The government shutdown and the debt ceiling

[niener]

Great Smoky Mountain National Park better be open at the end of October. That's all I can say.

My mom was headed there next weekend and she's already called to cancel her hotel reservations.

The entire thing makes me irrationally angry. Why in the hell do elected officials get to act like whiny little bitches, fucking over government employees, people just hoping for a decent vacation, grad students trying to write a paper using PubMed resources, etc., and yet STILL GET PAID?! If anyone in any job anywhere else in the country tried to pull that shit they'd be fired on the spot. Same with the budget ceiling -- if you as an individual do such a piss poor job of managing your money, you have your house taken away, your car taken away, you file bankruptcy, you eat ramen for every meal and you take the bus to work. It's incomprehensible.

[PrincessFiona]

It will suck, but I think they need to drastically reduce spending *and* raise taxes.

I think we really do have to look at where we can save. I'm not personally a fan of raising taxes again. I know that any solution will suck for everyone though. It just feels like we have so much waste in the system and what is being spent. I think raising the minimum wage is an excellent idea and I've advocated it for years. Allowing people the means to be self-sufficient is a good first step.

[HouseofWool]

The only issue with raising the minimum wage is that cost of living tends to make a jump around the same time because now everything costs more to produce resulting in no net gain or even a slight loss of income for those making minimum wage.

I don't know what I would defund to help keep the government afloat (possibly the congressman's pensions to start). There are so many boondoggles in the budget it is staggering.

Personally, I think the budget needs to be broken up. Each department (the big ones - military, transportation, education, HHS, etc) each get their dollar amount and each budget gets passed individually without borrowing from each other and no more riders. NONE. If it isn't relevant to the main bill, then it isn't attached. Riders are how BS pork gets funded. I hate it with a passion.

[BonBon]

Citizens Against Government Waste came out with some ideas:http://cagw.org/reporting/prime-cuts...me_page_banner

Taxpayers for Common Sense has a "Weekly Wastebasket" to show who the winners are that week for wasting taxpayer dollars on bullshit.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

I'm a pretty solid Republican normally but this is absurd. You lost on Obamacare and even though I don't like most of it, you LOST, move ON.

I feel like the debt ceiling thing is getting lost and that's what they should be focusing on. They've confused and infuriated the whole country about defunding/delaying Obamacare and they've lost any political capital they had on the debt ceiling.

[Pollyanna]

Of interesting note: the state of AZ wants to keep the Grand Canyon open and says they will pay for it. The Feds say "no". I hope AZ justs says, "screw you" and opens the Canyon anyway

Obamacare has already been modified and changed multiple times to suit the Presidents needs so saying "it's a law" doesn't really fly with me. In every government shutdown whether a rep or dem is the president he has had the grace to sit down and negotiate. The current prez is simply busy trying to spook the markets. The administration believes in "maximum pain" to get their point across. Look at the '95 shut down, Clinton signed in stop gaps in a effort to help fed employees while still negotiating.

[diggitydot]

Obamacare has already been modified and changed multiple times to suit the Presidents needs so saying "it's a law" doesn't really fly with me.

Ah, therein lies the issue -- modifying the existing law through the appropriate channels. If anyone wants to change, fine, do it. Just do it through the appropriate avenues to change a law. Trying to hijack it with the threat of shutdown and default hanging in the balance is a calculated maneuver by the Tea Party faction of he GOP. Namely, Ted Cruz, who is attempting to use this as a launch pad for his political aspirations. Unfortunately for Cruz, he's an idiot and far more people will blame him than thank him for his bullshit.

In every government shutdown whether a rep or dem is the president he has had the grace to sit down and negotiate. The current prez is simply busy trying to spook the markets. .

The president has no place is this negotiation. It's completely between the house and the senate. They should have been in committee hammering this shit out MONTHS ago and THEN sending the bill to the president to sign.

[WolfpackWife]

but once you get to the state and federal levels? Yeah, assholism seems to abound.

So true. Two words: Pat McCrory. And I lean conservative/republican most of the time (though, not regarding social issues). But he is just a cocky piece of shit.

[SoonerTexan]

I'm a little annoyed with how painful they are trying to make it too.

The national park we plan to visit, for example: a major road runs through it that they can't shut down. There are scenic overlooks as small pathways that turn off it. They are blocking those off because God forbid people see a view! They used resources to make sure people couldn't use resources. WTF.

[poky]

I'm a little annoyed with how painful they are trying to make it too.

The national park we plan to visit, for example: a major road runs through it that they can't shut down. There are scenic overlooks as small pathways that turn off it. They are blocking those off because God forbid people see a view! They used resources to make sure people couldn't use resources. WTF.

I'm willing to bet that maintenance of those overlooks are the NPS' responsiblity, not whatever local road division manages the actual highway. It's not keeping people from seeing the view, it's keeping people from filling the trash cans and littering in that area, etc.

[diggitydot]

They have to block things off that could be dangerous or usually require the attention of Parks Service people. So, yes, it uses resources, but those are done for a reason.

I volunteered for the NPS for a LONG time when I was younger and part of my time there was during the last government shut down.

[niener]

Has anyone done analysis to see what the cost vs. savings of this shutdown is? I wonder how much money they're saving not paying employees vs how much money they're loosing in lost tourism revenue, delayed projects (=future costs) and the like.

[Mrs. MD, Esq.]

Has anyone done analysis to see what the cost vs. savings of this shutdown is? I wonder how much money they're saving not paying employees vs how much money they're loosing in lost tourism revenue, delayed projects (=future costs) and the like.

I can't verify the accuracy if this, but I read in an article it's estimated at $300 million a day...I don't know if that's taking the nonpayment of salary into account or if it's assuming backpay.

[Cinderella]

I know whose to blame for this round of public upchuck and I'm not really worried about this government shutdown. Does anyone doubt it will come back?

Shutdowns historically don't last long. On average they lasted 1-3 days with the longest one being the most recent one in 1995 that lasted 21 days. There have been 17 government shutdowns so while they're not common they also don't last long.

And so what if it does shut down longer than usual because of the coincidental timing on the debt ceiling too? This Congress has largely been defunk and unable to work together. It needed to shutdown so it can take time to reset and reboot. Perhaps the cracks in the veneer of the container will give people time to see the chaos inside a decaying system that's been eroding for some time.

[Rapunzel]

With all the crap going on in a government shutdown - what will happen to healthcare under the ACA in a federal shutdown? I'm truly curious: Will a future federal shutdown mean healthcare comes to a grinding halt? When you centralize control and/or authorization of a weighty matter such as education or healthcare you face the potential for chaos or even total failure if a single entity falters instead of hundreds or thousands of smaller entities (the single entity being the federal governmemt in in these cases).