Obviously this shutdown has been planned since the 2010 elections. In fact, many of the 80 hardliners, the banana republicans, campaigned on the notion of shutting down the government to get their own way.
Are these people just plain stupid or are they un-American? Is Obamacare really the issue or is destruction of the country the real issue. Many people have suggested that the Republicans have painted themselves into a corner and want out. Some of them apparently don’t. They are giddy to quote several of them.
Those who want the government closed clearly don’t want to assume the responsibility of governance. The slash-and-burn, scorched earth policy we have just seen will run into the more serious issue of raising the debt ceiling. Failure to raise the debt ceiling will have far more perilous consequences than shutting down the government, which, unless we have a volcanic eruption or a meteor strike, is simply a costly inconvenience and an embarrassment. Failure to raise the debt ceiling could have a catastrophic impact not only here in the United States but also around the world.
The Republicans need to send a clean bill to the Senate that funds the full government so we get back to doing business as Americans. These close encounters with brinkmanship must stop. These encounters are bad for the economy, bad for Americans, bad for our standing in the world and bad for the country in general.
After the first full day of the so-called government shutdown, I admit I woke up this morning with some trepidation. I had no idea what to expect and the news reports and hysterical blog posts I’ve been reading had filled me with dread.
I crept over to my window and opened the shade a bit. Imagine my shock when I saw that the sun was up and the sky was blue?!? Gathering my courage, I cracked my window and hear birds singing (yes, singing). Granted, the songs weren’t as plentiful as they usually were, as only the essential birdies were singing while the non-essential birdies had the day off, but I heard their songs nonetheless.
I soon ventured out to the airport to catch a flight, to my further shock on roads that were mostly serviceable and had no apparent massive craters that had developed as a result of the shutdown. To my utter surprise the boys in blue were fully staffed, regulating traffic as usual, along with a healthy contingent of TSA to ensure that I didn’t board my plane with a sharpened toothbrush or anything like that. Still, I was nervous. Wouldn’t air travel be disrupted and even dangerous? I was on pins and needles the entire trip, but I made it to my destination on time, and the plane didn’t even fall out of the sky once!
Strolling through the destination airport, I picked up a newspaper whose headline trumpeted that 85% of the IRS and 93% of the EPA had been furloughed as non-essential.
That sounds like a pretty good deal to me. God bless the shutdown!
What a totally irresponsible response. I guess if you are only interested in yourself, then it is a good deal.
Maybe you get a good snoot full of smog today and drink contaminated water and dine on fish laced with mercury.
The partial shut-down we are now experiencing may go relatively unnoticed by many Americans, unless you are someone being furloughed, a visitor to a national park, a child needing to start a treatment program at NIH (that has been suspended also) or something along those lines. We’ll recover from this situation more-or-less unscathed after full funding is restored even though it’s a childish way to run the government.
As I wrote yesterday, my greatest fear is of a default if the debt ceiling is not raised. If the United States government for the first time ever defaults on its financial obligations the outcome will range between serious and catastrophic, depending on the length and magnitude of the default. There will be global consequences as well, and as closely tied as the US economy is to the global economy reverberations from those impacts will magnify the disaster here at home.
Making this situation all the scarier is that it is being driven by people who do not understand how capital markets and the economy function. I have no doubt that many of them are completely oblivious to the potential consequences of their actions. They may think they are resolving the Federal debt problem with their threats, and that they are strengthening the Republican Party. In fact, they are putting us on a course whose outcome could be far worse than dealing with the debt responsibly over a period of years. If we get a default and the U.S. credit rating is downgraded interest rates will spike making dealing with the national debt even more onerous. Also, this group might very well be bringing about the end of the Republican Party as a viable player in U.S. politics.
I personally think part of the “game” was to let the Healthcare Exchanges begin and then fall on their faces….or so possibly was their plan. Yeah, glitches yesterday but mainly due to overload of servers as not enough education that there is a longer period where you can sign up. I viewed the kick-off glitches of yesterday as just what to be expected…sort of like the Holiday Electronic Shopping Day where everybody jumps on Amazon to get the deals first. My hunch might be since it is not quite falling on its face, when the Conference meets, maybe just maybe some folks will get their heads out of their tush and do what is right.
