Another government shutdown?

[Borg]

Workers at the National Weather Service are trying to tell the lawmakers please pay us.

 

[Borek]

The more I read, the more I think about decline of Poland in 16th-17th-18th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberum_veto

 

[Astronuc]

The deficiencies in the Affordable Care Act do have to be addressed, as do the chronic deficits and burgeoning debt, as does the anemic growth of the economy, . . . .

As the government shutdown that began Tuesday moves into its first weekend, outrage and derisive jokes have given way to a depressed acceptance. This is what political life in 2013 has become. This is the inevitable result when most of the essential jobs in Washington involve the manufacture of partisan talking points.

. . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/six-lessons-of-the-government-shutdown-165701986.html

 

[OmCheeto]

The more I read, the more I think about decline of Poland in 16th-17th-18th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberum_veto

Fascinating. I'm learning so much history this week.

Many historians hold that the principle of liberum veto was a major cause of the deterioration of the Commonwealth political system—particularly in the 18th century, when foreign powers bribed Sejm members to paralyze its proceedings—and the Commonwealth's eventual destruction...

Strategic financial meddling by outside sources. hmmm... Where have I ranted about that to no end?

hmmm... It's Saturday, and I feel like a short rant:

On Wednesday, I was joking with some co-workers that they should charge the tea partiers with treason, and just shoot them all.

On Thursday, while eating lunch, I watched the TV in the cafeteria when a news story interrupted CNN's regularly scheduled banality: the Capitol was shut down because of a shooting.
Then I wished that I hadn't made that joke about shooting people.
After lunch, an acquaintance from Russia told me that it was the 20th anniversary of Yeltsin shooting up the Russian White House, which is apparently their equivalent of our Capitol building. I told her about the shooting at our Capitol building, and mentioned that maybe Obama had lost it, and pulled a Yeltsin, as I didn't know at that time that the entire incident was caused by some woman off of her meds.

On Friday, I listened to more stories of the "1993 Russian constitutional crisis" from both my Russian acquaintance and her husband. They were both living in Moscow when it was going on. I learned a lot of things. I also decided never to ask either one of them about that time in Russia, as the incident, and what happened afterwards, sounded dreadful.

A brief synopsis is here: Two Russians Walk Into a Parliamentary Crisis...

What is a president in a presidential constitutional republic to do when faced with an intransigent, bull-headed faction among his people's representatives?

...

Then Yeltsin did this...

http://www.newrepublic.com/sites/default/files/u180378/1993-russia-inline.jpg​

I've often wondered how there could now be so many billionaires in Russia, when just 20 years ago, no one was "officially" rich. Listening to the stories of my two Russian acquaintances, it sounded a bit like Orwell's Animal Farm. Some Russians were more equal than others.

But that's a digression into corruption, lawlessness, and general greed, which we don't have here.

And as I mentioned, it's Saturday, and the sun is shining. I think I'll take my boat to the river, and go for a cruise.

 

[AlephZero]

I don't believe that is the case. Speaker Boehner (not Boehmer) has had primary challengers from further Right before. In 2012, he beat David Lewis by more than a factor of 5. In 2010, when Tea Party support was at its zenith, he beat his rightward challenger by more like 20:1.

This is pretty much in line with UK mainstream news reporting IMO. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24388669

What I think you are missing is how deeply unpopular Obamacare is in certain sectors.

Indeed:

Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker looked at their congressional districts and found that, wacko or not, these representatives are reflecting the will of the voters who sent them to Washington, a decidedly different demographic than America at large.

They "represent an America where the population is getting whiter, where there are few major cities, where Obama lost the last election in a landslide, and where the Republican Party is becoming more dominant and more popular," he wrote. "Meanwhile, in national politics, each of these trends is actually reversed."

 

[mheslep]

Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker looked at their congressional districts and found that, wacko or not, these representatives are reflecting the will of the voters who sent them to Washington, a decidedly different demographic than America at large.

They "represent an America where the population is getting whiter, where there are few major cities, where Obama lost the last election in a landslide, and where the Republican Party is becoming more dominant and more popular," he wrote. "Meanwhile, in national politics, each of these trends is actually reversed."

It is one thing to observe there are conflicting trends in national politics and thus the divided control of federal government. But the 2010 elections resulted in a dramatic gain of 63 seats for the GOP in the US House, six seats in the Senate including Kennedy's seat in Mass., 690 seats in state legislatures, and a total of 29 governorship's. The GOP still holds the US House after the 2012 elections and thus the power the purse.

