Opinions on the U.S. federal government shutdown

[Tristan Lall]

In the poll above, 3 people say it's good now, and 3 people say it will be good in the future. I don't think we've haven't heard from those 4 people¹—what's the upside of this situation?

¹ 4, not 6, because some selected both in a single poll option. (Incidentally, the poll has 16 cross-tabulated choices because a simpler multiple-choice poll would eliminate the ability to correlate present and future outlooks.)

[DonRotolo]

Shutdown is almost negligible, but DEFAULT (around 10/17) will be a disaster of historic proportions.

I am a conservative Republican, not a fan of budget deficits, nor of Obamacare, but those IDIOTS in Washington have me ready to donate to the Democrats. I hired them to do a job, and they're not doing it, so I think it's time for them to get fired.

[synth3tk]

I should hope that this causes the general public to be more diligent about voting for more than just the President and Mayor.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Shutdown is almost negligible, but DEFAULT (around 10/17) will be a disaster of historic proportions.

This is the real issue at hand. Defaulting on our debts could send our country into another depression.

The thing about the 27th amendment is interesting. i feel like it would definitely help, but plenty of politicians have external sources of income, to the point where getting rid of congressional salary would have a negligible effect.

I hope that everyone comes to their senses, and realizes that it's just wrong to hold the government hostage when you don't get your way.

[Travis Hoffman]

Food for thought:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...-thomas-sowell

[Madison]

Via Twitter --

Can I burn down your house?
No.
Just the 2nd floor?
No.
Garage?
No.
Let's talk about what I can burn down.
No.
YOU AREN'T COMPROMISING!

[DonRotolo]

Oh, and to add insult to injury: Now they are saying "we'll pay everyone retroactively for the days they didn't get paid".

Translation: Here is some free vacation time. Have fun!

The Gov't is shut down, and we are not saving a single penny in salaries because of it. In fact, we're paying folks to do nothing!

OK, seriously: How can I get me a government job?

========
(Even more seriously: I do feel blessed to live where I can write things like that without having to fear for my safety. That ain't so everywhere.)

[Michael Hill]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Oh, and to add insult to injury: Now they are saying "we'll pay everyone retroactively for the days they didn't get paid".

Translation: Here is some free vacation time. Have fun!

The Gov't is shut down, and we are not saving a single penny in salaries because of it. In fact, we're paying folks to do nothing!

OK, seriously: How can I get me a government job?

========
(Even more seriously: I do feel blessed to live where I can write things like that without having to fear for my safety. That ain't so everywhere.)

Get lucky ;-)

But seriously, why punish the people who have absolutely no control over this matter? Again, I'm biased, but we're all still people with families at home with mouths to feed, rent to pay and bills to pay. We're really no different from employees from other companies. In fact, I could have easily been employed by someone else, but the government was the first to say "you're hired" in a tough job market.

[DonRotolo]

Yeah, I can't say that getting (cheated) out of a few weeks' pay wouldn't hurt. But maybe if everyone was working instead of furloughed, I'd see it different.

But then it would look like any other day, losing the dramatic effect. (Until payday, at least).

I do not besmirch our government workers; aside from Congress they are generally honest and hard working.

[Invictus3593]

As long as they don't raise the debt ceiling again, the congress can afford to making interest-only payments on our debt.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Invictus3593

As long as they don't raise the debt ceiling again, the congress can afford to making interest-only payments on our debt.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Could you explain in more detail?

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Could you explain in more detail?

On October 17, the "extraordinary measures" (desperate intra-government money shifting) that the Treasury's been taking will likely run out*, leaving around $30 billion plus the incoming tax revenue to pay the bills. There are of course a bunch of bills to pay after that (Social Security, military pay, Medicaid, etc), some of which may bounce if the debt ceiling isn't raised. The interest-only argument is that we could prioritize interest payments and still be able to pay them with incoming tax dollars, but even if so (which of course depends on interest rates), we wouldn't have enough money to pay everything else including mandatory and other -"bought" bills. This is why Speaker Boehner agreed that this isn't enough, instead pledging to raise the ceiling in order to avoid default. There's some debate on how bad default would be, its association with the 14th Amendment, and if it's avoidable other ways, e.g. unilateral Presidential action, but basically all of the outcomes range really bad-->worst. There are a few "so what's", but given that a lot of it depends on market confidence, and the IMF is warning it'd threaten the global economy...


*As alluded, the debt/default topic of this post is not the same as the government shutdown, though their chronological colocation has tied them together in some potentially dangerous ways.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Yeah, I can't say that getting (cheated) out of a few weeks' pay wouldn't hurt. But maybe if everyone was working instead of furloughed, I'd see it different.

The problem is it's illegal for these employees to work, yet they're not fired so they can't get new jobs (putting aside that finding employment is far from trivial). Yeah, we're paying them to not to anything, but it's far better than forcing them into this weird job limbo, especially those living paycheck to paycheck. It's not fair to have them suffer.

--

This whole shutdown is a joke. I'm often critical of both parties, but I don't see what the Democrats could do differently here. If they "compromise" (really, give in) here by gutting the ACA, the precedent set has long lasting consequences. The Republican tactic of "we'll be obstructionist crybabies who shut down the government until we force the majority party to do what we want" will be totally validated. And every two months this will happen again and again.

It's important to remember that the Republican proposal is to defund the ACA for a year in order to kick the budget can down the road two months. So they get this ridiculous leverage five more times a year? Keep in mind we're already in a sequester. Our budget is already a stone's throw away from Paul Ryan proposals. They have most of what they want in terms of spending cuts, already, before any of this happened.

Now throw in the fiscal cliff. Raising the debt ceiling lets us pay for stuff we're already spending money on. Keeping it the same does not magically make the US spend less money - we've already spent it. We would just be deciding not to pay our debts and default. The debt ceiling is a procedural artifact that's been handled dozens of times without incident. That this is even an issue is just horrible.

The important thing to take away from the crisis here is that this kind of poor representation, procedural power trips, and the radicalization of both party members (especially in the House) are all consequences of the way the government and US elections are set up right now. Congress has a poor approval rating, but if you ask Americans what they think of their representative, they are held in much higher esteem. These representatives have a vested interest in grandstanding, meaningless symbolic gestures, and policy radicalization, lest they lose a primary election. When the general election comes around, demographics decide the result more than anything - the biggest threat to individual representatives is in primaries. Combine this effect with the ever-increasing policy consistency of each party (remember when there were liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats?) and this kind of thing is just going to happen again and again.

[DonRotolo]

I'd best stop commenting.

Nonetheless, the big elephant is that we (our government) are spending more than we earn. Tke a look at your own situation: how long would you be able to do the same?

The deficit is 16 trillion or so. That's not the national debt - it's what we have spent beyond our income. It's untenable in the long run, and it'll get ugly when we have to fix it.

Is Canada accepting applications for citizenship? Maybe Global Warming will make it kinda nice up there...

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Don,
If nothing else you will get further away from the rising seas that will put New Jersey under water in a few years.
Today a new poll shows that congress has reached an approval rating of just 5%. I can't believe they continue to thumb their collective noses at the American people and the President. Is there no respect anymore? By the way, the congressional gym is considered essential and has not closed yet.