We’ve all heard of the game show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” If you haven’t, congratulations, I think that means you won a new car. While the show and its underlying premise are laughable (I mean come on, who doesn’t like seeing adults look silly on television), it is only funny because the contestants are regular people and the questions are largely useless trivia.

Imagine how horrifying the show would be if it featured the leaders of the United States and had them competing with 5th graders to answer basic questions regarding how far their minds have developed since birth. Heck, forget fifth graders, some of our elected officials would probably struggle in a battle of wits with a 3-year-old, and here are five reasons why:

First, some members of Congress lack the capacity for category recognition. This unfortunate handicap has turned up in spades during the government shutdown and in the days preceding it.

There are legislators aplenty who reiterate time and again that former presidents have all negotiated on federal budgets, painting President Barack Obama as an outlier for not negotiating on Obamacare.

What these malcontents fail to grasp is that previous budget negotiations have centered on, well, matter pertaining to the budget. The Affordable Care Act is not a budget issue, unlike the usual suspects these negotiations are famous for such as taxation and entitlement reform. Obama has repeatedly said he will negotiate on those issues.

So while your niece might be able to put round objects in round holes, your lawmakers might spend half of their terms trying to jam a square peg into a triangle-shaped hole, only stopping to hold news conferences about how diligently he is working on the problem.

Second, a few of our lawmakers have trouble accepting the existence of things they can’t actually see.

It is widely known that babies will become upset when their caregiver leaves the room, as they have not yet developed the brainpower to assure themselves that things still exist when they walk out the door.

Some of our representatives suffer from the same problem. For example, claims that the government shutdown should not affect open air monuments — bolstered by the presence of war veterans, no less — rest upon the idea that since we can’t see any work being done when these places are open, there must not be any work that needs to be done.

Never mind the people who work behind the scenes to keep these places clean, free of potentially dangerous objects and secure from attacks; never mind the people who need to be ready to respond to visitors who become unruly or who have medical emergencies. Obviously those people don’t exist, which probably comes as quite a shock to their families and friends.

Third, many of those we have sent to Washington can’t comprehend the concept of another’s viewpoint. While children are able to tell you what someone else might think before they enter formal schooling, this is probably too much to ask of those leading your country.

Democrats will tell anyone and everyone that the government shutdown is the result of Republicans who want the shutdown to continue since they hate government, or something like that. It has become such a common talking point that there are rumors it will be added to the official party platform.

Republicans will say the same thing, except instead of Democrats hating government, they hate the American people, American business, the American dream and, especially, the American eagle.

Fourth, at least some officials don’t get the concept of acquiescing to justifiably powerful forces.

Kids largely accept the idea of authority. The general concept goes that if the rules say someone else is in charge, or at least is partially in charge, you shouldn’t just tell them “go away” and proceed to do whatever the hell you want.

Some Representatives and Senators would respond to such talk by saying things like, “That would be giving up,” or “I’m not going to forsake my principles,” or “Wait, you mean I have to live in the real world?”

The half-baked idea of a small ideological fringe group trying to defund enacted legislation with little support in the Senate and absolutely no support from the president isn’t reminiscent of David and Goliath; it is more like going into Burger King and holding up the line until the manager agrees to negotiate with you on the price of french fries. You might make a big scene, but you’re probably going to get kicked out without so much as a ketchup packet.

Finally, it seems that almost every lawmaker in Congress is totally assured of their infallibility.

Youngsters might think they know a lot, but even they understand the phrase “gee, I guess I was wrong.” Those words might as well be written in Greek with a heavy German accent — translated from Chinese — as far as our legislators are concerned.

There is nothing wrong with sticking up for yourself when you know you are right, but to insist on things like “there is no debt ceiling” and “we can’t actually default because we make a lot of money” is the equivalent of saying “screw reasons, I’m just going to make stuff up and stick with it.”

All in all, there are a great many things that separate our elected officials from young children. Their expensive clothes, their expensive haircuts, their expensive lifestyles and their penchant for finding microphones like mice find cheese all come to mind. What they have in common, however, is probably far more important; namely, the level of their intellectual development.