Then, much of the federal government shut down between Dec. 16, 1995 and Jan. 6, 1996, in what the Washington Post called the "longest failure of basic governmental function in the history of the republic."

Now, this is going to sound petty, but Republicans, led by Gingrich, who was Speaker of the House, demanded that Clinton use the Congressional Budget Office to determine whether his budget plan balanced. The CBO would be more likely to say the budget wasn't balanced, which is exactly what it did.

But Clinton wanted to use his own bean counters at the Office of Management and Budget, which would be more likely to cast the budget in a good light, since those bean counters wrote it. And as expected, they said the budget balanced nicely.

The shutdown was extended when a huge snowstorm dumped two feet of snow on Washington.

Now that was a shutdown. Federal agencies and Congress had to determine who was an essential employee, and everyone else was sent home. There was widespread speculation that many of the non-essential employees came to work anyway, fearing that colleagues would learn that they were non-essential.

It was a real hardship on everyone. Senators had to learn how to operate their own elevators in the Capitol. (Yes, that was a problem. I saw one senator get on an elevator that clearly was going up, while he wanted to go down. He got off the elevator after I pointed out the arrow above the elevator was pointed up.)

As journalists, we spent days hanging around outside meeting rooms waiting for some word of progress. For days, we were forced to report on "incremental non-movement" – in other words, we wrote stories saying the negotiators for all sides had met, but nothing substantive had happened.

Everybody worried about not being able to do their holiday shopping. Remember, this was when Amazon was only a rainforest in South America.

We got all sorts of strange reports about what was going on in the room. For instance, we heard that Senate Budget Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta were conversing in Italian.

Things got really bad. The Washington Post reported a man in Frederick, Md., found that someone had parked in a space he had shoveled, so he used a garden hose to "entomb the offending car in ice."

And at Rocky's Video in Rockville, Md., a customer punched a clerk for not having a copy of "The Brady Bunch" in stock.

Now THAT was a shutdown.

Reform? What's That?

Legislation to "reform regulations on banks and financial services companies" may mean one thing to a credit union executive and quite another to a Wells Fargo customer who was ripped off by the bank.

So why can't our nation's pollsters figure that out? They're supposedly bright people.

Late last month, Morning Consult and Politico took one of their polls of the American electorate on a variety of subjects. The poll included questions about the importance of certain issues.

The questions asked how important it is for Congress to act on certain issues. One asked about "passing a bill to reform regulations on banks and financial services companies."

Now, 25% of those answering the question said it should be a top priority, 36% said it was an important priority, 21% said not too important of a priority, 5% said it shouldn't be done and 13% said they didn't know or didn't care.

What does that tell us? Absolutely nothing.

Do those polled think that the CFPB is the greatest government agency ever created? Or do they think the agency is full of a bunch of hyperactive bullies?

We don't know. Because the word "reform" could refer to tightening regulations or to loosening rules.

Why do pollsters do this?

Good News at the CFPB?

The CFPB has come out with its latest employee satisfaction survey. It says almost 50% of those responding strongly agreed with the statement, "I like the work that I do." An additional 37.1% agreed with the statement and only 1% hate their jobs.

Another question asked, "Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your job?"

About 35% of those responding said they were very satisfied, while about 43% said they were satisfied.

That's the good news. The bad news? The survey was conducted between July 17 and Aug. 25.

At the time, Richard Cordray, who was nominated by President Obama, was director of the agency.

Now, Mick Mulvaney, who was appointed by President Trump, is running the place.

Care to bet what percentage of CFPB employees are still happy about the agency and their jobs?

David Baumann is a Correspondent-at-Large for CU Times. He can be reached at [email protected].