Shutting down the shutdown

The federal government shutdown that never should have happened is over.

One cheer for the Senate. It only took 44 days for Democrats to do what everyone knew last month they would have to do — cave.

Thank the Lord Senate Republicans didn't surrender this time because of the liberal media that always blames them and cranks out stories about starving babies and other imaginary or exaggerated victims of a federal shutdown.

Government shutdowns always end eventually. And everyone who’s been hurt always gets compensated for their lost pay or SNAP credits.

But as we've said here often, shutdowns would never happen if Congress could get off its butt once in a while and pass its 12 annual appropriation bills when it's supposed to — which is before the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1.

But as we were reminded by the few media people who made that point, the so-called leaders we send to work for us in Washington have passed their annual budgets on time only four times since 1977 and zero times since 1997.

This year was no different, except the shutdown lasted longer than any other in history.

Democrats pretended the big fight was over the extension of subsidies for Obamacare, which not a single Republican in Congress voted for in 2010 and a few sensible Democrats now admit is a mess that has further screwed up health care and driven insurance prices to the moon.

Democrats hoped the thought of losing Obamacare subsidies and the cut-off of SNAP benefits would provide the political pressure they needed to get their way.

But their Obamacare card didn't work.

We all know what really ended the shutdown was the chaos at our airports when federal air traffic control workers were laid off or quit because of stress and financial hardship.

Anyone who's flown on an airplane in the last decade knows how crowded, uncomfortable and unreliable air travel has become.

But the flight delays and massive cancellations that affected the plans of millions of travelers during the last few weeks were not new, just much worse than usual.

The end of the shutdown is not going to fix the carriers' problems or make air travel great again — if it ever really was.

American Airlines won't be buying up huge old 747 jumbo jets and reinstalling bars and pianos in coach like they did in the 1970s.

And the Federal Aviation Administration — aka the U.S. Post Office of the airways — will still control our air traffic with its antiquated methods, obsolete computers and high salaries.

The FAA — whose 45,000 workforce includes 35,000 controllers whose salaries average about $145,000 a year — is one of those bloated federal agencies that should no longer exist.

It should have been privatized and turned into a non-profit corporation decades ago — which is what 60 other countries, including Canada, the UK and Germany, have done to varying degrees.

Meanwhile, while we pray for Trump to make that major miracle occur, we're back to being abused by our kick-the-funding-can-down-the-road Congress.

The continuing resolution that was in the bill that reopened the government gives back federal workers their jobs and pay, but it does nothing to permanently solve our recurring government shutdown crises.

It only extends current federal funding levels through the end of January 2026. Then the next government shutdown showdown between Republicans and Democrats will be featured on our TV screens every night.

We can cheer the end of this shutdown. But it’s not going to change how the government or the airlines work.

The same people are still serving in Congress. The same people are still running the airlines and airports.

It seems to me, all the shutdown did for 44 days was cover up their incompetence.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of "The New Reagan Revolution" (St. Martin's Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation.