Shut it all down.

• Author: Suderman, Peter
• Position: Follow-Up - On government shutdown

As congressional Republicans and Democrats squabbled over budget deficits and government shutdowns in Clinton-era Washington, Contributing Editor Carolyn Lochhead took both sides to task. In "Child's Play" (February 1996), Lochhead wrote "Republicans say they will save America's children, while Clinton claims that he will save America's values." Both, according to Lochhead, were wrong.

"Even if the two sides agree on an honest seven-year plan [to balance the budget] before the 1996 election," she wrote, "it will represent at best only a modest step toward forestalling a problem that will leave American children and American values alike wrecked on the shoals of today's potent elderly voting bloc." The Republican proposal would lead to a balanced budget in the near term, but it would leave the country's long-term finances in deep trouble, starting around 2010. "That's when the 76 million-strong baby boom generation begins to retire and sign up for benefits in the big entitlement programs that now drive the federal budget: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and civil service and military retirement."

In October 2013, fiscal disputes in Congress once again led to a shutdown showdown. The proximate cause for the impasse was a Republican charge to defund the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. ObamaCare, but it arrived against the backdrop of worsening federal entitlement...