US government Shutdown

[Dominus Atheos]

In the government, as in most situations, things that seem easy are only easy because of people working in the background who you never see.

1. Why are websites down? Tech support. The website could be hacked, and there wouldn't be anyone to fix it.

2. Why are attractions shut down? No security. There are people who would deface even national monuments, so unless they can police them effectively, the only choice is to keep people out. Also maintenance. No body knows how long this shutdown will last, so who knows what maintenance issues could crop up.

[energiewende]

The government could just hand those attractions to non-profit charitable trusts. I'm sure the Statue of Liberty is self-funding. At the very least, ticket sales could pay the day-to-day costs while government grants could pay for major work.

This seems to be deliberate attempt to inconvenience random people so that they take a more negative view of the shut-down.

---

Close but no cigars...
In late Dec 1982, The Democrats wanted to push forward a Jobs bill at the time. They had the votes to do this is BOTH the house and Congress, but President Reagan had vowed to veto it.
The shutdown lasted three days, The Democrats abandoned their attempts at a Jobs Bill to help America, but only after they got concessions to cut spending to the MX-Missilie system that Reagan had thus far dumped billions into.

So, The Democrats wanted to pass a Bill that they couldn't, and they scrapped it only after the GOP gave up something that they wanted to.
Now I don't know about you, but that sounds like "Negotiating" to me, BOTH sides gave up something they wanted, and the shutdown lasted 3 days. It sounds like the boat got rocked, but no one tried to sink it...

So tell me again how the Democrats in the past have behaved like the Tea-Party currently in regards to forcing a shutdown?

The Democrats shut down the government until given some concession. The only difference is the spin you're putting on it. The Democrats will give some concession and then this will end.

Also an example of the Democrats outright wishing for the whole scale destruction of the federal Government would also be appreciated.,

Never, since their ideological cause is to expand the Federal Government.

[Broomstick]

The government could just hand those attractions to non-profit charitable trusts. I'm sure the Statue of Liberty is self-funding. At the very least, ticket sales could pay the day-to-day costs while government grants could pay for major work.

Since these "non-profit charitable trusts" don't exist at this point in time they won't be up and running immediately. While that is a possible future option it's not one for today, right now.

This seems to be deliberate attempt to inconvenience random people so that they take a more negative view of the shut-down.

I see it more as making no attempt to soften the blow of the shutdown.

[AniThyng]

The government could just hand those attractions to non-profit charitable trusts. I'm sure the Statue of Liberty is self-funding. At the very least, ticket sales could pay the day-to-day costs while government grants could pay for major work.

Since these "non-profit charitable trusts" don't exist at this point in time they won't be up and running immediately. While that is a possible future option it's not one for today, right now.

Does not explain areas that are primarily state/local funded or are 'trivial' e.g. only carparks or are open air. See article on the highway view of rushmore.

This seems to be deliberate attempt to inconvenience random people so that they take a more negative view of the shut-down.

I see it more as making no attempt to soften the blow of the shutdown.

Does not explain deliberate directives to go out of the way to harden the blow unless those are fabricated quotes.

Also refusal to accept piecemeal funding, and the unfortunate context of Harry Reid's quote on who cares about cancer patients.

[Wicked Pilot]

Just to clarify a previous issue of contention, but most federal workers including myself get direct deposit, not checks. I guess if you're told you're getting paid but it never materializes in your account that could qualify as a 'rubber check' type scenario, but that hasn't been the case. Last time we were on the brink of shutdown we were told that we'd get a special pay check pro rated to the shutdown date, and then no more until legislation was passed, though we'd still have to come in to work. I of course still haven't gotten paid, even though all my compensation would have been for duty served on and before 30 Sep. DFAS I heard as been furloughing people, which may explain it.

[TimothyC]

I see it more as making no attempt to soften the blow of the shutdown.

Brookstick,
President Obama has ordered things to be shut down that he has no authority to shut down. We have reports that the directive from on high was to make this as painful as possible.

Also, now we get to see if Reid will really stick to his guns as he's the sticking block for making sure that people who have been furloughed get back pay when this is all over (Obama supports it, and it passed the House 407-0).

[Simon_Jester]

The government could just hand those attractions to non-profit charitable trusts. I'm sure the Statue of Liberty is self-funding. At the very least, ticket sales could pay the day-to-day costs while government grants could pay for major work.

Since these "non-profit charitable trusts" don't exist at this point in time they won't be up and running immediately. While that is a possible future option it's not one for today, right now.

Does not explain areas that are primarily state/local funded or are 'trivial' e.g. only carparks or are open air. See article on the highway view of rushmore.

I see it more as making no attempt to soften the blow of the shutdown.

Does not explain deliberate directives to go out of the way to harden the blow unless those are fabricated quotes.

Honestly, my guess is as follows.

