Earl Glynn
Obama’s administration in 2013 proactively closed government websites and national parks to inflict pain on the public during government shutdown
How will President Joe Biden’s administration prioritize payments to avoid default if the debt limit is reached?
What does history teach us about President Barack Obama’s administration in the 2013 government shutdown that Biden’s administration may follow if the debt limit is reached?
The US Government shut down for 16 days on Oct. 1, 2013 when Congress was unable to agree on a budget for the new fiscal year.
During that shutdown the Obama administration proactively blocked government websites —including fully-automatic websites like time.gov — to inflict inconvenience and pain on the public.
A site was counted as “blocked” when a government agency took actions to deny or limit information to the public that would normally appear automatically without any needed human intervention.
Government websites are normally available at times the government is closed, like evenings, weekends and holidays. Why would a closure due to Congressional debate about the budget be any different?
Obama closed national monuments and national parks to inconvenience as many as possible. The 16-day shutdown in 2013 resulted in a loss of nearly 8 million visits to the parks.
According to a 2014 NPS report, the 16-day shutdown in 2013 resulted in an overall loss of 7.88 million visits to the parks and a loss of $414 million in NPS visitor spending in gateway communities across the country.
Biden’s reaction if we face a debt limit problem will likely be to prioritize payments to cause maximal pain on the public and chaos in our society. Time will tell, but will time.gov work?
What websites will be blocked? What parks will be closed? What else might Biden do?
Cloward and Piven would be proud of Biden’s (and Obama’s) efforts to overwhelm our system of government.
