Correct! The expense associated with these fake shutdowns is immense, to the tune of many millions of dollars. Unless they're adding a "Government shutdown preparation" line item to recent budgets, that results in further, significant increases to the budget deficit.

Our legislators should not be paid for special sessions. That makes failure not only acceptable, but indeed profitable, which probably doesn't discourage them much from going over time. If time really is the issue (not money), maybe it's time to bump up their base salary and schedule every future session for the 6 months they need to do the job. That would be cheaper for the public than this garbage, not to mention more honest and transparent.