Public Opinion on the U.S. Government Shutdown

My favorite comments thus far:

“If I were a panda in the National Zoo in Washington, I would be outraged that my zoo is closed because of the government shutdown and my zookeepers aren’t being paid, while the House Zoo on Capitol Hill stays open with its members still paid. I would petition to have the animals take over law-making, and the House members put in cages and fed bamboo shoots. Then we could watch pandas on C-span and would have budgets on time, too. Win-win!” – Nicholas Kristof for the New York Times

 

“Our government may be shutting down in a few hours. So, folks, get ready for absolutely no noticeable difference.” – Conan O’Brien

 

“The shutdown would be less expensive if the Obama administration didn’t have workers setting up barricades around the World War II memorial and the Lincoln Memorial and if guards weren’t stationed to prevent citizens from walking on federal paths and trails.” – from Brooklyn

 

“And who are these people, exactly, who will realize how useless most of the government is? Surely they are not low-income preschoolers and their parents who benefit from Head Start. They are not the poor, elderly, or disabled who need efficient resolution of their Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security claims. They are not people who visit national parks. They are not veterans. They are not people who believe in the correct apportionment of the House through the Census. They are not people who care about a safe workplace or civil rights enforcement. I don’t recognize this as the profile of anyone I know. Maybe they’re all in Rep. Blackburn’s district.” – from Los Angeles

 

“‘Listen, we’re going to pay you. We’re just not going to pay you today, but we’re going to pay you with interest, and we will pay everybody that’s due money’ [Florida Republican Representative Ted Yoho’s word for America on the worries of the current shutdown’s effect on global markets]

If I told my credit card company that they’d raise my interest rate.” – from New York