David Gamage and David Louk write for Los Angeles Times, October 20, 2013
It is difficult to explain the recent government shutdown to citizens of other nations. In most of the world’s democracies, this kind of disruption can’t happen. Rules are in place to keep the government running even if a new budget isn’t passed on time. The U.S. needs to reform its budgetary processes to prevent the kind of crisis we saw recently.