When this majority in the US House, where all seats face election based on population every two years, is dismissed as the result of some localized minority demographic of "whiter" guys in the boonies, then i) the observation itself is "wacko", or ii) is more tedious agenda politics in the media.

 

[edward]

Just a little rant:

China has to love seeing this. Obama was supposed to make a trip to other Asian countries to gain some influence this week.

The mention of outside influence above got me to thinking: What are all of the lobbyist doing right now? Not much probably. They don't just lobby congress they also lobby government agencies.

I really need to know how much chicken manure the USDA allows in cattle feed. Oops there are other sources, it is 20% chicken poop.

What I am getting at is who lobbied the USDA to get chicken manure allowed in cattle feed in the first place? It will probably turn out to be the same people who will get an end to the shut down and get congress to churning out BS again.

 

[Office_Shredder]

When this majority in the US House, where all seats face election based on population every two years, is dismissed as the result of some localized minority demographic of "whiter" guys in the boonies, then i) the observation itself is "wacko", or ii) is more tedious agenda politics in the media.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2012I will simply observe that more people voted for Democrats than Republicans in the 2012 House elections. If you choose to believe this is a mandate to end Obamacare then there is nothing I can say to dissuade that.

EDIT TO ADD:
The House has voted to give back pay to all furloughed workers... I assume the Senate will vote for it too:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.co...-to-give-furloughed-federal-workers-back-pay/

 

[OmCheeto]

This is pretty much in line with UK mainstream news reporting IMO. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24388669
...

Ha!

That look.

Justin Amash has voted against his party leadership more than any other member of the House​

I think I like this kid.

Oh wait!

On August 3, 2010, Amash won the five-way Republican primary for the seat vacated by retiring Republican Vern Ehlers with over 40% of the vote. Amash was a favorite of the Tea Party movement...

and

On December 3, 2012, Amash was removed from the Budget Committee. Politico quoted a Republican Steering Committee member as saying that Amash, along with colleagues Tim Huelskamp and David Schweikert, who were also stripped of committee assignments, were "the most egregious(shocking, appalling, terrible, awful, horrendous, frightful, atrocious, abominable, abhorrent, outrageous) [donkey perforations]" in the House Republican Conference.

Never mind...

 

[Vanadium 50]

Me too -- I tried to get wood strength properties from the Wood Handbook (a fine publication from the Forest Products Lab), and it was not available.

From Carl M. Cannon: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/10/06/the_self-inflicted_wounds_of_bare-knuckle_governing_120216.html

... in a memo from White House Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Burwell providing guidance to federal agencies and departments. Aside from prefacing this Sept. 17 memo with a political talking point (Congress is to blame, not the administration), she instructs agency heads not to consider whether the cost of shutting down a government website is more expensive than keeping it running.

And that, not Tea Party intractability, is why Yosemite’s website has been down since last week.

So there's your answer. It probably would have been cheaper to leave it up but not updated than to take it down. (That's what we do over closures - we keep them up, but if they crash, they aren't fixed)

 

[Office_Shredder]

OK, I realize this is a bit off topic but what is the cost difference between leaving the website up and running or replacing it with a shutdown home page? It seems like the difference is trivial in terms of effort and cost (as in, my understanding of websites is that this should take maybe 30 keystrokes to achieve once the new shutdown page is designed)

 

[Vanadium 50]

I also doubt the cost of either option differs by much - maybe an hour of someone's time to archive the old content, put the redirects in place, test things, and make them live. But the OMB has decided - the websites stay down.

 

[russ_watters]

So in the game of irresponsibility, who is winning? The side that created the shutdown or the side that purposely sabotages government work to try to make it as painful and costly as possible (incidentally, I think that's the same sides and tactics as in the sequester).

 

[FlexGunship]

Naive question on this topic...

The government shutdown (ignoring the temporary measure passed to keep governmental employees working) is a forced spending-stop measure right? Without approved appropriates, money can't be spent... therefore governmental functions are halted.

If this leads the an actual reduction in the amount of money spent (i.e. a federally funded park is closed, so no money is spent operating the park) then shouldn't the shutdown, to some degree, be considered an end unto itself even if it's only temporary?

It's not just a negotiating tactic... it's a result in its own right.

