Official Government Shutdown 2023 Thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:hey i figure if i plan for the worst than maybe things will go ok.

on that note, if you think there might be any need to take a loan from your tsp during an extended shutdown, go ahead and add a checking/bank account as a linked financial institution in tsp.gov now, as there is a 7-day waiting period to disburse funds electronically to newly configured/changed bank accounts.

Thanks for the tip. That’s helpful. What are the consequences of taking out a TSP loan though?

I took one out for a down payment. There is a calculator that shows how much you can take out. Basically, most of your contributions. You pay back with regular deductions from your paycheck. You are charged interest (but much less than a credit card). Once you pay it back, there is a waiting period before you can take out a new one. Can pay it back early with no penalty if the shutdown doesn’t materialize.

It’s a good alternative to carrying a credit card balance. Lower interest rate, doesn’t hurt credit score. The big downside is don’t earn interest on the pretax money until you pay it back (because it isn’t in your account).

Who carries a credit card balance? Don't spend what you don't have.

So to be clear -- I will not be paid on time, but I also shouldn't run up credit card debt.
I can't pick up a comparable replacement job if furloughed (wouldn't get approved by ethics + no good job can be turned on and off like a faucet), and in fact I might have to keep going to my usual job even though it isn't paying right now.
Also if I am not furloughed I have to cancel my planned leave, but if I am furloughed it's uncouth to say "well, at least I get a break."
Did I get all that right?

💯

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:hey i figure if i plan for the worst than maybe things will go ok.

on that note, if you think there might be any need to take a loan from your tsp during an extended shutdown, go ahead and add a checking/bank account as a linked financial institution in tsp.gov now, as there is a 7-day waiting period to disburse funds electronically to newly configured/changed bank accounts.

Thanks for the tip. That’s helpful. What are the consequences of taking out a TSP loan though?

I took one out for a down payment. There is a calculator that shows how much you can take out. Basically, most of your contributions. You pay back with regular deductions from your paycheck. You are charged interest (but much less than a credit card). Once you pay it back, there is a waiting period before you can take out a new one. Can pay it back early with no penalty if the shutdown doesn’t materialize.

It’s a good alternative to carrying a credit card balance. Lower interest rate, doesn’t hurt credit score. The big downside is don’t earn interest on the pretax money until you pay it back (because it isn’t in your account).

Who carries a credit card balance? Don't spend what you don't have.

Lower GS people who don’t get paid in a shutdown. A Thrift loan that you pay back epwhen your back pay comes through might be a better option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have plane tickets for a weekend trip (planned 8 months ago) over Columbus/Indigenous Peoples weekend. Since I never traveled during past shutdowns, what is the likelihood of ATC and TSA working? (Not that any of us have crystal ball.)

They will force TSA to work unpaid.

That is so sh*tty. So blue collar workers at the TSA will be forced to come in without pay so that the fat-cat Congressmen who caused this shutdown will still be able to jet home?

As well as, of course, every other person who has a flight scheduled during the shutdown. Or would you prefer that all air travel in the country grind to a halt during the shutdown?

Umm yes. That's the point. It's a shutdown of government services because they can't reach any agreement on funding said services.

That should be the outcome when a shutdown is triggered.

So, also the military should stop working? National defense is on hold for the time being - we just hope no one notices? How about the Secret Service? People involved in monitoring nuclear power? Anyone can now wander onto military bases and take whatever they please? I could go on . . .

It's an absurd position, and I think you know that.

It's not absurd, because Joe Average in middle America who thinks the govt has too much money doesn't see the affects of a shutdown. He still gets his SS check, he can call the IRS, his plane still flies.

Average Americas need to see what their Representatives are causing, and they won't see that until it's hard for them.

What about the military? Intelligence agencies? FBI? Homeland Security? ICE? BCP? Embassies and Consulates? How much risk do you want to put the US in? Because if any of these agencies/services are shutdown, then the "pain" may be an invasion, rise in crime that could include loss of life, endangering US citizens abroad, compromise of US national security and more. Do you have any line at all of what is essential? Does your political philosophy in this situation mean that you consider loss of human life is acceptable just to drive the point home? Are you willing to have a foreign terrorist group enter the US and attack the US with no LEO or military to stop them or capture them? Are you willing to sacrifice US citizens in foreign countries to terrorist or military action and offer them no protection? Are you willing to let illegal aliens (or undocumented migrants) enter the nation at an even higher rate than currently are entering because we've eliminated all forms of border monitoring? Are you willing to have a crime spree because the FBI is not working?