The Park Service's handful of essential employees (i.e. the ones expected to keep working without pay during a shutdown) were given a directive "close down all our facilities that we are responsible for." That includes the ones that are obviously entirely Park Service operations. Like Yellowstone National Park, which is open air but which is policed, patrolled, and maintained entirely by the Park Service. Without the Park Service employees on staff there, there's no one to stop hunters from killing the animals. There's no one to stop people from vandalizing or pillaging the buildings within the park (restrooms, gift shops, etc.). There's no one to do search and rescue for lost travellers who wander up into the hills. It would be grossly irresponsible to allow this open air national park to remain open during the shutdown.

But the same logic applies to pieces of a larger facility- if a parking lot is maintained by the Park Service, then it cannot reasonably be open when the Park Service lacks the ability to do anything about it. If some disaster damages the lot, who is responsible? If some criminal starts sabotaging the cars, who is responsible?

There's a reason we have park agencies in the first place- someone has to act as custodian of the facility, even if it's something as benign and low-maintenance as a field of grass.

Now, if we knew the shutdown would only last a few days, perhaps the Park Service might be able to say 'Okay, no harm done if the parking lot is unmonitored for a few days,' and keep it open. We have no assurance of that. The shutdown will last as long as the House Republicans and the Senate Democrats choose to permit it to last, and the Park Service has no control over either of those parties. For all we know, the shutdown could last for months.

It could last through the winter- when parking lots in most of the US will need continuous upkeep (snowplowing and salting) to remain usable... and when the Park Service will not be able to provide those services. Heck, in some parts of America it's already started snowing. The shutdown did nothing to prevent blizzards from falling on parking lots in the Great Plains.

And it could go longer. Hell, the shutdown could even last until the next election, at least in principle.

If National Park Service facilities aren't closed down now, at the start of the shutdown, then pray tell, when can they be shut down?

Also refusal to accept piecemeal funding...

That would allow the Republicans to unfreeze only the parts of the government they choose to unfreeze- i.e. the ones that their constituents might actually not vote for them over. Meanwhile, parts of the government the Republican Party has expressed ideological hostility to (say, the Department of Education) may wind up frozen indefinitely, or until the Republicans can extract further concessions to get them back.

At the moment, the Republicans have one hostage- the continued function of the whole government. Their only bargaining card is to release the hostage, and once they play that card, they no longer have a meaningful bargaining position.

With partial continuing resolutions they would have many hostages- individually less valuable hostages, but they could spin out negotiations and extract more concessions by offering to release some of the hostages, while still keeping others in their power.

From the point of view of someone who does not want to have to refight this same damn hostage crisis every few months for the next year, permitting that is an extremely bad long term strategy.

and the unfortunate context of Harry Reid's quote on who cares about cancer patients.

Sounds like sarcasm. I can't find the link to the quote you're talking about, but I can easily imagine "who cares about cancer patients? We've got a political agenda to fulfill!" or some such being something Reid would say sarcastically as a characterization of the Republican position. Because there are people with life-threatening illnesses who want the ACA to go into action, and to satisfy the Republicans, those people have to be thrown under the bus.

---

The Democrats shut down the government until given some concession. The only difference is the spin you're putting on it. The Democrats will give some concession and then this will end.

There is a major difference, which is that the Democrats agreed quickly to give up something they wanted to keep.

So far, the Republicans have shown no signs of being willing to concede anything, except "the federal government (or select portions of it) may begin functioning again as soon as it pleases us to allow them to do so."

Also an example of the Democrats outright wishing for the whole scale destruction of the federal Government would also be appreciated.,

Never, since their ideological cause is to expand the Federal Government.

This is nonsense, and strongly suggests that you've never actually had a conversation with a meaningful sample of Democrats. Especially since, by your own admission, you are a foreigner- do you get all your characterization of the "ideological cause" of the Democratic Party by listening to their enemies' propaganda programs?

---

The goal of the the House budget is to hold discretionary spending to the FY2008 levels, so the answer is generally - if it wasn't funded (or something else funded at a similar level) in 2008, it's not going to be funded under the new budget. As for exact specifics, I imagine you can find those in the budget documents, I have not bothered to give myself a headache by trying.

If these are still derivatives of the Ryan budget we're looking at, there are plenty of synopses of why left and centrist people would have a problem with that.

Are those budgets based on realistic economic projections? Do they not take advantage of the budget crisis to further right-wing talking points by cutting primarily those parts of government the Tea Party doesn't think we need?

If the answers to those questions aren't "Yes they are" and "No, they do not take advantage," then we have a serious obstacle to any realistic budget resolution.

While we're at it, how much openness did the Republicans express to, say, balancing tax hikes and spending cuts to avoid accidentally destroying important positive multiplier effects, or things needed for America's long term financial health?

