor are closing in on the president and his inner circle of business and political associates.  Political appointees are fleeing as they face corruption charges.  The political process has motivated voters to elect Democrats.  The worst of Trump has been checked, and it will become more exacting come January as Congress changes power.
But what has happened since election day is that the Trump presidency has become fully unhinged.    What held this presidency together was a soaring economy but the tariffs are driving the economy down.  The tax  cuts gave an adrenaline rush that was short term and fizzled out, and the mounting debt and overall bad stewardship of the economy are pushing the US into a likely slowdown in2020.  Trump’s twitter presidency whose agenda is driven by what he sees on “Fox and Friends” has reduced his support to the base of his base, alienating him from all but a few extreme conservatives and angry  white guys who seem to resonate to fears of immigrants and the need for a wall.
Trump’s America First or Make America Great Again is simply a self-defeating  pitiful parody of itself.    The tariff wars show no sign of helping the US economy.  Gutting Obamacare lays bare the emptiness of Trump’s and GOP promises to fix health care, especially for those who voted for them. Whatever the wisdom of initially sending troops into Afghanistan and Syria, pulling them out now does little to make America more safe.  The move empowers Iran and terrorists, destabilizing the Middle East even more than now.   Trump’s foreign policy team is in shambles, and in the last few days Mattis resigns in protest, Wall street collapses, the government shuts down.
Yet Trump’s base of his base sticks with him, and will throughout the shutdown and presidency.  Trump is in a no lose position when it comes to the wall, the shutdown, and his base.  If he gets the wall he claims a win.  If he does not get the wall he gets to blame it on the Democrats and use the issue for another day.  The longer the shutdown, the stronger his argument is with his base.  It is entirely possible the Democrats get outplayed on this issue–no deal with this Congress and Trump blames it on the Senate Democrats.  No deal in January blame it on the House Democrats.  Never mind the issue does not work with the majority of voters, Trump’s end game is to look good on Fox and Friends, not govern responsibility. 

Minnesota's Flawed Budget Process--The Case for Automatic Budget Resolutions

As the Minnesota Legislature reconvenes on February 20, it is important to remember at least one simple fact–the state budget process is flawed and the risk of future government shutdowns is more than probable.  That is why as a fail safe the state needs to adopt an automatic continuing resolution rule to keep the government funded in the event that the legislature and governor cannot reach agreement on funding.

There is almost no chance this year the state will have a government shutdown this year.  The budget is made in the odd-numbered years.  However if the governor and the legislature do not resolve funding for the latter, or if federal tax changes and the fiscal forecast show a deficit necessitating budget cuts, a crisis could precipitate a partial shutdown.  But in the last 20 years the state has experienced three partial shutdowns, more than any other state in the country.  Add to that overtime special sessions, constitutional battles over gubernatorial unallotments under Governor Pawlenty and line-item vetoes of legislative funding by Governor Dayton, and one can really conclude that the budget process is broken.  Yes increased partisanship and differing political priorities are a major cause, but in reality the root of the problem is an antiquated way to do the budget.

Starting back in 2001, I argued that the budget process in use was built for the horse and buggy days trying to operate in the 21st century. Government is so much more complex, the budget numbers so much larger, the functions more diverse, that it is perhaps impossible to reach consensus and make decisions between the beginning of January and ending on the first Monday following the third Saturday in May as specified by the State Constitution. These are deadlines from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and reflect a different era for the state. There simply may not be enough time to do the budget by law in the 21st century.

            But think also how flawed the current budget process is right now.   We have elections in November. The state then receives a fiscal forecast at the end of November telling the governor what the economic assumptions and budget situation in the state will look like in the coming months.  The governor then finalizes a budget premised on these assumptions.  If there then is a new governor (as there will be in 2019) then that person finishes the budget of the old governor once taking office.

            Now the new legislature comes to work in early January and then it waits until late January or so for the governor to release the budget. Then they all wait until late February for the updated fiscal forecast. Thus, it is really not until late February or March that the work on the budget commences. And even then, there are separate hearings in the House and Senate, forcing conference committees to act. The budget also is really ten separate bills, with spending distinct from taxation, and no real work gets done until there are agreements on the different spending targets for each of the areas such as HHS, K-12, and so on.

