Such a fine government we have, in total deadlock with unpaid workers, leaders sniping at one another mercilessly and passing the blame for the whole nauseating situation.

The only people getting hurt due to the shutdown are lower-echelon government workers and pensioners who won’t get paid until the president and congressional leaders decide to get down to business and solve the budget impasse.

My own dad, a 20-year Air Force veteran, won’t get his hard-earned pension check until they do, and other vets will get progressively more agitated as the end of the month grows near. That doesn’t even mention the reaction of active-duty personnel. A severe visit to Capitol Hill from members of the 75th Ranger Regiment or SEAL Team Six would solve the problem in a serious hurry.

Even the Air Force Academy football team is affected. Their training staff won’t be on the job Saturday when AFA and Notre Dame hook up. This is one of the few times when I will root for the AFA, and it would be a shame if Notre Dame somehow won due to a lack of qualified people on the AFA sideline.

Raw power politics and nothing else is to blame for the shutdown. The congress wants to pass certain legislation and the President Clinton doesn’t want it to go through, so he vetoes it. Differences in philosophy on how to cut the budget and a number of “riders,” or items not directly relevant to the budget process, which have been attached to the bill are at the core of the disagreement.

Both sides are now using the shutdown in an attempt to gain favor with the public. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole are acting like the Beavis and Butt-head of the political world, with rhetoric that is degenerating to the level of the two cartoon geniuses:

NEWT: The president sucks! He sucks! He sucks!

BOB: Settle down, Newt. Huh-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh.

Expect that at the next press conference.

And, of course, the public gets nailed in the deal. People don’t get paid, services get cut back, and perhaps worst of all, the public gets more and more disillusioned with the government and loses interest in politics. And with the lack of leadership exhibited on both sides, who can blame the average voter for being apathetic?

The shutdown should never have happened in the first place. Both the president and the congressional leaders should have gotten together and solved their differences, or at least compromised and set the table for further progress later on.

The system that the government uses to set its budget is a miracle of stunt accounting, the number-crunching equivalent of a tightrope walk across the Grand Canyon. Normal people and commercial entities draw up a budget from the number zero and determine how much money is coming in and how much can go out.

But the Feds don’t. When a program is launched, growth is automatically factored in, so the program grows no matter what. Inflation and population growth are just two items taken into account.

Mandatory programs, such as Social Security, automatically get funds without any debate. Then there are the past programs that were to be funded but weren’t and the bills have to be paid now. That last item acts like a big-time MasterCard balance, and that’s why the national debt is so enormous that I don’t have space for the amount here. Using this system, debts are a certainty. Imagine if you planned your budget this way; Chapter 11, ahoy.

Perhaps the solution is to take budget authority away from Congress. After all, most of the expenditures authorized don’t really serve the nation as a whole; they are there to keep the home folks happy and keep senators and representatives in office.

A committee or office like the one that runs the Federal Reserve could be established, with members appointed to long terms by a joint executive/congressional committee. Congress and the president could make requests for funds but the committee would have the final say.

P.J. O’Rourke once wrote that giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

After this past week, it looks like it’s time to change the lock on the liquor cabinet and buy a new car.

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Kevin S. Kirby is a senior in journalism mass communication from Louisville, Ky. He has a B.A. in political science from the University of Wyoming.