Clueless Washington-shutdown reporting of the day:
The White House Office of Management and Budget directed the heads of federal agencies on late Monday to share contingency plans with senior managers. On Capitol Hill, the chairman of the Committee on House Administration warned “nonessential employees” on Tuesday to turn off their BlackBerrys during a shutdown, or risk punishment for working while on furlough.
[. . .]
In any shutdown, the government does not completely cease functioning, of course. ... Employees deemed essential to the functioning of government can come to work.
"Non-essential" workers also stayed home in the 1995 and 1996 shutdowns. How many of them do you suppose went back after the shtudowns ended? Does "all" sound about right?
It's always fair to ask what business government has in hiring people who aren't essential in the first place. The fact that so few bring that up when we have an economy running $1.5 trillion annual deficits shows how meaningless the word has become.