That last question matters on a second-order basis, because it tells us how practical it would have been for the Democrats to even try to engage with this budget proposal. Under present circumstances and GINI coefficient, refusing to countenance tax hikes for millionaires is enough to make anyone who is less than far right-of-center by global standards say "surely you must be joking."

I can't personally defend a failure to optimize the tax code, so I'm not going to try. If the Republicans were very smart, they'd call for tax optimization (if that's cuts, that's cuts, if it's increases, then it's increases, let's just scientifically maximize the amount we bring) to pay down the damn debt (Yes Bush added to it to a very large degree, but Obama has been even worse in a shorter period) before the interest on it eats the budget alive. They'd also bring in means-testing for social security (ie "Why does Warren Buffet get social security at all?" would be an excellent starter question to ask to get the ball rolling).

Now see, that would be a basis for compromise- and it would also remove a lot of the need for vicious, acrimonious debates on spending for individual programs. We wouldn't need to fret about spending on education and so on, if we actually had a scientifically maximized tax income for the federal government. Which would also give us freedom to deliberately seek out and take advantage of multiplier effects, for America's long-term economic health, instead of merrily eating the seed corn.

Sadly, I rather doubt that the existing Republican budget proposals from the House work like this.

Fair enough- but consider the scale of the... allegedly spiteful actions by the administration and Senate (to avoid softening the impact of the closure), relative to the scale of the closure itself.

There is a major difference of raw scale here.

Both branches of congress and the administration (where has President Obama been for leadership this entire time?) bear responsibility for the current shutdown. President Obama gets all of the responsibility for making it worse than it has to be.

It is only "made worse" in tiny increments where theoretically, the executive office (which isn't getting paid to do this) could come up with various complicated workarounds to avoid liability, responsibility, and the necessity of actually doing security and maintenance of national parks which they cannot pay for, and so forth.

If that is what you choose to focus on, you need to get your sense of perspective recalibrated.

Now me, I think it makes perfect sense: we haven't had a shutdown in seventeen years. Half of the current population were children the last time it happened. I think a big part of why we have a shutdown now is that people have forgotten what a raging pain in the rear it is, and how many people it impacts.

If we are ever going to have responsible, competent government of ANY stripe in America again, we should be quite happy to let the American people learn the full consequences of this kind of fecklessness. It's good for the national soul.

And 20+ democrats have voted for the partial CRs. It is entirely possible that by sticking to his guns Boehner is solidifying his position and weakening the democrat's position.

Perhaps. On the other hand, since a clean CR has already met the approval of the Senate and the White House, while the partial CRs run into serious problems in both those areas, if Boehner actually wants to end the shutdown, he knows perfectly well how to do it.

And what do you mean by "shutting down thing he really shouldn't be"? There is no funding for those things. That's why they are shut down. There is no money in the checking account.

Broomstick, Mt. Vernon only gets federal funds for the Parking lot, and yet the orange barricades were put up by the National Parks Service. The Park in Virginia operates off of state funds and contributions. There are reports that scenic over-looks in the DC area are being closed down because the NPS owns the land they are on (even if there is little to no ongoing maintenance at the facilities.

Since the shutdown may continue indefinitely, even if there is "little to no ongoing maintenance" that maintenance cannot be assumed to happen in the foreseeable future. If we wait a month hoping the government will restart and that does not happen, which as far as the Park Service knows it might not... how are we even going to close the parks then? Will we have to bring back Park Service employees who have already sought out part-time jobs to bring some money in, and ask them to work for free to close facilities that should have been closed in the first week of the shutdown?

If you don't want parks to close every time there's a shutdown, either relieve the federal government of the responsibility for paying for them (and that includes essential ancillaries like parking lots), or do not shut down the US government to make a point. It's very simple.

You've also got the closures of the non-NPS viewing areas around Mt. Rushmore (Link), and the attempted closing of State park facilities in Wisconsin (Link). But hey, Obama's political home is Chicago - a citygenerally considered to be run by a corrupt family - so I guess I shoudln't be surprised when we've got a report of Park rangers saying "We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting." (Link).

If the park is not federally funded, then closing it is not justified. I would love to be a fly on the wall to see what orders were given involving this.

[Hell, I can imagine this being Park Service departmental policy, purely at their level, because they don't like being screwed around with any more than Obama does, and the current shutdown is very blatantly yanking their chain. Then again, it could quite well be that Obama did order this.]

My real point remains, though, that if you think this issue is anywhere near significant on the overall scale of the shutdown, you're kidding yourself. There are people whose homes, livelihoods, educations, or even survival might depend on various dealings with the federal government... and those dealings are now on hold.

Let's see a bit of rhetorical concern for that too, shall we?

You do NOT try and stop a law by holding a gun to the head of the country and say "Pass this OR ELSE!"

Let us change one word. Let us change 'stop' to 'keep' Ok?

The Democrats didn't pull out that gun. Even the partial continuing resolutions do NOT remove the aforementioned gun, because certain parts of the government will still remain in shutdown as long as it suits the Republican Party to keep them there.