If I were a member of Congress I would never put any of those things at risk, I would work with people I hate on the other side to get appropriations bills enacted and ensure the continuity of our federal government because all of those things are important. But I’m not a member of Congress, I’m a lowly federal employee who performs one of the functions you mention above and because of political dysfunction I will have to continue to do my job with delayed pay of weeks or months due to no fault of my own. The people who caused this problem and those who elected them into their jobs will face no consequences. I think that’s wrong and I think they should get exactly what they paid for. I hope a shutdown would become a very rare very short event but we have decided to make these much longer by making them painless to everyone except the federal workforce and I think that has been a very bad decision.

In other words, we have acted to minimize the disruption caused by federal government shutdowns, and confine its worst effects to a relatively small group of people. You are opposed to that, because you are in that group of people. You'd rather everyone suffer in the (vain, in my view) hope that if everyone suffers, they won't happen anymore.

I guess that's where we differ - I don't think it will work, and your path will only increase suffering. You still won't get paid on time (though you won't have to work, I guess), other individuals will suffer, and there may be systemic consequences. Seems like an easy decision to me. Of course, I'm not in the affected group.

DP. No. Here’s where we differ. I see the waste of even near misses. And forget the long shutdowns. Even near misses are a huge waste of time, resources and productivity. I want one painful shutdown (but guaranteed to be short, because airports shut down and people pay attention. It would be over in less than 24 hours) to get the legislation we need to stop future shutdowns by continuing the government at current levels until Congress votes for something else. I see it happen up close and personal and understand that we have reached peak insanity where we keep doing the same thing and expecting that this time it will be something other than wasteful, stressful and expensive. Under Trump, we had multiple shutdown threats and near misses a year. And every single one of them took, time, energy, and money away from us serving the public.

This won’t get better unless something is done to stop the cycle. If that means the threat of retirement and SSI checks not going out and airports shutting down for a day (because that’s what it would be— a day) it’s worth it in the long run to stop these enormously expensive, pointless, productivity sapping exercises going forward. Short term pain. Enormous long term gain.

This isn’t about one shutdown. It’s about getting the leverage to pass legislation to prevent any future shutdowns. And that would be good for this country in many ways. Including economically. Moodys is discussing downgrading our debt if there is a shutdown. There is a cost to the chaos.

Such naivete.

This was the topping point in the Trump shutdown. So I’d say, informed by past experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:hey i figure if i plan for the worst than maybe things will go ok.

on that note, if you think there might be any need to take a loan from your tsp during an extended shutdown, go ahead and add a checking/bank account as a linked financial institution in tsp.gov now, as there is a 7-day waiting period to disburse funds electronically to newly configured/changed bank accounts.

Thanks for the tip. That’s helpful. What are the consequences of taking out a TSP loan though?

I took one out for a down payment. There is a calculator that shows how much you can take out. Basically, most of your contributions. You pay back with regular deductions from your paycheck. You are charged interest (but much less than a credit card). Once you pay it back, there is a waiting period before you can take out a new one. Can pay it back early with no penalty if the shutdown doesn’t materialize.

It’s a good alternative to carrying a credit card balance. Lower interest rate, doesn’t hurt credit score. The big downside is don’t earn interest on the pretax money until you pay it back (because it isn’t in your account).

Who carries a credit card balance? Don't spend what you don't have.

Lower GS people who don’t get paid in a shutdown. A Thrift loan that you pay back epwhen your back pay comes through might be a better option.

I plan to carry a balance (on a 0% interest card) so that we do not deplete our cash reserves—who knows how long the shutdown would go on for, our savings won’t last indefinitely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So any news from the Hill today?

+1

The Post had a "chances increasing" story published around 12:30pm today, but in reading it, 90% was about what a shutdown is, whom it effects, blah blah - very little about why they think the chances increased (and nothing new beyond what's been discussed here).

I'm curious, too. Our agency leadership are laid-back so far - hoping that means they know something reassuring that I don't, rather than not having a clue.

I think it means that they have the policies in place from having done it so many times before - so the drill is old hat by now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Politico has an article that was posted about an hour ago: looks like the Dems might work with McCarthy to avoid the shutdown.

But won't things just come to a screeching halt if the HFC removes McCarthy? Didn't the Dems already say if that happens they won't help elect a new GOP speaker?

