The "Government Shutdown" and Public Goods

There is a lot of confusion in the public about what the "government shutdown" actually entails, and I found a short article that lists what you can and cannot do as a result of the "shutdown." The list of things that you cannot do as a result of the government shutdown includes many "public goods" like national parks, zoos, and museums.

In public choice, government provision of public goods is justified by the conclusion that private provision of these goods fails to achieve allocative efficiency. However, many of the public goods that are currently unavailable to the public include services like visiting the Smithsonian Museums or the National Gallery of Art. Not only are these two examples of services which are clearly rival and excludable, but this shutdown is causing thousands of dollars of deadweight loss as they are not available for consumption in the market.

In my opinion, this shutdown shows why the standard for what constitutes a public good should be more in accordance with the definition of true public good. Public provision on the Smithsonian, the National Gallery of Art, and other museums and services clearly shows public provision failing to achieve allocative efficiency in the wake of the government shutdown.