Government has no requirement to be efficient, because it has no local competition. Can you imagine if the board members in a business were in a disagreement an

Government has no requirement to be efficient, because it has no local competition. Can you imagine if the board members in a business were in a disagreement and they decided "oh, lets just shut this down until we can come to an agreement?" Their customers would be pretty disappointed, and they'd look for an alternative supplier of goods or services. People would jump at the chance to fill such a gap in the market if there's an opportunity to make money. When they decide to reopen, they'd find that they don't have a business any longer. (Or it will be much smaller if they can salvage some loyal customers) A business also wants to be as resourceful as possible with the money it has. It won't hire people for "bullshit jobs" (as Graeber calls them), when it could either not have the role or could replace it with a robot. Governments on the other hand, will hire people just to spend the money it has, or to justify increasing the amount it needs to collect. As you rightly note, people aren't outraged because they see that despite the government being shut down, that the country is still running OK for most part. Then clearly not all of those federal employee roles are necessary. Perhaps if they were cut back to the bare minimum, taxpayers could be saving a lot of money? People are more outraged at the idea that they're paying for government employees to have bullshit jobs, and thinking we should have shutdowns more often.