While the military and the park service might be just fine on that basis, somehow I doubt that federal college loans or Head Start will be. And I can't shake the feeling that educations are a bigger hostage than park visits... just a hostage that threatens to harm a few Americans much, rather than many Americans a little.

You do NOT try and stop keep a law by holding a gun to the head of the country and say "Pass this OR ELSE!"

Why, now it describes exactly what President Obama and Senator Reid are doing! They are preventing any of the funding bills that don't fund the ACA! (President Obama being Reid's Political back-stop by sticking to the veto threat)

The Republicans initiated this.

By your argument, if I have a knife to a hostage's throat, and you react by doing anything other than exactly what I told you to, then you become morally complicit in the hostage's death. Which is completely insane.

A few questions.
First, have you signed up for health insurance under the ACA yet?

I know you were asking someone else, but... Personally I have not, because I have health insurance negotiated on my behalf by an EVIL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE UNION- good thing I don't live in Wisconsin, eh?

Guess what? For the real target demographic of the ACA, signing up for health insurance under the ACA is the alternative to having NO insurance, which makes the calculation look a little different.

I (and other republicans) oppose the ACA because I/we think it's a bad law. I think it's a bad law that will cause more problems when fully implemented than it solves.

If we didn't have to deal with nonsense from various Republicans, we could have had a single-payer option decades ago and we wouldn't be in this mess.

It is grossly hypocritical to fight tooth and nail against allowing the federal government to provide insurance, and then act shocked when the government works through private organizations as the only way to actually do anything about the health care crisis.

As for the delaying the implementation of the ACA, nearly 60% of the American people support a one year delay, so allowing a delay would be the will of the people.

By which argument the shutdown was NOT the will of the people, and this whole thing should have been resolved by other means.

If polls have implications for what the government should do, then polls have implications for what the government should do.

[Knife]

The government could just hand those attractions to non-profit charitable trusts. I'm sure the Statue of Liberty is self-funding. At the very least, ticket sales could pay the day-to-day costs while government grants could pay for major work.

This seems to be deliberate attempt to inconvenience random people so that they take a more negative view of the shut-down.

This is just ridiculous. What it is, is the obvious results of short sighted people who just didn't think about all the things government does before they decided to shut it down. Unintended consequences are a bitch.

The Democrats shut down the government until given some concession. The only difference is the spin you're putting on it. The Democrats will give some concession and then this will end.

Except, you know, years of video of GOPers on TV howling how THEY are going to shut down the government for this and that. It is hilarious how now that their is a pinch and some hurt on a shut down they've lobbied for years for, now it's the Democrats and Obama who shut down the government. It is patently absurd.

[Magis]

Never, since their ideological cause is to expand the Federal Government.

This is false. Democrats thing the government should have certain responsibilities and powers, and the Republicans think the government should have certain responsibilities and powers.

But that is not equivalent to saying the Democrats want the government to expand, ideologically. In some areas, the Democrats want the government should do less (military things, interfering with citizens' relationships, etc.), and in some areas the Democrats want the government to do more.

The talking point that Republicans always want smaller government and Democrats always want bigger government (whatever 'smaller' or 'bigger' even mean) is a cliched, oversimplified and inaccurate portrayal.

[Covenant]

Some of the biggest expansions of the government, and governmental power, were seen in the era of Republican Presidents like Reagan and the more recent Bush. The Republicans don't see things like the intelligence services or the military as "government" for some reason, they see that as a kind of national force projection power that exists parallel but not within the realm of government. At least sometimes, I don't know really, their position on this is so back and forth.

Once you realize all the things the government does already it is hard not to feel that the Republican drumbeat of "smaller government" means basically nothing to them anyway. They want a de-regulated economy and they want the government to wash its hands of the health and happiness of its people. That's their form of "smaller" government. They want non-governance. They just want to leave a security infrastructure and probably some kind of constitutional judicial wing to prosecute gays and fornicators and, I don't know, round up kittens for gestapo treatment or something. Their priorities boggle me sometimes.

I found a nice image breakdown. I don't know what the site is, but I wanted to provide the link just so we can see what this whole budget/size growing malarky is about.



I'm going to go off on a long and probably badly researched tangent. I just get my dander up when idiots repeat the stupid statement that Democrats want to grow the government, while Republicans want to shrink it.

The issue isn't that the Democrats want the government bigger, the issue is that there are big major problems that will exist no matter who is forced to deal with them. Some of those problems, like the threat of foreign invasion, benefit from a national solution and the inherent value that teamwork and coordination give. Some problems don't need that, so they can be left to more local organizations to handle.