If you make gross assumptions (maybe incorrectly) that funding happens in a continuous stream (i.e. one week is about 1/52nd of the budget), then each week of the shutdown you should save about 2% of the total budget. (Or 1% or 0.000001%... or whatever!)

Okay, I know that totally doesn't actually work. But surely some amount of cost is saved by not operating all of those services.

I don't know how to ask this question without having someone just nitpick the details.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Naive question on this topic...

...
If you make gross assumptions (maybe incorrectly) that funding happens in a continuous stream (i.e. one week is about 1/52nd of the budget), then each week of the shutdown you should save about 2% of the total budget. (Or 1% or 0.000001%... or whatever!)

Okay, I know that totally doesn't actually work. But surely some amount of cost is saved by not operating all of those services.

I don't know how to ask this question without having someone just nitpick the details.

There are savings with some expenses not related to employee salaries and most benefits. In the past government employees have aways gotten the back pay and benefits lost during the shutdown. I imagine that the salaries and benefits are the major part of the costs of government. Other contractual obligations would also have to be paid.

 

[FlexGunship]

There are savings with some expenses not related to employee salaries and most benefits. In the past government employees have aways gotten the back pay and benefits lost during the shutdown. I imagine that the salaries and benefits are the major part of the costs of government.

Understood. I have a friend that works at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. He was furloughed all of last week. He went back to work today under the promise of receiving back pay.

Perhaps this is the new mode of operation. In addition to our current stream of debt, congress will create a secondary debt source in the form of "back pay" to government employees. If I were Neal Stephenson, I'd also speculate that there would be a secondary economy formed from the trading these "promised dollars" with investors paying for them based on the perceived likelihood that they'd be paid in the future and at what rate.

 

[BobG]

The perceived likelihood is about 99.99% that they'll receive 100% of their back pay. That's only based on every other "failure to pass a budget" shutdown in the government's history, but it's hard to find people that will acknowledge that there's a possibility they won't get 100% of their back pay.

If it were only an occasional government shutdown with a nearly 100% chance of receiving their pay, anyway, the shutdown wouldn't have a huge impact on government personnel.

The problem is that this shutdown comes on top of furloughs inflicted because of sequestration. Those furloughs are real and that money is lost for workers (1 day a week, 1 day every two weeks, depending on how much depletion of manning an office can stand - plus the caveat that you can't use a vacation day on a furlough day, not too mention that if 10% to 20% of their staff is furloughed, it's harder to get vacation days, period).

On top of that, we have another shutdown looming due to the debt ceiling that could result in more furloughs that may or may not be compensated for (it's a different species than the typical "failure to pass a budget" shutdown).

All in all, it's going to get harder and harder to hire government employees. Maybe not being able to fill some of those slots will be seen as a good thing by some, but, unfortunately, those aren't the slots that will be impacted the most. Some experts are worried about an exodus of brain power.

All in all, it's becoming a lot less fun to be associated with the federal government, period, whether you're a federal employee or a contractor supporting the government. The smart prospect might want higher pay to compensate for the lack in government stability.

 

[Bystander]

There are savings with some expenses not related to employee salaries and most benefits. In the past government employees have aways gotten the back pay and benefits lost during the shutdown. I imagine that the salaries and benefits are the major part of the costs of government. Other contractual obligations would also have to be paid.

Five million employees? S & B ca. $200k/a? Is one terabuck --- a large part of the cost, but not the major cost.

 

[azdavesoul]

park-service-oks-immigration-reform-rally-on-closed-national-mall
It appears that the National Parks are only closed to some of the public…

 

[Office_Shredder]

Compare to

http://www.latimes.com/nation/natio...sburg-rally-canceled-20131002,0,6070653.story

and this is clearly politically motivated and nothing more. I was generally supportive of the Obama administrative but this is garbage.

 

[lisab]

Compare to

http://www.latimes.com/nation/natio...sburg-rally-canceled-20131002,0,6070653.story

and this is clearly politically motivated and nothing more. I was generally supportive of the Obama administrative but this is garbage.

Well I won't shed any tears for the KKK's loss of a protest venue with historical interest.

