Ok fine I think I understand, the display teams are grounded, many federal employees are not being paid, National Monuments are closed to the public etc.
However we need to keep racking up hours in a plane that is not fit for combat, none of the examples except a few F35Bs with the USMC will achieve IOC without a major overall of their systems at a depot and ground crew are being trained to maintain and fault find this complex plane that has yet in some cases to have all its systems working.
All this just so the DoD and LM feel good?