The shutdown fight is a critical moment in the expansion of the government

THE SHUTDOWN FIGHT IS A CRITICAL MOMENT IN THE EXPANSION OF THE GOVERNMENT. It’s not hard to understand why many Americans are bored by the government shutdown battle now underway in Washington, D.C. They’ve seen it many times before, and they know it never amounts to much in the end. So why pay rapt attention and get all agitated about it?

But the current shutdown is interesting in one particular way — for what it says about the continued, apparently inexorable expansion of government, and how it happens.

The Democratic Party’s biggest policy achievement of this century is the 2010 passage of Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act. Establishing a national healthcare system had been a Democratic goal for generations. With Obamacare, the party got closer than ever before, as

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