If that was the *only* thing canceled due to park closures then there may be a case for calling it 'political'. But plenty of gatherings were cancelled. For example, this lovely couple's wedding:

http://wcfcourier.com/news/local/go...cle_813ccb56-c8e0-5096-a16d-f69c5f4bfecb.html

The shut down didn't deter this couple, although the nuptials seem to have taken place somewhere less spectacular than Yosemite:

http://www.10news.com/news/san-diego-bride-doesnt-let-shut-down-stop-wedding-10052013

I'm sure there were countless canceled family vacations and hiking trips as well. So I don't see the KKK's cancellation as politically motivated.

 

[Office_Shredder]

lisab, the point is the post above mine is about a rally which was allowed to continue, the reason given being "first amendment rights". If that was the real reason then they wouldn't have canceled any rallies. I'm not complaining about things being canceled, I'm complaining about things being canceled and other things not being canceled, when there is zero difference between the situations other than how much the Obama administration likes the people running them.

 

[edward]

Awww poor old KKK.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — The U.S. Forest Service confirmed Friday it is shutting down logging operations on national forests across the country due to the partial shutdown of the federal government.

The agency plans to notify 450 timber purchasers across the country early next week that timber sales and stewardship contracts will be suspended, Forest Service spokesman Leo Kay said in an email.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/forest-service-stopping-logging-on-national-forests-across-country-due-to-government-shutdown/2013/10/04/8955a55a-2d50-11e3-b141-298f46539716_story.html

 

[lisab]

lisab, the point is the post above mine is about a rally which was allowed to continue, the reason given being "first amendment rights". If that was the real reason then they wouldn't have canceled any rallies. I'm not complaining about things being canceled, I'm complaining about things being canceled and other things not being canceled, when there is zero difference between the situations other than how much the Obama administration likes the people running them.

That article says the permit for the KKK really was recinded:

The Confederate White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan had received a special use permit to hold a demonstration at the Gettysburg National Military Park on Saturday. But the permit has been rescinded because of the federal government shutdown, which has closed monuments and parks across the nation, according to a park news release.

I don't see in the article where any rally was allowed to continue.

 

[Office_Shredder]

park-service-oks-immigration-reform-rally-on-closed-national-mall
It appears that the National Parks are only closed to some of the public…

Lisab, I'm talking about this post

 

[OmCheeto]

This morning, on the way to work, the talk radio people were going off about the shutdown of the "Amber Alert System"

Apparently, it's back up.

Though, this morning, I thought about it, and, once again, I sided with Ms. Warren.

Obamacare, aka, the Affordable Care Act, means thousands fewer kids will die.
The Amber Alert System going down, will mean about 2 kids per year will die.

And we will all be sad.

Media.

Kill your media, kids...

 

[lisab]

Lisab, I'm talking about this post

My apologies. I'm sorry, I missed that link altogether!

 

[edward]

That article says the permit for the KKK really was recinded:



I don't see in the article where any rally was allowed to continue.

The rally was held in downtown Gettysburg. The Gettysburg National Military Park is nearly 6,000 acres. It doesn't look like the KKK needed that much space.

GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) - Four members of the Ku Klux Klan held an event in downtown Gettysburg after the federal government shutdown canceled their plans to rally on the nearby battlefield park grounds.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20131005_ap_7a79d67f953c4e35bb706e698fb4d68f.html#WuEkQsAYGq3bScGW.99

 

[Office_Shredder]

No, but that's not the point. One rally was allowed on a closed space, and the reason given is that the First Amendment apparently trumps government shutdown. But this rally was not allowed on a closed space, despite the First Amendment. Since generally nothing has been allowed, the one rally being allowed is clearly the Obama administration playing favoritism because that rally is being attended by Democrats and supports a liberal cause.

 

[BobG]

No, but that's not the point. One rally was allowed on a closed space, and the reason given is that the First Amendment apparently trumps government shutdown. But this rally was not allowed on a closed space, despite the First Amendment. Since generally nothing has been allowed, the one rally being allowed is clearly the Obama administration playing favoritism because that rally is being attended by Democrats and supports a liberal cause.

1) You're comparing a park in Pennsylvania to what's essentially a large town square (or national square, in this case). Different officials in charge - different interpretation and implementation. In other words, I doubt park officials at each park are contacting the White House to ask how they should handle specific situations.

2) Saying only one rally has been allowed on the national mall is clearly incorrect. A previous "rally" by veterans was led by Congressmen Michele Bachman, Steve Palazzo, and a few other Congressmen. While they did send a request to be allowed to hold the rally in spite of the shutdown, what they actually did was just ignore the barriers and hold the rally anyway.

