Countries other than the US are puzzled by the US’s reckless destructive way of governing.
That leaders of one of the most powerful nations on earth willingly provoked a crisis that suspends public services and decreases economic growth is astonishing to many.
American policymakers “are facing the unthinkable prospect of shutting down the government as they squabble over the inconsequential accomplishment of a 10-week funding extension”, Mexico’s The News wrote in an editorial.
In the United States, however, government shutdowns – or the threat thereof – have become an accepted negotiating tactic, thanks to the quirks of the American federal system, which allows different branches of government to be controlled by different parties. It was a structure devised by the nation’s founders to encourage compromise and deliberation, but lately has had just the opposite effect.
Oh I don’t think it’s become an accepted negotiating tactic. Most people see it as plain gangsterish extortion.
“Canadians can only pray their economy won’t be collateral damage,” writes John Ibbitson in Canada’s Globe and Mail. “Anything that drags down the American economy drags the Canadian economy down with it.”
And this could be another reason why the United States has shutdown crises and other countries don’t – because the United States can afford to. At least up until now, the American economy has been able to continue to grind along despite shutdown disruptions that would stagger other nations.
And it also makes it all the more disgusting – dragging down not just our economy but those of other countries too, out of sheer infantile pigheadedness and resentment.