Third World on the Potomac

What's the mark of a Third World country? I've seen a lot of them, and to me the clearest trait is the squalor of the public realm.

The rich people in your standard dictatorship/kleptocracy of course do just fine. But anything that's public -- schools, museums, roads, hospitals, legal system and courts, customs office and civil service -- is either run down or corrupt. If you had to trade places with the top level of a "bad" country, you'd be OK. But if you had to rely on the public facilities, you'd be in trouble -- as their people are.

Which somehow comes to mind as the U.S. Government prepares to shut down. Two tiny little anecdotes of impending Third World-ism in Washington:

- Yesterday I met a senior diplomat from a very large and important country. (Hint: I write about it a lot, and used to live there. Also, it has pandas.) A very senior delegation from that country is scheduled to meet this coming week with a very senior U.S. official. (Hint: her husband used to be president.) This meeting has been in the works for months, and involves areas of cooperation, as in energy research or policy toward Iran and North Korea, and of disagreement as well. These are talks that should be held and business that needs to be done.

But if the U.S. government is shut down, the meeting can't happen, because the State Department will be officially "closed" except for emergency functions. The delegation is set to leave from this other country's capital at just about the same time as the shutdown deadline. If they don't take off -- and the shutdown's averted, they'll miss their meetings. If they do take off and the shutdown occurs, the trip will be an (embarrassing) waste. The diplomat was sweating bullets: would he have to call them on the runway and say: Sorry, this government has been up and running since 1787, but it's out of business now?

- I have relatives who live in Saudi Arabia. A large group of high schoolers, including their son, from an international school in Riyadh is excited about their upcoming spring trip to Washington, which begins this weekend. For many it will be their first view of the United States. And they will find: Smithsonian museums closed. National Zoo closed. DC trash collectors furloughed. No parking-law enforcement (well, there's a bright side). The kinds of things one associates with ... the third world.

I could wrap this up with a little "Can't we all just along?" homily. But the truth is, it's not a question of nicely splitting the differences. One side of this dispute -- the House Republican majority, especially the 80+ freshman -- is spoiling for a showdown and shutdown that not even their titular leader Mr. Boehner wants. They'll hurt themselves politically, as their forebear Newt Gingrich did 16 years ago. But in the meantime they take the rest of us down with them.

(Illustration of fare card from DC Metro, which will stay open, via site of the Smithsonian, which will not.)

About the Author

James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. His latest book is China Airborne.

Cecile Richards says the organization will not spin off its abortion services, even though Congress is threatening to remove the group’s funding.

The United States Congress is trying hard to defund Planned Parenthood, once and for all. For a period of one year, the proposed American Health Care Act would prohibit federal funds from going to non-profit organizations that provide family-planning services, including abortions, and get more than $350 million in reimbursements under Medicaid, which provides health insurance to the poor, the elderly, children, pregnant women, and people with disabilities. When the Congressional Budget Office evaluated this clause of the bill, it “identified only one organization that would be affected: Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates and clinics.”

If this bill goes through, it would represent an existential threat for Planned Parenthood. The organization would be less able to serve poor women who are covered by state Medicaid programs, and it would likely have to close clinics or reduce its services because of the loss of funding. The main motivation behind this provision—and others like it that have come up at the state level—is opposition to abortion. This has lead some, including Ivanka Trump, to wonder why Planned Parenthood doesn’t just spin off its abortion services into a separate organization.