[pmorici]

"I'd also like to see a ticker that shows how the deficit is behaving during the massive furlough ... is it going down?"

Doubtful; historically furloughed employees are given back pay once a shutdown of this nature is over. Also don't forget all the lost productivity from all those employees sitting at home instead of doing what they normally do.

"are furloughed federal employees eligible for unemployment compensation?"

Yes.

"we can see what it's like without most of the government"

I don't think you can. If you didn't mow your grass or trim the landscaping in your yard for a week or two no one would likely notice. Let it go longer and all of a sudden your property is the eye sore on the block and you're going to get angry calls from the neighbors.

I'm with you on government being generally too big or rather inefficient but politicians never seem to want to address that in a meaningful way it's always in terms of we are spending to little or to much. Instead they might look at making it easier to fire an under performing worker and provide more budget flexibility and incentives for automation and efficiency instead of just throwing more clerical workers or benjamins at a problem.