Government shutdowns aren’t really shutdowns. But they are a bad deal for everyone

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A “government shutdown” – as we’ve come to define it – is expected starting October 1 if lawmakers can’t agree to pass a spending bill.

It will affect everyday lives, creating headaches for government workers who won’t get paychecks, costing taxpayers billions in lost productivity and cutting off certain services.

But most of the government, as it touches people’s everyday lives, will continue to churn.

Mail will still arrive. Social Security benefits and Medicare claims will still be paid. Planes will still take off. Soldiers and border agents will still report for duty, although without a paycheck.

That some lawmakers are using the paychecks of government workers as leverage in a spending fight is insane to Max Stier. He’s CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization whose goal is to help build a better government and improve the performance of government – which basically makes him a professional cheerleader for civil servants.

I called him to ask how a shutdown would affect people, and he started off by arguing it is completely wrong to view what is approaching as a shutdown. Excerpts of our conversation, conducted by phone, are below.

WOLF: The 30,000-foot question might seem pretty obvious to a lot of people, but not to everyone: What’s wrong with a government shutdown?

STIER: I’m going to run counternarrative here for a second.

The bottom line here is that a government shutdown is not Armageddon, but it’s a really bad deal for the American people. And we use the term “government shutdown” when that is not really what’s at play here.

Three-quarters or so of the federal budget is actually mandatory, meaning…