And then there are issues that require a big national coordinated effort and Republicans don't want to get involved with because they're heartless idiot assholes. It has to be that combination because they not only ignore the numbers, they ignore the ethics and they seem to be happy to do so. They're not willing to "shrink" anything, they want to make a few horrifying choices that allow things to be pushed off government's books and get it to the point where the governing is done at a state level. That doesn't mean less government, it means the government is just more disorganized and less cooperative. That's not a coherent or logical strategy.

So they might happily target social security, medicare, and social safety net programs for privatization, but that just makes them evil not reasonable. It doesn't fix the problem that social security was created to help with, nor does it fix the social security system itself. And even that's a bunch of hogwash because lots of individual republicans are hesitant to go on the books with those statements. Lots of people think those are some of the few things the government does right. When faced with legitimate ways to reduce the federal burden on health concerns (without washing your hands of it callously) they reject them outright, which is part of why we're where we are now.

Healthcare is a HUGE cost for the government, but its also a HUGE cost for businesses and for individuals. Healthcare is MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE. We can't just wave our hands and make it go away. Making it "not the government's business" does not make it go away and does not make it less of a national concern that WILL and DOES impact things like our national efficiency and our attractiveness to the outside world, including our ability to apply both soft and hard power in geopolitical fights. Republicans have a singular lack of vision, and do not see the nation as an organic whole with systems that interrelate. They see them as individual components to be chopped up. Or more terrifyingly maybe they understand it, don't care, and are happy to decrease America's economic, political, and scientific place in the world so that states can have more control over their populations without federal oversight.

Anyway, back to healthcare. It sucks, it's expensive, and someone has to pay it. Republicans don't want to make businesses pay it, the way they used to, because it is too much of a burden. And they don't want to have to help other people pay for healthcare themselves, so they don't want the Government to do it either, especially not with taxes from those who are so wealthy they can afford good healthcare already and thus benefit from the economic stability the system provides. That means they want individuals to pay these HUGE COSTS themselves, which is reasonable if not incredibly inefficient, if you assume they can.

They cannot. This just makes it incredibly inefficient, ineffective, and wasteful to the country as a whole.

Apply this logic to defense. If the government doesn't do it, do we make businesses pay for it? If we don't make them do it, then we have to do it ourselves. Not even "issue everyone a gun," but go get a gun yourself and hope the Chinese don't invade or whatever. Wolverines! That'll work, right? Real likely! But that's what healthcare is like. Getting old, getting sick, having an accident, having a child, having a sick child, are all more likely threats than a Chinese Invasion and yet we're mobilizing our government to tackle that threat while allowing the real battle on our homefront to slip into "liberty or death and mostly death" land as something the rugged individual needs to deal with themselves.

Personally, I think we're more likely to win a war against a global empire with just a bunch of individual national defense plans than we are to win the war against human suffering without government help. Maybe if we re-brand it we'll get the Republicans more excited. Let's re-term healthcare as the "Private Internal Defense" department. Social Security can be the Joint Obsolescence Taskforce, with age-related offenses given names like Operation Archer Lazarus or Operation Methuselah Tango. Obamacare can be called the "Civilian Internal Defense Market" which combines defense and markets into one lovely buzzword. I'm just mad.

So what's left? They don't want to axe defense (rightly so, but it could be shaved) and they don't really want to mess with Social Security (except maybe to threaten to privatize it) so what can they do? They can't actually shrink the costs of social security and medicare and so forth by trying to create a national healthcare system that will lead to overall healthier and more preventable illnesses. So they want to chip off large-sounding numbers from the nearly inconsequential "All Other" category, like funding for PBS or NPR or whatever, or taking notches out of education or science.

[Broomstick]

The Democrats have done so in the past. They defunded the Pershing II missile and aid to the Contras in this way, despite the undenied legal right of the executive to maintain a military and conduct foreign policy.

The ability of the executive to do those things is not unlimited – that's a major reason why only Congress can legally declare war, not the PotUS (though, of course, lesser military operations can be authorized and there is some wrangling done on foreign intervention). It is entirely within the scope of Congress to defund missile programs or aid to foreign organizations if such a bill can acutally pass Congress. They have tried over forty times to defund the ACA through legal means and have failed to do so. It is time for the Republicans to concede on this issue.

Rather like it's time for you to concede, as you have been asked to do by a mod.

Anyway, my point wasn't that Republicans are Good and Democrats are Bad, but rather that the presence of authorising legislation for some agency doesn't mean Congress is bound to fund that agency.

Congress DID fund the ACA. Those in opposition have not been able to overturn the ACA. Instead, they hold the Federal government hostage.

I don't view that as good governance, nor in the best interests of my nation.

The government could just hand those attractions to non-profit charitable trusts. I'm sure the Statue of Liberty is self-funding.

Do you have a cite for that statement?

At the very least, ticket sales could pay the day-to-day costs while government grants could pay for major work.

Or maybe we could just bill France for upkeep under the notion they were the original owners!

