Not signed in (Sign In)
This discussion has been inactive for longer than 5 days, and doesn't want to be resurrected.

London Zoo: [Closed] U.S. Government Shutdown-Thoughts?

Bottom of Page

1 to 20 of 55

  1. <
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. >
  1.  (9731.1)
    Obviously, I'm against it.

    So far, it sounds like it could happen. I'm sick of being afraid of this, over and over again.

    If any of you were around during the Clinton Administration when this happened before, does this seem similar? Or different enough to be hard to predict the outcome?

    It's feeling like a game of chicken, with the loser being left to carry the blame. This deal with the no-funding abortion in D.C. riders, and the EPA restrictions just sounds like bad timing (or a really dirty strategy).

    Am I alone in caring about this? I mean, yes, it's my job. Yeah, I'm an essential employee. That means I am ordered to go to work, and not know when my next paycheck is coming. We're also being told, that when it's over, there is no guarantee that we'll even be paid for the time we worked during the shutdown.

    If I see a Tea Partier, I would want to wring their little neck. I read Reid said "fiscal conservatives in the Tea Party movement are "cheering" for a government shutdown." That makes me see red.

    Okay, yeah, I'm a little upset. How are the rest of you feeling about this?
    •  
      CommentAuthor-3-
    • CommentTimeApr 7th 2011
     (9731.2)
    Yes, please!

    It's been almost a year since Belgium shut down their central government, and it doesn't seem to have hurt them at all.
  3.  (9731.3)
    Yeah, thanks, that's helpful. Now, tell me how people who need their jobs to support their families survive?
    •  
      CommentAuthortedcroland
    • CommentTimeApr 7th 2011
     (9731.4)
    Congress will almost certainly be paid during the shutdown. That simple fact should be spilling bile all over the country, but it only seems to be bothering a few progressive activist organizations.

    The absurd thing, of course, is that the Republican budget doesn't even begin to close the deficit. Mostly it just cuts funding for the poor, elderly and disabled while continuing or opening tax breaks for the rich and big business. And they're expecting to get paid while they throw their fit over it. Marvelous.

    Anyone else wanna move to Finland? I hear it's cold but they have reindeer sled drifting so I bet that makes up for it.
  5.  (9731.5)
    My immediate family and friends are mostly govvies. I'm pretty fucked if it goes on for very long.
  6.  (9731.6)
    Maybe all those tea baggers will wake up, as soon as they realize that they won't get their Medicaid checks, to pay for their RASCAL scooters. Because they thought it was more important to make others suffer, than to help. I also swear to God sometimes, I wish my great-grandfather would have stayed in Canada, rather than coming down here.
    •  
      CommentAuthorNeila
    • CommentTimeApr 7th 2011
     (9731.7)
    It pisses me off too, and makes me feel like I'm lucky to not work for the government. D:
    I wish those guys in Washington would stop bickering and get to fncking work!
    • CommentAuthorStefanJ
    • CommentTimeApr 7th 2011
     (9731.8)
    The Tea Party has been hopped up about a government shutdown for months. It's something they cheer for at rallies and that the pols have been bragging about.

    But for the last few days, GOP pols interviewed about the budget fracas have been denying that they want a shutdown, and that if one happens it's Obama's Fault.

    Because the bastards have realized that outside of their base the idea of a shutdown is very unpopular.

    Mark my works:

    On TV and radio news these shameless opportunists will be blaming the Democrat Party for any inconvenience . . . and on the same day they'll be crowing and hooting in front of their supporters over the complaints and distress of government workers. ("Serves those parasites right!")
    •  
      CommentAuthorCOOP
    • CommentTimeApr 7th 2011
     (9731.9)
    Too bad the democrats couldn't get their shit together to pass a 2010 budget back in 2009 when they still controlled both houses of congress. There's plenty of blame to spread around on this particular shit sandwich.
  10.  (9731.10)
    @COOP

    Actually Coop, I think that's what pisses me off the most. The Democrats got us here by inaction. Republicans are taking advantage of this situation in a way that's surprising to no one. The Democrats are responisible by being completely innefectual. It's like having to choose between a party of people who are trying to ruin your life and a party of people who are just uninterested in stopping the other party.
  11.  (9731.11)
    Cutting government spending in the midst of a recession... Herbert Hoover must be laughing his ass off in whatever hereafter he wound up in.

    The GOP asked for over $30 billion in cuts, and the Democrats rolled over and agreed to it. Realizing they weren't going to get their precious shutdown, the Teahadist wing of the GOP suddenly cried "did we say $30 billion? we meant $60 billion!", and proceeded to cram a bunch of riders in the bill that serve their own warped social view of America (ie: NPR, Title X, and the EPA are a-ruinin' our country!), guaranteeing a poison pill of a budget that no self-respecting progressive could ever vote for. If our government is going to be held hostage by a small percentage of Americans who are raging nutballs, voted in by other Americans who seem to have the electoral attention span of a 3 year old, then maybe we're getting what we deserve.