[Anonymous]

I think this is the big one

- small margin of republican control
- relatively large and emboldened freedom caucus
- presidential GOP nominees goading a shutdown
- public sentiment blames republicans, eroding democratic will to step in
- rule against omnibus spending bills
- cant pass defense
- cant get things on the floor
- freedom caucus constituents want a shut down
- house and senate proposals miles apart
- automatic CR in january a good scenario for dems
- automatic CR in january erodes political will as time goes on

Hold on to your cajones

[Anonymous]

So if the government shuts down until January 1, 2024, that automatically then triggers a CR on January 1 2024 and govt reopens?

[Anonymous]

I understand the perspectives of the many posters arguing about hard vs soft shutdowns, but maybe we could look at this more broadly.

Stipulate that shutdowns are bad (hit to GDP, government inefficiency, rarely provide political gains to the parties involved, etc.). So ultimately we should all want not to have shutdowns be a feature of our government. It’s a weird pathology that we tolerate because we can’t find a path out of this wilderness.

The end state for not having shutdowns would look approximately like one of two things (can anybody think of more?):
1. Shutdowns are made impossible by carefully crafted legislation. Rational actors in Congress would be required.
2. Shutdowns are made untenable because the consequences are dire enough that politicians who are blamed for shutdowns get voted out of office routinely.

Case 1 would be great but we can probably all see that it’s a fantasy at the moment. For Case 2 there are two groups of PPs who are debating about whether the dysfunction of the status quo is better or worse than Case 2. The best argument in favor of Case 2 is to take the big hit of a devastatingly complete shutdown so that we don’t have an endless stream of minor shutdowns. The question that we should be asking is whether it is possible to have just enough devastation to get to Case 2 without actually having lots of people die or some other irreversible consequences. If we can’t prove that it is, then we’re stuck in Shutdown Ground Hog Day.

And maybe that’s ok. After all, there are legislative approaches that would eventually significantly reduce mass murders, but as a society we’re accepting the level of killings we have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I understand the perspectives of the many posters arguing about hard vs soft shutdowns, but maybe we could look at this more broadly.

Stipulate that shutdowns are bad (hit to GDP, government inefficiency, rarely provide political gains to the parties involved, etc.). So ultimately we should all want not to have shutdowns be a feature of our government. It’s a weird pathology that we tolerate because we can’t find a path out of this wilderness.

The end state for not having shutdowns would look approximately like one of two things (can anybody think of more?):
1. Shutdowns are made impossible by carefully crafted legislation. Rational actors in Congress would be required.
2. Shutdowns are made untenable because the consequences are dire enough that politicians who are blamed for shutdowns get voted out of office routinely.

Case 1 would be great but we can probably all see that it’s a fantasy at the moment. For Case 2 there are two groups of PPs who are debating about whether the dysfunction of the status quo is better or worse than Case 2. The best argument in favor of Case 2 is to take the big hit of a devastatingly complete shutdown so that we don’t have an endless stream of minor shutdowns. The question that we should be asking is whether it is possible to have just enough devastation to get to Case 2 without actually having lots of people die or some other irreversible consequences. If we can’t prove that it is, then we’re stuck in Shutdown Ground Hog Day.

And maybe that’s ok. After all, there are legislative approaches that would eventually significantly reduce mass murders, but as a society we’re accepting the level of killings we have.

I work in SS Disability and Medicare. What makes you think people don’t die in “minor shutdowns”? (And I take issue with a 35 day shutdown being minor). That delays in being awarded Medicare and Medicaid and SSI and SSDI and Retiremgent and all the other benefits government being processed when we droop everything and walk away doesn’t result in people dying. Because I see these cases everyday. And what stresses me about a shutdown is that I know a certain percent of my claimants won’t be alive when I get back. F terminal illness. Of lose their homes and being mentally ill and on the streets. Of suicide. Many of the suicides by vets with 100% SC durability. You need to check your privilege.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if the government shuts down until January 1, 2024, that automatically then triggers a CR on January 1 2024 and govt reopens?

Yes. With a 1% spending reduction, primarily on defense, and the IRS gets the increased funding that Dems wanted

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand the perspectives of the many posters arguing about hard vs soft shutdowns, but maybe we could look at this more broadly.

Stipulate that shutdowns are bad (hit to GDP, government inefficiency, rarely provide political gains to the parties involved, etc.). So ultimately we should all want not to have shutdowns be a feature of our government. It’s a weird pathology that we tolerate because we can’t find a path out of this wilderness.

The end state for not having shutdowns would look approximately like one of two things (can anybody think of more?):
1. Shutdowns are made impossible by carefully crafted legislation. Rational actors in Congress would be required.
2. Shutdowns are made untenable because the consequences are dire enough that politicians who are blamed for shutdowns get voted out of office routinely.