The amount the US Fed spends on national parks is trivial. You are bitching over spilled milk while the house burns down. The fact that a trivial part of what the US Federal government does is so inconvenient to so many just emphasizes that yes, it actually is important and it actually does matter. Now think about the truly vital functions of government and think how fucking inconvenient losing them would be.

This seems to be deliberate attempt to inconvenience random people so that they take a more negative view of the shut-down.

Having experienced prior US Federal shut downs (18 of them, by memory, there may have been a few more I was too young to remember) I assure you it doesn't take either forethought or malice to “inconvenience” what you call “random people”. Despite rumor, and the fact that yes, many essential functions are done by the various states, the Federal government does matter to people, it does serve important functions from the extremely serious to the mundane, and there is no way to have it even partially shut down without inconveniencing millions of people.

And frankly, just to put my own, personal viewpoint on the table, I'd rather have this particular shutdown, despite the pain, if only to break the Tea Party crowd I feel are an active detriment to both good governance and the long term interests of my nation. I hasten to add that is my opinion and others are entirely free to disagree with it.

As for the ACA – yes, it is a deeply flawed “solution” yet we have nothing better on the table at present. While I'd much rather continue my current health insurance it seems my present policy will be a casualty, throwing me on the Federal exchange. Nonetheless, given that there are no other alternatives at present I feel it is better than me and mine experience the resulting inconvenience and yes, probably additional costs rather than leave 45 million + fellow citizens completely uninsured. And that's a fundamental difference between the Tea Party, the far right wing of American politics, their allies, and me – I am willing to suffer some personal inconvenience for the betterment of my nation as a whole. They are not. They are selfish, cruel, and malicious and don't give a fuck that others are being hurt.

Just to clarify a previous issue of contention, but most federal workers including myself get direct deposit, not checks. I guess if you're told you're getting paid but it never materializes in your account that could qualify as a 'rubber check' type scenario, but that hasn't been the case.

The thing is, energiewende wasn't just saying Federal workers weren't getting paid, he said the Federal government was issuing bad checks. I guess, as a foreigner, he might not be aware that here in the US that is viewed as two crimes, not one, in regards to employee paychecks. “Merely” not paying your employees is legally theft (specifically, theft of services). Issuing a bad check is fraud. Thus, paying your employees with a bad check is both crimes.

I suspect this has a lot to do with why, in every single prior shutdown, retroactive pay has been approved by Congress for the Federal workers affected. I would like to think that the same will be done this time, although as the Finance industry likes to remind us past results are no guarantee of future performance.

I do know that a check issued from the US Federal Treasury is about as solid a piece of money as you will find on the entire planet these days. I have never heard of such a check ever being returned for non-sufficient funds. I would like for that state of affairs to continue although with this current Congress that is not gauranteed either.

Thus, I want energiewende to concede his errors on these points.

(And yes, the US Feds are moving more and more to direct deposit. As a former, albeit temporary, Federal employee I am familiar with how that works. It's also more and more how citizens receive their tax returns, which I am also happy about. Nonetheless, the US government does continue to issue some paper checks and probably will continue to do so for some time into the future.)

[Beowulf]

The Democrats have done so in the past. They defunded the Pershing II missile and aid to the Contras in this way, despite the undenied legal right of the executive to maintain a military and conduct foreign policy.

The ability of the executive to do those things is not unlimited – that's a major reason why only Congress can legally declare war, not the PotUS (though, of course, lesser military operations can be authorized and there is some wrangling done on foreign intervention). It is entirely within the scope of Congress to defund missile programs or aid to foreign organizations if such a bill can acutally pass Congress. They have tried over forty times to defund the ACA through legal means and have failed to do so. It is time for the Republicans to concede on this issue.

Rather like it's time for you to concede, as you have been asked to do by a mod.

Repeal, not defend ACA. This is the first time the House has attempted to utilize it's power over the purse to defund ACA.

[Broomstick]

Yes, I meant repeal.

Regardless, it's the law. It's time to deal with reality.

[Purple]

So, are there any predictions on what will happen next? I assume one side or the other will have to back down. How likely do you think that is? And what do you think the consequences of that would be?

[Gandalf]

So, are there any predictions on what will happen next? I assume one side or the other will have to back down. How likely do you think that is? And what do you think the consequences of that would be?

I'm thinking that whichever side prevails (or makes it look like they do) will have a great boost going into the midterms, and that the longer is goes on the higher the stakes become for the various politicians involved.

EDIT: As a foreigner looking in, I find that my reaction isn't so much about whether a party was in the right or wrong. Rather, I look and wonder; why on Earth does a government have a shutdown trigger like that? It's like someone being a tool in a board game. Sometimes you blame the player, but sometimes you have to ask why their actions are enabled by the rules of the game.

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, I don't think Republicans are going to get a boost from winning, because while it makes them look strong, it also makes them look cruel. Flashing the faces of people who died from lack of medical care because their ACA-provided exchange care didn't come through could be a rather effective attack ad against them.

