I'm Confused

I'm even confused by this article.

So it sounds like it costs more to shutdown government than it does to keep it operating. We are shutting down because we cannot pass a short-term spending bill to fund the government budget. We cannot pass a short-term government spending bill because we cannot agree on the areas for spending cuts. We have to cut spending because of our growing deficit. Yet, by doing nothing the costs of not operating the government will exceed those that would have occurred had we not shut down causing the deficits to increase.

So it seems to me it would be better to pass a short-term budget that maintains all federal programs at their current budgets until we can pass a long-term budget bill that cuts some of the programs. Clearly the threat of shutdown is not causing Republicans and Democrats to work faster. I would think there are somethings both sides of the aisle agree should be cut. Start there and include them in the short-term budgets. This allows debate to continue of the big ticket items (defense, medicare, etc.). Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like logic and common sense have left the Capitol.