The countdown clock is running until appropriations run out.

Nobody in DC seems concerned with something as mundane as paying the bills as they're all concerned with gun control. While it may be all fine and good to adopt a program like that having the legislature failing to pay the bills let alone the bureaucrats does lead to the absurd yet real situation that nobody would be around to administer said whiz-kid propositions. Senator Warren of Massachusetts seems to have plans for everything little concern under the sun except paying the bills.

The Internal Revenue Service will structurally collapse in terms of operational effectiveness if we slip into another funding crisis or indeed another shutdown and no fancy enactments or pronouncements from Capitol Hill would make that go away. While overall bureau-wide we're only down a couple percentage points on personnel the division that does the heavy lifting actually interacting with citizens and processing 1040s (where the majority of federal revenue is derived) is down 25% in terms of personnel. Another shutdown or even a hiring stoppage due to a continuing resolution would cripple the agency as staff are getting fed up and even though we cannot strike we are not conscripts either. Attrition has been high enough to make generals from history like Ulysses S. Grant look askance.

Are any of the candidates talking about the hard stuff like this? Nope. Medicare For All! Grab All The Guns! Green New Deal! That's all that's being discussed in all these candidates debates. It would be bitterly ironic if there's next to no functioning bureaucracy left because most of us quit in disgust at the antics of both parties.