Federal shutdown enters a second week

Soon we can begin counting the shutdown in weeks rather than days. Now that we’re headed into a fresh week with gridlock still going strong in the nation’s capital, where do we go from here? The idea of playing the “blame game” is not very interesting to me. I’m more interested, at this point, whether or not the American people will begin to have the attitude of, “so what?”

Report from Politico:

The government shutdown is lurching into a second week after a fruitless weekend on Capitol Hill.

A rare Saturday session was dominated by now-familiar shutdown messaging from Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate, with each side trying to blame the other for keeping the government shuttered. Even House-passed legislation that would pay federal workers prompted an angry reaction from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

There were no signs of serious negotiations over the weekend, and the longer the standoff drags on the more likely the fight will bump up against the Oct. 17 deadline to raise the debt ceiling — setting the stage for a giant battle over fiscal policy in the coming weeks.

More than a dozen lawmakers took to the Sunday shows to keep making their rhetorical case about which side is being unreasonable in the congressional stalemate.

“The House has passed four bills to keep the government open and to provide fairness to the American people under Obamacare,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told ABC’s “This Week.” “Even after the Senate has rejected — they’ve rejected all four of them … we asked to sit down with the Senate and have a conversation. They said no.”

What if the government held a shutdown and nobody came? Is the public just that disgusted with Washington in general that some people, maybe only on the inside, are relieved that the place is shutdown? If the President’s approval rating continues dropping into the low 40s, and we know Congress is hovering around 10% approval, might the public simply be collectively yawning over the prospect of a bloated, dysfunctional federal body coming to a halt for a few days, maybe weeks?

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m failing to see much outrage other than from those inside the beltway or in the media.

Then again, “shutdown” is a relative term. Apparently 83% of the federal government is still open and functional. Does closing 17% of the federal government constitute a “shutdown” or maybe just a week of binge dieting?