            Sound confusing? It is. It is also inefficient. At least two months are wasted at the beginning of every budget cycle waiting for the governor’s budget, the fiscal forecast, and then agreement on budget targets. Now add more wrinkle–budgets are created right after state elections when often many new legislators or constitutional officers are elected. They are green, often learning on the job while creating a new budget. This is what happened in 2011 after the 2010 elections.  The same  was true in 2013 when the 2012 elections produced a legislature with at least 25% of the legislators being new.  It was also the case in 2014 when party control of the legislature shifted. These new legislators are barely in office, barely understand the state government when they are asked to review the budget.  This makes no sense. In a distant past when life and budgets were less complicated (and smaller), perhaps it was possible to do all this with a part-time citizen legislature. But those days have passed. A new budget process is needed, with new time lines and ways to move the work along.

            Is there a better way to do the budget?   Again, since 2001 I have argued that the current budget process is backwards and that a new mechanism is needed.  Many of these reforms are found in our neighbor state of Wisconsin.  What are these reforms?

            In Wisconsin there is a joint House (Assembly)  and Senate committee that does the budget.  It is one bipartisan committee and not separate committees in the two chambers as in Minnesota.  Moving to create one budget with one committee primarily but not exclusively responsible for it is a necessary correction and centralization to the highly decentralized process that currently occurs in Minnesota.  Additionally link the budget and tax bill together.  Spending and revenue need to be connected.

            But in addition, one of the best ideas from Wisconsin is that of an automatic continuing resolution.  By that, if the budget is not passed on time in Wisconsin then the existing budget continues in force until the budget is agreed to.  This reform alone would prevent a shutdown.  Recently Randy Jessup has introduced such a bill.   Revenue Commissioner Myron Frans does not support this idea, but appears open to other reforms to get the budget done on time.   I disagree with the idea that the resolution only funds the state at 90% level (it should simply continue funding at the current level) because such a mechanism could be used for political purposes to force budget cuts, but the basic idea is good.

            There are other possibilities for reform.  One would be to pass the Truth in Budget Act. It would do two things.  First, it would undo the current asymmetry or stupidity in the law that counts inflation for the purposes of revenue but not obligations in Minnesota.  This law dates back to the 2002 when Roger Moe and Tim Pawlenty, in running for governor while they were still in the legislature, creating the gimmick to avoid having to deal with the real budget problems during the election.  The Truth in Budget Act would also ban spending shifts (shifting spending obligations past July 1, to push the matter off in the next budget year) and “borrowing” from schools and other entities with the false claim of paying them back in the future.  These are truly gimmicks.

            But even other reforms could take place.  Why should the legislature do the budget in the odd years right after the election?  Why not move the budget year to the even years and give legislative members a year to learn about the state government before tacking it?  Other possibilities include changing the timing of the budget, or when the legislature is called into session.  Instead of the legislature coming into session in early January, then waiting for the governor’s budget and then the fiscal forecast, change the timing of one or all of these to create a process that makes more sense.

            The point here is that there are many ways to fix the budget process to avert future government shutdowns.  Up until now the backup to solving budget impasses has been to let the courts order temporary funding.  It is not so clear that the Minnesota Supreme Court will bail out the political process in the future.  The budget process needs to be fixed and a good starting point is with adopting an automatic continuing resolution process to make sure the state does not shut down in the future.