No one arrested them for trespassing.

In fact, considering the immigration reform rally also had Congressmen involved, including Nancy Pelosi and Robert Menendez, it's at least equally likely that allowing the immigration rally to go on had more to do with the precedent set by the veterans' rally than political ideology.

What are they really going to say? The barriers are meaningless because we're not actually going to arrest anyone for walking past them and we're especially not going to arrest Congressmen that ignore them?

Clearly, what the KKK should do is to move their rally to the national mall and find some Congressmen that will lead their rally. No one will bother them and they'll even give a decent excuse as to why they won't.

 

[Vanadium 50]

More on web sites: the DoE has asked the National Laboratories not to post any new material on their web sites during the shutdown. This despite the fact that these Laboratories are contractors, remain open and receive some non-federal funding. So there is no reason why they couldn't (at least for now) stay active - but the government clearly does not want that.

 

[OmCheeto]

More on web sites: the DoE has asked the National Laboratories not to post any new material on their web sites during the shutdown. This despite the fact that these Laboratories are contractors, remain open and receive some non-federal funding. So there is no reason why they couldn't (at least for now) stay active - but the government clearly does not want that.

How much is "some non-federal funding"?

I didn't know squat about the National Labs, so I spent the last hour cruising through some articles and sprinkling of the National Labs web sites: Ames, Argonne, Brookhaven, etc. etc. Lots of financial pie charts.

It looks to me that roughly 90% of the funding for the labs is from the federal government. I'm assuming "Work for Others" is the non-federal funding you mentioned.

It is interesting how much these labs do, that I take for granted, or didn't realize existed: Some GPS critical clock, weather satellites.

As Shutdown Takes Hold, an Essential Few Scientists Still on the Job
October 1, 2013
...
Both Mason and Isaacs stress that, even as their labs remain open, the lack of funding is affecting smaller research efforts. Oak Ridge receives funding through roughly 40 different sub-budgets or "control points," Mason explains. Although lab officials have some ability to redistribute money within each sub-budget, they cannot move money from one to another. So different research efforts will run out of gas at different times if the shutdown continues, Mason says: "There are 40 odd little cliffs that you go over as each of these buckets runs dry." Once enough programs have been forced to stop, Mason says, it will become untenable to keep the lab open, even if other programs still have a shekel or two to spend.
...
In the meantime, there is a fair amount of confusion about how to inform the public about the impact of the shutdown. An NSF official who was at work today after being deemed essential hung up on an inquiry from ScienceInsider because “talking to the media is not part of my excepted duties.” And the media managers at two DOE national laboratories said that all press queries were being handled by DOE’s office of public affairs, which will be closed for the duration of the shutdown.

I wonder what would happen if they turned off the GPS clock. Would everyone get lost?

hmmm... Guess who I'd like to see get lost. But you only get one guess.

 

[jtbell]

The rally was held in downtown Gettysburg.

No, but that's not the point. One rally was allowed on a closed space,

Downtown Gettysburg (indeed, the town of Gettysburg in general, apart from the national park facilities) is not a closed space.

 

[OmCheeto]

This morning, on the way to work, the talk radio people were going off about the shutdown of the "Amber Alert System"

Apparently, it's back up.

Though, this morning, I thought about it...

Obamacare, aka, the Affordable Care Act, means thousands fewer kids will die.
The Amber Alert System going down, will mean about 2 kids per year will die.

...

These numbers were of course, straight out of my PMR^*.

The actual estimates are:

http://www.amberalert.gov/faqs.htm
AMBER Alert programs have helped save the lives of 656 children nationwide. Over 90 percent of those recoveries have occurred since October 2002.

Which by my calculations, comes out to 53.7 children per year.

http://www.thenation.com/article/167256/how-affordable-care-act-saves-lives#
The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies reported in 2009 that reducing health disparities could prevent 85,000 deaths per year.

Of course, the numbers are subjective, and death isn't the only bad thing.

http://www.pressherald.com/opinion/...save-lives-money_2013-09-29.html?pagenum=full
There are about 50 million uninsured Americans, and an estimated 25,000 of them die each year of conditions that could have been avoided with timely care. Another 700,000 people are bankrupted by medical bills every year, King said. This is the only country in the industrialized world where that could happen

.




*Purple Monkey Repository

 

[edward]

The governments Amber alert website was down. The Amber alert system itself was fully operational.