The government should not be in the business of individuals' livelihoods. The role of government is to protect individual rights (to life and liberty) The more the government is shutdown the more people should realize there are private solutions to the government coercion.

The purpose of the shutdown it to force the two parties in our two party system to negotiate. The populous is represented by both parties and the one with the majority would just run away without this check. It's important that the two parties concede some ground to the other.