Ending the Government Shutdown in Court

So what if Congress and the president cannot reach an agreement to end the partial government shut-down or worse, extend the debt limit?  Is the country hopelessly stuck in the middle of a political dispute?  Not necessarily.  Ignored in the entire dispute is one obvious resolution –the Supreme Court.  While some may argue that budget and finance matters are no place for the courts to venture, the partial governmental shutdown and the pending debt limit extension both represent controversies that have a legal or constitutional basis that can be addressed by the courts.
    Alexis DeTocqueville declared in a famous and often quoted passage in his Democracy in America: “There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.”   Over time the courts have entered to resolve many contentious political disputes in America, both because the other branches have failed to act, but also because these disputes implicated constitutional legal questions. 
    Questions about reapportionment, presidential power to seize the steel mills during the Korean War, executive privilege and subpoenas, and presidential foreign policy power all implicated difficult political questions often involving interbranch conflicts, but they also bore important constitutional questions that the Supreme Court eventually resolved, for good or bad, depending on your perspective.  While at one point the old political question doctrine deemed many issues non-justiciable (the courts should not hear them), since Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962) the courts have found fewer and fewer disputes to be beyond the purview of judicial review. The same can be said with the partial governmental shutdown and the extension of the debt limit.
    First, there are constitutional obligations that require funding.  No matter what Congress and the President fail to do, they cannot let the federal courts close.  One can argue that failing to fund the judiciary is a violation of Article III, section I in two distinct ways.  First, there is a separation of powers problem in forcing the courts to close if no agreement is reached on the debt limit.  Congress does not have the authority to act in a way to undermine the constitutional powers of the judiciary.  Second, Article III, Section I declares that judges shall receive a “Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.”  Defaulting on the debt limit and running out of money for judicial salaries clearly flies in the face of this language.
    Some might argue that running out of money is a legitimate reason for why Congress may not allocate money to pay the judges and keep the courts open.  However nothing in the text of the Constitution permits this exception.  Moreover, today it is the debt limit, maybe next time Congress uses the excuse “We are out of money”  to punish the judiciary for opinions it does not like.
    Second, Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment states that the “validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned.”  In refusing to extend the debt limit this is exactly what Congress (and the president) are doing.  They have a constitutional duty or obligation to fund the government.
    Third, think of the entire budget as a legal obligation.  Whether it is payments to bondholders, Social Security checks to grandma, food stamps and WIC to the poor, or Medicaid reimbursement payments to the states, the federal government has created legally binding obligations to third parties.  Were any of these creditors to sue in federal court they would have suffered the requisite injuries to have standing and ask the court to compel the federal government to fund their obligations.
    But what if a court did order Congress to pay its debts, what then?  Can it do that?  In Minnesota where the state government has shut down twice because of political disputes between the governor and the legislature, its courts ordered funding for essential governmental functions.   The judiciary ruled that the State had legally binding obligations and it directed the Minnesota Department of Revenue to disburse funds to pay its bills.  While the authority of state and federal courts are different, Minnesota‘s experience points to a path for the federal courts to act.  Moreover, in some cases, such as in Missouri v. Jenkins, 495 U.S. 33 (1990), the Supreme Court has ruled that courts do have the authority to order taxes increases and expenditures to fund court orders.  This could also be the case here with the shutdown or the extension of the debt limit.
    Finally, critics might argue that Supreme Court decision ordering the government to pay its bills would be unenforceable.  Perhaps, but such an order might serve as a catalyst for change, providing conditions or incentives to compel negotiation.  In effect, many court orders, or even the threat of litigation, encourage settlement or negotiation.  This is exactly what is needed now.

Debating Government: The Competing Values of Public Service and Market Activity

JFK, Space-Aliens, and Government
I am not a big believer in conspiracies. It was a single shooter in Dallas in 1963 and there is no massive government cover-up over space aliens and area 51 in New Mexico. Yet the events unfolding in Wisconsin over efforts to strip public employees of their bargaining rights and the ugly Prosser/Kloppenburg Supreme Court race, the potential government shutdown in DC, and the coming train wreck over the budget in Minnesota are all connected. The common thread in all these events is a simple question and debate: “Why Government?”

Why Government?
More specifically, the question is over the value of government in terms of what it uniquely does or performs. It is a core debate over whether the free market and logic and values are sufficient for ordering American society, distributing wealth and income, and delivering the good life, or whether the government itself is necessary or needed to accomplish this task. The core debate then is over whether there are unique values and contribution that government and its workers offer, thereby distinguishing them from the free market.

This is a question that has dominated my teaching in classes on ethics, public policy, and economic development policy for at least a decade. It is also a question that has become the focus of many talks I give to community and governmental groups. The latter especially are asking me to address it as they feel increasingly assaulted and demonized.

Americans have never really liked government. It started perhaps with our animosity to George III when we dumped tea in Boston Harbor. American ambivalence can be seen in attitudes over government programs such as welfare and Social Security (we hate one, like the other), and views on government regulation (we like the FDA to regulate drugs to be sure they are safe but dislike this regulation when it slows down what we hope are new cures for cancer). Even the TEA party is torn over government–they want less taxes and less government and plea for a more libertarian society, yet they demand that the government keep their hands off of their Medicare and Social Security.

