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October 1st, 2013 
Peter Nolan
On the other hand, while the animals were fed, civil rights investigators at
the Department of Justice were on furlough. Their work was considered not
essential.
The primary interface between the public and the government shutdown was at
the National Park Service’s 368 sites. During the 28-day closure an
estimated seven million visits to places like the Statue of Liberty,
Smithsonian Institution and Yosemite National Park were lost.
The shutdown of passport and visa offices also hurt the public. People who had
family emergencies and needed travel documents were out of luck. If a family
member overseas died or needed emergency help and you didn’t have a passport
already you were not going to get one any time soon. By the time the
shutdown was over, there were 200,000 unprocessed applications.
In the end though the shutdown pain was
transient. It is remembered, and vaguely at that, as a temporary
inconvenience rather than something that caused lasting damage.
Probably the worst effect was on the reputation of House Speaker Newt
Gingrich. The previous year he had led a refreshed and radicalised
Republican party as it regained control of the House of Representatives.
Gingrich blamed the failure of negotiations aimed at avoiding the shutdown on
the rudeness of then President Bill Clinton. The president had given
Gingrich a ride back from the funeral of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin on Air Force One a few weeks earlier, and, Gingrich claimed, had not
invited him to his onboard office to talk about the budget the entire flight
back from Israel.
Clinton’s aides then released a photo showing the men on Air Force One in
intense conversation – about the budget. Gingrich was embarrassed. More
importantly the public ended up blaming the Republicans for the whole
debacle.
The following year Clinton was re-elected with a landslide. The Republicans
lost seats, but not their majority, in the House of Representatives. There
is very little reason to think that the outcome of this will be any
different: the memory of the practical effects of the event will be hazy –
except when it is time to go to the ballot box, where the Republicans will
pay the price.
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