If they're going to shut down the government...

...then I say really shut down the government: send EVERYBODY, and I mean everybody, home. 

Tell the soldiers overseas to make the best of it because they won't be getting any supplies (food, uniforms, transport, or weapons), until the government reopens. 

Tell anybody who receives federal assistance, there will be nothing coming their way, until the government reopens.

Tell everybody there'll be no mail.

Open the doors of the federal prisons because we certainly can 't pay the guards.  (Good news, Gitmo detainees and white collar criminals!) 

Shut down the federal monuments, the museums, and all national parks, until the government reopens. 

Tell ALL federal employees -- including all levels of all three branches of government -- that, until the government reopens, there will be no paychecks, no health insurance, no compensation of any kind....

If they're gonna do it, then they gotta do it right.

Of course, if the brave souls that are our Congress (I'm surprised I can even type those words!) ever  REALLY shut down the government (and let just a whiff of the reality waft toward the American people), not a single elected official would EVER be returned to his/her post again.

Stop posturing.  Make a deal.  Solve a real problem for a change.