Laura Ingraham on shutdown: 'I'm just beginning to enjoy it'

One week into a government shutdown that's put about 800,000 federal employees temporarily out of work and kept , a conservative radio host says she likes what she sees.

"Do you like the government shutdown?" host Laura Ingraham asked a caller to her program Tuesday. "I'm beginning to enjoy it."

Courtside Entertainment Group's The Laura Ingraham Show complained about freebies being given to furloughed federal employees by businesses, dismissing the giveaways as publicity stunts.

"I think the freebies encourage entitlement mentality," Ingraham said.

The radio host said federal workers had made a choice to work for the government, which she described as being $16.9 trillion in debt and an inherently "unstable, unreliable organization."

"The largest employer in the United States is not to be trusted in the way it handles money, OK, (but) that was your decision," Ingraham said. "You wanted to work for the federal government; that's fine, but then we shouldn't have to bail you out, we -- private industry or the federal taxpayers -- when the thing goes belly-up. That's not our responsibility."

Although it hasn't agreed on a continuing resolution to fund the federal government, Congress voted 407-0 on Saturday to approve back pay for federal workers.

But Ingraham, who's just beginning to enjoy herself, disagrees.

"Why should taxpayers have to bail that out?" she said. "It's ridiculous."