Stop being ignorant, It affects lots of people, it affects places that are funded by the government including daycare my parents and a lot of her friends got laid off as well, she works at headstart program. If you don't know its basically babies, pre-K, & Kindergarten blah blah. However, parents don't know what to do and have to lose work hours which is pretty horrible because a lot of people where I live at live check by check to pay bills and have a steady budget on food so one thing like this can throw a family into bankruptcy. Where my parents work there are 1200 kids that go there and have no where to go for daycare assistance. Also, states could potentially lose a lot money if this lasts for awhile due to tourism being cut since like you clearly said closed national parks, along with museums, statue of liberty etc.
National parks and the like are nothing to fund.
The other programs you mentioned are things that need to be cut from our budget, anyway. The Federal Government has no business providing money to the states (in fact, that is strictly forbidden within the Constitution. The people responsible for that precedent and allowing it to continue should be hung for treason). Nor should it ever be allowed to directly pay individual citizens who are not specifically bound by an employment contract. It should not be involved in education.
Honestly, I think it's too late to save our country. We're doomed to the fate of Rome - our last chance at stopping that went by some three years ago.
I do like, however, that this issue has exposed the true mindset of many on Capitol Hill. They honestly think that the country (and quite possibly the world) revolves around them - that everything will simply stop if the 'government' isn't actively involved in it.
Nothing could be further from the truth. While there are areas that will be impacted - that really only forces the discussion of whether or not the government should be involved in those areas, anyway.
After all - what would happen if, right now, a nuclear bomb were to go off over DC and wipe out multiple layers of our government and its secession contingencies?
Or if, decades down the line, some group of people gain influence and control over the government that that has a hold on the programs and institutions we see most greatly impacted by this shut-down... if government has become -that- central to our ability to survive... then how can we possibly be a country of and by the people?
If an argument can effectively hold the nation hostage ... then why can't a cabal of neo-Nazis, black panthers, or some other group of usurpers?
And these are the same people that want to take firearms out of society.
We, like every other generation, live in interesting times.