This whole shutdown stinks because, as you noted in your other posting on the little Horse Island, there are major impacts not being noticed….all anyone follows is the major issue like 800K Federal Employees. Alas, the little folk are always the ones ignored. Veterans Administration says it only has enough funding for Disability Payments for about two weeks…Home Care services the same….Medical Centers and Clinics may have to start prioritizing who they see. Local Human Services have been told by the State they have enough funding for the Federal programs they run to get them to the end of the month…over at Area Agency on Aging, that means home care and meal programs will be hit by 25% if Federal Funds run out. Sad, really sad state we are in.
I know people being furloughed. They don’t know how they will pay their mortgage. Like the rest of us, they just want to work for a living.
But they have a s**tty, moody, cheapskate employer – the United States of America, i.e. you and me. I have a feeling that if your employer or mine did this to us, “furloughed” as at the drop of a hat, we’d quite rightly think of them as a major a-hole.
Given the effect that this has on people’s lives, when i see posts like Cato’s above, or see the talking heads on FOX News laughing and gloating about shutting the govermment down, even in the absense of any startegy or endgame to that – I remember why it is I didn’t like Republicans when i was younger. They are sometimes mean, nasty, insular people who lack human empathy.
Even though this shutdown isn’t afecting me personally, I do resent seeing my friends treated like crap while Sean hannity laughs about it and Ted Cruz cracks jokes. I think I’m less likely to vote republican for a long while. They’re an irresponsible bunch of creeps. Conservative thought is valid. The political strategy of obstructing everything and throwing feces at the wall in a snit, though, is not valid politics as far as I’m concerned.
I discern the democrats as a couple of layers removed from what’s real, and the Republicans as 3 or 4 layers removed and working feverishly on a 5th. I discern a real lack of patriotism in the average Republican these days. They want America to fail, for the sake of providing them entertaining sound bites on their faity-tale news channel.
Another standing ovation for Rick.
To my Republican friends, I am really sorry I feel this way. Please, you normal conservatives, take your party back from this insanity!
We also know Emma. She is part of the Moonhowlings family. She has insecure and scary times ahead of her.
Until she commented, I didn’t realize any of our cyber-family was affected by the shutdown.
Emma, let us know if you need anything.
The repugs are trying to destroy the country
The Navy/Air Force game has been suspended.
Good. Air Force has no way to get here. It relies on Congressional funding. I would shut the school down until the govt is funded.
Wanna know how many non-essential people I have on my payroll? Zero. Exactly zero.
I’m not exactly happy about 800K people sitting around doing nothing and not getting paid, but it’s pretty shocking to me that we have that many people on the payroll that are considered non-essential. Either reclassify the jobs or eliminate the positions. If it’s not essential, then the government shouldn’t be doing it.
Review the word ‘essential.’ Pretend it says ‘critical.’ Essential and Non-essential are no longer used anyway. The media is clinging to the old words rather than the newer nomenclature.
@Cato the Elder As much as I hate to say this, I can’t help myself.
Bite me.
I’m (I guess arguably to some folks) “essential”–working without guarantee of a paycheck anytime soon, and with no annual leave or sick leave allowed to be charged during this time should I have a family emergency or something. My husband is furloughed. We have two kids in college. It’s really not funny.
But hey, I’m just a nurse. What would I know?@Cato the Elder
Emma, I agree with you. No, it isn’t funny at all. It’s scary and it’s dangerous. There are no guarantees here either.
Make that a double “bite me.” I didn’t realize you couldn’t use sick leave or annual leave during this time.
As much as I love our national parks and monuments, they become roll down the priority rung when we start talking about people’s livelihoods, paychecks, having enough to eat, and food for the family.
Obama needs to get Joe Biden working on a deal. No, that’s not a joke. Joe Biden has been behind the last three deals between Democrats and Republicans. There needs to less talking in public and more talking in private to work out a deal.
“Maybe you get a good snoot full of smog today and drink contaminated water and dine on fish laced with mercury.” Hey, that’s the world my parents grew up in and they lived into their eighties. What they did lack was the hassle of government regulations being constantly on their minds and involved in every action they took. Knowing they had the freedom to enjoy life without the constant threat of sanctions or lawsuits or street crime or some agency wanting to take their kids because they disciplined them once in awhile removed stress which is a major factor in health, but no one ever brings that up.