Also, something that does a good job of summing up why I do NOT have any respect for the "but the Republicans are posting partial continuing resolutions to keep the government going!" argument:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html

Republicans are going to need a bigger lifeboat
By Dana Milbank, Published: October 2



Democratic lawmakers and liberal activists arranged 20 child-size chairs on the lawn outside the Capitol on Wednesday to represent 19,000 children who could lose access to Head Start because of the government shutdown — on top of the 57,000 slots lost in the low-income preschool program because of budget cuts.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (Tex.) held up one of the blue plastic chairs. “Here is the empty chair of the next astronaut,” she said. “Here is the empty chair of a captain in the United States military.”

The seats will remain unfilled. Poor kids didn’t make the cut.

On the second day of the shutdown, House Republicans continued what might be called the lifeboat strategy: deciding which government functions are worth saving. In: veterans, the troops and tourist attractions. Out: poor children, pregnant women and just about every government function that regulates business or requires people to pay taxes.

The lifeboat strategy was the brainchild of Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), the freshman who has become the de facto leader of congressional Republicans in the shutdown. On Tuesday, GOP House members introduced bills that would exempt three entities: the national parks, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the District of Columbia. On Wednesday, they added the National Institutes of Health and pay for National Guard members and military reservists.

Here are some of the functions not boarding the GOP lifeboats: market regulation, chemical spill investigations, antitrust enforcement, worksite immigration checks, workplace safety inspections, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Internal Revenue Service’s audit capabilities, communications and trade regulation, nutrition for 9 million children and pregnant women, flu monitoring and other functions of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and housing rental assistance for the poor.

The pattern, it seems, is that House Republicans propose to rescue the most visible casualties of the shutdown, such as the national parks and trash collection in the capital. Efforts to help veterans, active-duty troops and reservists are popular but largely unnecessary because most of them were unaffected by the shutdown. The NIH’s work isn’t always visible, but the agency has powerful supporters who want research on their pet causes.

Perhaps more revealing were those who haven’t earned a place in the conservatives’ lifeboat: entities that check the power of industry and entities that protect workers and the poor. They may be the most hurt by a government shutdown, but they don’t have a place in the conservative utopia as defined by the lifeboat strategy.

The utopia remains just that, because the proposals have little chance of getting past the Democratic-controlled Senate and even less chance of surviving President Obama’s veto. The point, rather, is to make Democrats take politically damaging votes against popular programs to deflect some of the blame Republicans are getting for the shutdown.

As a result, neither side is taking the proposals very seriously — as demonstrated by Wednesday’s meeting of the House Rules Committee, which debates legislation before it goes to the House floor. The lawmakers bickered about disagreements old and new but dealt little with the Republicans’ lifeboat legislation.

“Not since my children were 3 or 4 years old have I seen such obstinate inability to accept the facts,” declared Rep. Louise Slaughter (N.Y.), the panel’s ranking Democrat.

“A tiny and irresponsible faction is holding things up,” argued Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah). “The tiny and irresponsible faction called Harry Reid.”

“Will the gentleman yield?” Slaughter asked Bishop at one point.

“When you get me a rhubarb pie, I will yield to you,” Bishop replied.

Not all were so playful. Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) engaged in a debate covering, among other things, the national debt, Obama’s golf outing, the Senate schedule, John F. Kennedy, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Congressional Budget Office, health care and the meaning of compromise.

“Do not hold the American people hostage!” McGovern shouted.

“If my friend will yield, we gave the Senate three options to keep the government open,” Kingston answered.

“What you did was trickery!”

“Trickery?”

“You tried to blackmail the president!”

“Blackmail the president?”

“Yeah, basically, I’m shutting the government down unless you dismantle your health care . . . ”

Kingston went on to say that while Obama “is proudly negotiating with the Iranians, he will not negotiate with the Republicans.”

Lost in all this was any real discussion of the topic of the day. And that’s because the lifeboat legislative strategy isn’t a serious solution to the shutdown. But it is a revealing glimpse into how the world would look if Cruz’s conservatives ran it.

So yeah. Basically, the Republicans want to fund the specific bits of the government they receive the most angry letters about, the ones that have 90% approval ratings rather than 80, 70, or 60% ratings. That way they can spin out the shutdown longer without consequences to themselves.

But this does nothing to affect the consequences of the shutdown for many millions of normal Americans who rely on some interaction with the government for important things in their lives. Those people are still out of luck, and will remain so indefinitely if Representative Cruz and his gang have their way. For them, the partial continuing resolutions just mean they will suffer longer because there will be less pressure to end the shutdown, for the people who created the shutdown in the first place.

[Crossroads Inc.]

My bets on this whole fiasco?