    I remember what happened in '95. Newt Gingrich thought he could play chicken with Clinton, but it was ol' Newtie-toot-toot who blinked first, and found his reputation so damaged that he had to resign as Speaker of the House. I still have the Time magazine issue that headlined his downfall in a box somewhere. Maybe the far-right wingdings in Congress should've been reading a copy of it before they undertook the shutdown of the very government they're a part of. Much like Palin becoming persona-non-grata after the Giffords shooting, I'm thinking Boehner and the Tea Party he's so desperate to placate are going to find their shining stars have tarnished quite a bit after this. Hello, Whigs.
  12.  (9731.12)
    "before they undertook the shutdown of the very government they're a part of"

    But that's the beauty of running on a platform of government-can't-do-anything-good. Fuck up and you just get to say you proved your point.

    And the government-can't-do-anything-good meme is built off of the post-Reagan cuts-create-wealth hubujubu market worship which has had sixteen more years to embed itself into American Conventional Wisdom by this point. Everything the Republicans have done to supplant governmental competence with country-shaming disasters has only strengthened their hand leading to this moment, from bogarting a presidential election to enabling the Gulf Oil Spill by starving the MMS to the War on Terrorism. People like their government maybe but fantasize of the relief, the clean numb release they would feel if it just died and got buried. Like a grandparent who got the dementia.
  13.  (9731.13)
    To me, it's very simple. The costs of a shutdown exceed the short-term costs of the budgets that are prospectively to be cut.

    Therefore, the stopgap measure should be passed, and the shutdown should be averted as reasonably as possible.

    I blame the politicians, of course. The Red ones for being stodgy and authoritarian when they have not a leg to stand on, and the blue ones for opposing the holdout measure.
  14.  (9731.14)
    I suspect that the Democrats will do just that and we'll have an awful budget by tomorrow night. I don't think the Democrats are blind to the fact that Republicans wouldn't suffer politically for this.

    While it's never a bad time to marvel at how much political capital the Democrats squandered in 09 and 10, the more relevant fact is that there hasn't been a single large-scale ideological victory for progressivism in 10 years. Why is because Republicans do shit like demonize the opposition to encourage violence among their fringe-base and then blame the Democrats for inciting violence by means of passing laws, and the only message Democrats can get out there in response is "we agree both sides should not incite violence." (*the 'shut up and realize progressives have had their way hippy-stranglers point to the passing of an originally Republican Health Reform model as a progressive victory.')

    There have been small-scale wins: on the federal level, sentencing disparities for crack were fixed a bit and more evaluation is underway, and overdrafts in consumer banking were wrist-slapped -- but in every headline legislative moment since 2000 the American political spectrum's center was inched to the right, even when the winning votes belonged to the left. The noise of battle disseminated the anti-government message even when and whether politically Democrats were not being complete fuckups within the beltway. The Republicans have ultimate naked kung fu and Democrats know it.
  15.  (9731.15)
    It sounds like when this is all over, I'll have a new "terrible job story" to add to that thread.
    •  
      CommentAuthorstaticgirl
    • CommentTimeApr 8th 2011 edited
     (9731.16)
    How weird, I click on this thread and BBC News starts a report on the story...

    I hope they explain it to me because I don't understand it. Don't think it could happen in UK because of how we're set up...

    edit: dear gods sounds terrifying.
    • CommentAuthorFlabyo
    • CommentTimeApr 8th 2011
     (9731.17)
    It wouldn't happen in the UK. The daily business of actually running the country is performed by the Civil Service, and they'll carry on quite happily doing their thing whether parliament is there or not.
    •  
      CommentAuthorAlan Tyson
    • CommentTimeApr 8th 2011
     (9731.18)
    I've been trying to get a gov't job for a while now, because I've sick of getting screwed over/injured in my current gig. If I finally end up getting that job, and then I can't even get paid for it (and I seriously doubt I'm the only one in the position)... well, shit.

    Seriously, how would such a shut-down benefit any-goddamn-one, from a financial/economic standpoint? I missed that memo entirely. This whole thing sounds like the Republicans/Tea Partiers just trying to enact a self-fulfilling prophecy.
    • CommentAuthor256
    • CommentTimeApr 8th 2011
     (9731.19)
    I realise that I'm adding nothing to the conversation here, but:

    @BrianMowrey -
    Everything the Republicans have done to supplant governmental competence with country-shaming disasters has only strengthened their hand leading to this moment.


    Thought that was beautifully put.
    • CommentAuthorFan
    • CommentTimeApr 8th 2011
     (9731.20)
    @Flabyo - I don't think it's to do with whether parliament is sitting but rather, whether the government has the money (i.e. the spending authority or, perhaps more accurately, the borrowing authority) to issue pay cheques to people on its payroll.

1 to 20 of 55

  1. <
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. >

This discussion has been inactive for longer than 5 days, and doesn't want to be resurrected.