“If it’s not essential, then the government shouldn’t be doing it.”
That’s a valid perspective. I wouldn’t call you any names for feeling that way, or voting in accordnace with that. But the Republican party isn’t trying to actually do away with the agencies whose people are furloughed. Just trying to turn them on and off because they get a collective kick out of flexing their ability to do so, and to hurt the people who work at them. Who are, really, our employees.
How many of us, if we look hard in the mirror, are really “essential”? Arguably, not a single person in the whole of the U.S. or elsewhere. The terminology is stupid. There is no logic to this. It is a byproduct of dysfunctional government, and a byproduct of the angry insular and bitter conservative mindset. “By their fruits, ye shall know them”.
Second Alamo, with all due respect, your post above seems a bit over the top. Does the modern world really look that bad to you? The efforts to clean water have really made it a worse place? At any rate, that doesn’t make any sense out of tellinng 800,000 of our employees to go live without pay for awhile. And many more people are affected – I know people who work in facilities now closed, for private contractors – they won’t be paid, now or later.
Ok Rick, the pres and the Dems had a decision to make whether they liked it or not to either fund the government OR delay Obamacare. So technically THEY decided that Obamacare was MORE important than funding the government. Argue it any way you want, but in a court of law the final decision rested with them even though they were being forced into a corner. The actions now are to blame the Reps for having forced them into making a choice to begin with which is also technically correct, but the responsibility for allowing the government to close is technically and legally on them.
That argument is credible with a slight majority of Republican voters, but not to anyone else. And you’d have an easier time arguing it if we couldn’t all breeze by FOX News and watch the anchors there cracking jokes and generally acting gleeful about the shutdown.
How do you think this ends, SA? What thing is currently being accomplished?
Good question Rick. Perhaps there is an alternative before going Das ReichSenate.
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/10636509-message-to-usa-from-queen-elizabeth
@Second Alamo
Repeating here…the ACA is established law. It isn’t a bill.
@Rick Bentley
Who is Gretchen’s replacement? She looks a little like Elizabeth Hasselbeck except the eyes are more glazed than usual. Whoever it is smirks, giggles and acts like she is 14, especially when making a conservative ‘point.’
@blue
That is not even worthy of a comment.
@Moon-howler
Oh come on Moon, smile. That is funny!
Blue, I don’t think any of this is funny. I think it is very serious and has the potential of doing great harm.
The debt ceiling hasn’t been raised and a default could be catastrophic. Once the debt ceiling has been raised and the government funded, remind me and I will reread it. Perhaps then my sense of humor might have returned. It’s that looming fear of financial doom that gets me….
Moon, I haven’t noticed the woman you speak of. I only see it for a few minutes at a time during the day, when i go past a TV in our laboratory. Almost inevitably when i look at it, the screen legend tells me that Obama is implicitly responsible for some bad thing.
I only sneaked a peek. I will look up and see who she is. I think it is Ms. H.
Sounds like it was her. She has in fact recently joined FOX News.
Now she can get in touch with her inner idiot, completely. I am sure that I will come to like her less. The channel is a vipers nest of people who hate America, IMO.
I don’t watch it much, and am not especially enthralled with the “Women of FOX News”, but I know that some of my coworkers are really into them. The women’s looks are a major factor in their ratings I think. I probably am more likely to lave the channel there when Harris Faulkner or Michelle Malkin are on.
There’s one woman on there who is so, so dumb. Borderline retarded. Gretchen Carlson I think?
Gretchen Carlson actually was valedictorian of her high school class, she graduated from Stanford cum laude and studied at Oxford and she is a former Miss America. She is living proof of how people can go stupid for money. I expect since leaving Fox News, especially Fox and Friends, her IQ has risen 75 points.
Yup, it’s Elizabeth Hasselbeck. She wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer when she was on the view. I am sure since joining the Faux Friends she has gone through a brain drain. I will say this about her, even though she used to have simple answers for complex issues, she was a kind person. I expect Fox News will beat that trait out of her. In fact, that valley girl talk and head flipping along with the glazed eyes might be a sign that has happened already. That’s too bad.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-and-friends/index.html
The simple fact is that the extremists in the House (with Boehner’s help) are undermining the democratic process. The American people do not want the government shut down over Obamacare and the bipartisan “clean” funding bill from the Senate would easily pass the House and be signed by the president, ending the shutdown tomorrow. Boehner’s mortal fear of the extremists prevents him from allowing a vote. How is this democratic?