At this point I would not put it past the GOP to try and drag things out to upcoming debt ceiling talks, because hey Then they can hold TWO Hostages!
I mean how many here think they are NOT going to try and demand concessions for the upcoming debt ceiling? After all we already KNOW they are willing to shut down the government, who doubts they wouldn't drive the rest of America right off the cliff?

[Justice]

My bets on this whole fiasco?

At this point I would not put it past the GOP to try and drag things out to upcoming debt ceiling talks, because hey Then they can hold TWO Hostages!
I mean how many here think they are NOT going to try and demand concessions for the upcoming debt ceiling? After all we already KNOW they are willing to shut down the government, who doubts they wouldn't drive the rest of America right off the cliff?

That seems to largely be the plan detailed by Robert Costa of the National Review (outside the stepping off the cliff thing, which most Republicans know is a stupid thing to do). Boehner is basically going to combine the shutdown and the debt ceiling rather than stop one crisis to immediately step into another one. That way if he fails to get what the right wing is asking for, he has something that he can use to force the right to back out with (since he has already said he will not put the country into default). Which basically means another week and a half of Kabuki theatre before we see a real resolution.

[amigocabal]

In the government, as in most situations, things that seem easy are only easy because of people working in the background who you never see.

1. Why are websites down? Tech support. The website could be hacked, and there wouldn't be anyone to fix it.

2. Why are attractions shut down? No security. There are people who would deface even national monuments, so unless they can police them effectively, the only choice is to keep people out. Also maintenance. No body knows how long this shutdown will last, so who knows what maintenance issues could crop up.

So, you concede that during the shutdown, there is enough security to keep people from defacing the monuments.

Why, then, could not the monuments be kept open?

[Dominus Atheos]

What? I said the exact opposite.

[Simon_Jester]

The point is, there is NO security, so the NPS puts up enough tape and signs to say "nobody is allowed in here." That way, anyone who does go in is a priori trespassing, which makes it a lot easier to prosecute them after the fact than if you had to actually monitor their activities inside.

Also, it's in a real sense the best gesture they can make if they have zero people on staff who are getting paid to man the facility: put up a sign saying "we're closed," and while it may not actually deter vandals, it's better than nothing.

[Mr Bean]

The point is, there is NO security, so the NPS puts up enough tape and signs to say "nobody is allowed in here." That way, anyone who does go in is a priori trespassing, which makes it a lot easier to prosecute them after the fact than if you had to actually monitor their activities inside.

Also, it's in a real sense the best gesture they can make if they have zero people on staff who are getting paid to man the facility: put up a sign saying "we're closed," and while it may not actually deter vandals, it's better than nothing.

Simon let me put this simply
Its dead easy to do millions of dollars in damages in most monuments in just a few minutes. Don't need anything more fancy than a hammer and a good arm. To destructive? I could do a few hundred thousand with just one spray can.

And that's not counting if the weather permits the possibility of burning down national parks.
This stuff is fragile.

[Dominus Atheos]

Oh, I see what amigocabal misunderstood. When I said "keep people out" I meant that they put up barricades like they did at the WWII memorial.

Sure the barricades may not keep determined people out (the WWII vets just pushed them aside), but that is literally the best they can do. There are no security guards on duty, even to enforce the barricades.

[amigocabal]

Oh, I see what amigocabal misunderstood. When I said "keep people out" I meant that they put up barricades like they did at the WWII memorial.

Sure the barricades may not keep determined people out (the WWII vets just pushed them aside), but that is literally the best they can do. There are no security guards on duty, even to enforce the barricades.

So the question is, what stops the vandalism when those monuments are open?

[amigocabal]

Healthcare is a HUGE cost for the government, but its also a HUGE cost for businesses and for individuals. Healthcare is MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE. We can't just wave our hands and make it go away. Making it "not the government's business" does not make it go away and does not make it less of a national concern that WILL and DOES impact things like our national efficiency and our attractiveness to the outside world, including our ability to apply both soft and hard power in geopolitical fights. Republicans have a singular lack of vision, and do not see the nation as an organic whole with systems that interrelate. They see them as individual components to be chopped up. Or more terrifyingly maybe they understand it, don't care, and are happy to decrease America's economic, political, and scientific place in the world so that states can have more control over their populations without federal oversight.

Anyway, back to healthcare. It sucks, it's expensive, and someone has to pay it. Republicans don't want to make businesses pay it, the way they used to, because it is too much of a burden. And they don't want to have to help other people pay for healthcare themselves, so they don't want the Government to do it either, especially not with taxes from those who are so wealthy they can afford good healthcare already and thus benefit from the economic stability the system provides. That means they want individuals to pay these HUGE COSTS themselves, which is reasonable if not incredibly inefficient, if you assume they can.

I have one question.

Why can not state governments pick up the health care tab?

And before you write that Republicans are keeping states from paying for health care, I should remind you that neither Hawaii, Massachusetts, nor West Virginia have enough Republicans in government to stop that.