But the most recent disdain toward government was launched by Ronald Reagan in 1981 when he declared government the problem, not the solution, and also stated that one of the most feared statements one can hear is “I'm from the government and I'm here to help.” Statements such as this demonized government, and it is not hard to connect this spirit to current attacks on school teachers and public employees by NJ and WI Governors Christie and Walker.

Not Necessarily a Partisan Issue
At the crudest level the debate over the unique value of government is a Republican/Democrat one, with the former described as anti-government and the latter pro. This is not a fair characterization. Many GOP like some aspects of government–the military and the police, and many Democrats dislike parts of government–regulation of reproductive and marital rights. But even more deeply, under president Clinton and VP Gore, embraced ideas from Reinventing Government by Gaebler and Osborne to re-engineer the public sector. The latter argued for the introduction of many private sector ideas and the spirit of entrepreneurship into the government in order to revitalize it. They wanted to make government, as Ross Perot said: “Run more like a business.”

Thus we saw statements that government should treat citizens more like customers, that it should be more market savvy, and that it should do more privatization and encourage competition to save money and improve performance. Why all this discussion is charming, what it failed to do was two things: 1) It misunderstood something the constitutional framers saw; and 2) it failed to capture a unique conception or role for government.


Markets versus Government
The American Constitutional framers feared powerful government. Efficient governments are a threat to individual liberty. Their goal in designing a complex government with checks and balances, separation of powers, bicameralism, and staggered electoral terms was to slow down the process of political change. It was to prevent an impulsive tyranny of the majority from infringing the rights of the minority. Better to create an inefficient government than an efficient one that makes the trains run on time at the expense of individual rights. Thus, a constitutional government such as ours was never meant to be efficient in the sense of competing with the private sector.

Efficiency is only one of the values of government, but there are others. This is the second mistake now being made. Governments are not just supposed to be efficient, they are also supposed to be fair, care about equity and equality, and respect other values such as transparency and respect for individual rights. Gaebler and Osborne failed to appreciate this, and so do many in both parties as they argue over the value of government.

Thus, on one level, listen to economists and they will tell you that the rationale for government is to address the problem of market failure. Government must act when the market either cannot or is not able to solve problems. Classically these are problems involving public goods such as national defense or security, or externalities such as pollution. These are issues where there is no market incentive to solve the problems.

The Value of Government
Yet this economic justification of government is thin. There is a broader value for government based on democracy and the public interest. As I discussed with my students the other day, many local governments in MN have recreation centers, parks, and libraries. True there may be no return on investment to them and they may not be efficient to operate, but that is not the end of the debate on whether government should provide them. Instead, it is about whether the people want these amenities. It is the peoples’ choice to offer these goodies. Moreover, the way the government makes choices and decisions are not always efficient but again, efficiency is not the final value. We do not value elections, due process, or civil liberties and rights because they are efficient, we prize them because they promote fairness and accountability.

The private sector almost singularly promotes efficiency and the bottom line. In the end, while many businesses claim “they do it all for you,” how many of you believe that is true? It is only to the extent that doing it for you is profitable or makes sense. Think about how much we all hate phone trees with businesses–it may be cheap to do this but does any customer think this is good service.

Citizens are not Customers
Contrary to what some may contend, citizens are not customers. A business-customer relationship is a cash nexus with loyalty determined along a singular dimension. A government-citizen relationship is deeper, reflecting many more complex values and connections regarding democracy, transparency, and accountability. “No taxation without representation” captures this sentiment while “No user fee without representation” misses it. The former suggests a right to a voice, the latter not necessarily. There is a big worry when some advocate that government should be more like a business. It is a logic that changes and challenges the basic values of government–suggesting government is not necessary and that it is simply a thorn in the side of the market.

Conclusion
The real debate in Wisconsin, DC, and St. Paul is one over government versus the market. It is one about the values of government and what it can contribute to the promotion of a good society. This is a debate worth having, and it is one that advocates for government need to reframe in terms of a language and set of values that describes what government uniquely can do. If they fail to do that they will lose the debate.