The current federal government shutdown, which is the longest in United States history, was completely avoidable. The appropriations process in Congress is so incredibly broken, making it impossible for lawmakers in either chamber to return to regular order to get spending bills done on time before the end of the fiscal year. This stark inability of Congress to perform one of its most basic functions is a result of years of governing by crisis, something both Republican and Democratic leaders are guilty.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is desperate to win over the radical-left wing of the Democratic Party. With arms crossed and heels dug into the ground, she has lowered the bar of negotiation to something you’d expect from a child on a playground, not someone third in line to the presidency.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy obviously didn’t get the message from his establishment predecessor John Boehner, who routinely punished House conservatives for dissent, when he unceremoniously booted conservative Freedom Caucus Republican Rep. Jody Hice from the House Armed Services Committee.

According to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data, the federal government spent $3.9 trillion in 2017. In Argentina, total federal spending in 2017 was $161 billion.

Mark Twain once commented “the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” This quote should come to mind whenever we hear the apocalyptic forecasts associated with the partial shutdown. Here’s a reality check: the partial shutdown is not nearly as bad as Democrats and pundits are making it out to be. The electricity and water still work and our roads are still paved. From what I can tell, my neighborhood doesn’t look like a scene out of “Mad Max.”

While some readers of this column are perhaps already familiar with this historical anecdote, it’s worth repeating every now and then that as recently as the year 2000, the state of Ohio had more paved roads than all of Russia combined. Please think about that for a minute. Ohio, a seemingly middle-of-the-economic-pack U.S. state, not too long ago had more paved roads than a country that is eleven time zones large.