On Tuesday, October 1, 2013 at 12:01 a.m., the federal government shut down. For the first time in 17 years, members of the federal government who were deemed “non-essential” were told not to report to work. As of Sunday afternoon, the shutdown remains in effect and informal surveys conducted by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal suggest that the American people the shutdown will last at least two weeks.

The shutdown is in effect because majorities of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, and President Obama cannot agree on a budget. Republicans in the House have passed a continuing resolution that would temporarily fund the government, but that would not fund the Affordable Care Act (often referred to as “Obamacare”). Senate Democrats have rejected the bill defunding the healthcare law and President Obama has said he will not sign any funding legislation that defunds or delays the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Ironically the insurance marketplaces, a key component of the Affordable Care Act, went into effect the very same day the government shut down.

Despite the fact that many political pundits tend to focus on which of the two political parties is to blame for the current shutdown, I encourage Dickinsonians to look beyond simply Republicans versus Democrats; Representatives versus Senators; and Tea Party versus Obama. I suggest we engage in the more substantive debate about what we expect and desire from our federal government. For instance, if we want less government, then we should be prepared to live without various benefits our government currently provides. If we want more government, then we should be prepared to pay more in taxes.

At the outset of the week, I imagined I would write about political polarization and gerrymandering because many argue–including panelists and audience members attending last week’s Citizenship and Partisanship event–that it is to blame for the current situation in Washington. However, current political science research does not tend to support that claim. In fact, our understanding of what causes polarization in Congress is rather thin. As political scientist Seth Masket points out, “‘civility initiatives’ have gone nowhere, making primaries more open doesn’t seem to produce more moderate officeholders, and California’s top-two reform hasn’t made much of a difference yet… Nor does non-partisan redistricting tend to produce less partisan legislators. And if efforts to get senators to sit together at State of the Union addresses have moderated the Senate at all, it’s really hard to see it.” Thus, even though political polarization may well be the cause of the government shutdown, understanding and addressing the causes of polarization is challenging.

Now that we are a week into the shutdown, I would like to offer a polemic: What if the government shutdown is not severe enough? What if, in order for a long-term solution to be reached, more people need to feel the consequences of governmental inaction? Over the weekend, the House passed a bill that guarantees back pay to federal employees after the shutdown ends. The Senate and President have indicated they too support such legislation. This enables government agencies to send their furloughed employees back to work knowing they will be compensated for their labor, which the Pentagon has already announced it will do.

While I certainly do not want to suggest that federal employees should bear the full brunt of Congress’s inability to pass a budget, without real consequences shutting down the government is essentially an empty threat allowing both parties to dig in their heels and wait. Perhaps it is time to have larger-scale conversations about the role of government in American society. One way to make those discussions tangible might be for individuals to see exactly what government does, and what better way to see what government does than to experience the consequences of not having it? What if military service-members stopped getting paid? What if potential terror threats went unanalyzed? What if senior citizens stopped getting social security checks? What if public schools stopped receiving federal funding? If we want individuals to think politics matters and to participate in the governmental process, then the decisions government makes–or does not make–must affect the people themselves.