So if you leftys don’t like Fox, why not just crawl back into your MSNBC cocoon? Or do you watch TV to get triggered and outraged?
You don’t have to worry about that happening to you if you are a foxite. You just sit back and get the party line said to you over and over again all day long while you are fed the usual T & A visual to get your attention.
Me? I watch a variety of different channels and I read various periodicals online. I try for neutrality rather than having my brains by partisan rhetoric.
@Moon-howler
Well the T&A part is true, guilty as charged. When I do chance on Fox, I ain’t there to get the news. I suppose it’s just an accident that they put the news babes on tall stools and use low camera angles.
I would agree with you.
You also don’t see anyone on there who isn’t fairly attractive. Elena says that Greta used to refuse lip gloss back in the day. Now she is all gussied up and has had various face jobs.
Greta is the exception that proves the rule.
Greta is no longer a plain Jane for sure. It’s like botox or die!!
MSNBC is just as inane and harmful to America as FOX News. But there’s a big difference between them. NOBODY WATCHES MSNBC.
MSNBC is just as inane and harmful to rational thought as FOX News is. But there’s a big difference. Nobody watches MSNBC.
The thing that right wingers should acknowledge is that FOX News is wildly popular, watched by many, and has every opportunity to get a conservative perspective into view and into people’s thoughts and discussions. And it does. There is this constant talk about media bias. But that’s yesterday’s world. In today’s world, everyone with cable TV gets FOX News, and “more Americans get their new from FOX News than from any other source”. To me, the bias may have now swung the other way. At any rate, the left wing is hardly able to control the message.
Which is why it’s so bizarre that the average FOX News viewer feels persecuted and belittled. To the extent of believing that there’s a war on Christmas, etc. etc.
But it’s symptomatic of this – most people that watch FOX are either older, or stupid. In either case, these factors make a person less capable of seeing the world as it currently exists, and more inclined to see it as it was during their formative years. And to endlessly fight against ghosts and straw men that don’t really exist any more. And to be incapable of dealing with what’s real.
I disagree, Rick. There are some inane people on MSNBC for sure. Lots of people watch MOrning Joe. It is a good way to get a good cross section of current events without drowning out opposing views. the contributors and guests are from moderate, liberal, libertarian, an conservative camps. Hate Mika? She is offset by others. Hate Joe Scarborough, then you have Willie Geist and Mike Barnacle. You get the drift. Its a good show. No one is sniping and smirking with s-eating grins. Joe goes off on his rants, but its ok to disagree. I think it is one of the best shows on TV. It isn’t like crossfire where you expect people to argue. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
Fox News contributes to ignorance. The news is always biased and delivered with smirking and sneering. Unfortunatley, those watching think they are ever so informed. That’s the danger. After a while, Fox News even affects one’s mood. I had to stop watching for that very reason. It has destroyed marriages even if one person watches and the other doesn’t/
Most watchers are older. I know people who watch and who didn’t use to be stupid. Its like Fox News abducted their brains. Its scary.
MSNBC, after 0900, is almost as slanted as Fox is all day. But Morning Joe is an excellent forum and does keep things very well balanced. Best to stay away from the cable news. BBC and Al-Jazeera are a lot more objective than virtually anything else we get these days. The rest is just entertainment for people who don’t appreciate talent. we simply do not have enough song & dance shows anymore. I could use a lot more of pet tricks, music (where’s Lawrence Welk when we really need him), ventriloquists, and skits (God, I miss Sid Caesar).
I agree. After 9 it gets to be the mirror image of Faux News. I like Rachel Maddow in the evenings. Yes, she’s liberal but she is very polite and does her homework. If she’s wrong, she fesses up the next day.
I agree about BBC and Al-Jazeera as far as being fair and balanced. <----ewwwww. I can't believe I said that. I left off that I also like Shepherd Smith of Faux News. I also liked Greta at one time until she got swept away by Palin.