Case 1 would be great but we can probably all see that it’s a fantasy at the moment. For Case 2 there are two groups of PPs who are debating about whether the dysfunction of the status quo is better or worse than Case 2. The best argument in favor of Case 2 is to take the big hit of a devastatingly complete shutdown so that we don’t have an endless stream of minor shutdowns. The question that we should be asking is whether it is possible to have just enough devastation to get to Case 2 without actually having lots of people die or some other irreversible consequences. If we can’t prove that it is, then we’re stuck in Shutdown Ground Hog Day.

And maybe that’s ok. After all, there are legislative approaches that would eventually significantly reduce mass murders, but as a society we’re accepting the level of killings we have.

I work in SS Disability and Medicare. What makes you think people don’t die in “minor shutdowns”? (And I take issue with a 35 day shutdown being minor). That delays in being awarded Medicare and Medicaid and SSI and SSDI and Retiremgent and all the other benefits government being processed when we droop everything and walk away doesn’t result in people dying. Because I see these cases everyday. And what stresses me about a shutdown is that I know a certain percent of my claimants won’t be alive when I get back. F terminal illness. Of lose their homes and being mentally ill and on the streets. Of suicide. Many of the suicides by vets with 100% SC durability. You need to check your privilege.

PP. I agree with you. If SS and Medicare checks stop going out, that’s what I would call a major disruption and it’s the kind of thing that some people upthread have been advocating in order to make the shutdown have a major impact. And yes, in that case people die. But in the recent shutdowns the timely delivery of those services has been considered essential and employees processing those checks are declared exempt. So presumably mostly people don’t miss checks, don’t notice the disruption, and don’t die. If during the 2018-19 shutdown you know different, you should explain that to the people of this thread who have been claiming that people receiving SS and Medicare weren’t impacted by the last shutdown and won’t be impacted by the looming one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand the perspectives of the many posters arguing about hard vs soft shutdowns, but maybe we could look at this more broadly.

Stipulate that shutdowns are bad (hit to GDP, government inefficiency, rarely provide political gains to the parties involved, etc.). So ultimately we should all want not to have shutdowns be a feature of our government. It’s a weird pathology that we tolerate because we can’t find a path out of this wilderness.

The end state for not having shutdowns would look approximately like one of two things (can anybody think of more?):
1. Shutdowns are made impossible by carefully crafted legislation. Rational actors in Congress would be required.
2. Shutdowns are made untenable because the consequences are dire enough that politicians who are blamed for shutdowns get voted out of office routinely.

Case 1 would be great but we can probably all see that it’s a fantasy at the moment. For Case 2 there are two groups of PPs who are debating about whether the dysfunction of the status quo is better or worse than Case 2. The best argument in favor of Case 2 is to take the big hit of a devastatingly complete shutdown so that we don’t have an endless stream of minor shutdowns. The question that we should be asking is whether it is possible to have just enough devastation to get to Case 2 without actually having lots of people die or some other irreversible consequences. If we can’t prove that it is, then we’re stuck in Shutdown Ground Hog Day.

And maybe that’s ok. After all, there are legislative approaches that would eventually significantly reduce mass murders, but as a society we’re accepting the level of killings we have.

I work in SS Disability and Medicare. What makes you think people don’t die in “minor shutdowns”? (And I take issue with a 35 day shutdown being minor). That delays in being awarded Medicare and Medicaid and SSI and SSDI and Retiremgent and all the other benefits government being processed when we droop everything and walk away doesn’t result in people dying. Because I see these cases everyday. And what stresses me about a shutdown is that I know a certain percent of my claimants won’t be alive when I get back. F terminal illness. Of lose their homes and being mentally ill and on the streets. Of suicide. Many of the suicides by vets with 100% SC durability. You need to check your privilege.

I work at HUD. During the last 35 day shutdown we stopped funding for shelters, domestic violence shelters around the country closed their doors and sent people out into the streets. We received calls from mothers with small children who had to either go back to an abuser or sleep on the streets with their children in January. There are real consequences to real people from our shutdowns now, unfortunately they are people that our country doesn’t value. Sadly I think shutting down TSA to inconvenience the business traveler might end the shutdown fast and save the abused children and I’m all for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand the perspectives of the many posters arguing about hard vs soft shutdowns, but maybe we could look at this more broadly.

Stipulate that shutdowns are bad (hit to GDP, government inefficiency, rarely provide political gains to the parties involved, etc.). So ultimately we should all want not to have shutdowns be a feature of our government. It’s a weird pathology that we tolerate because we can’t find a path out of this wilderness.

The end state for not having shutdowns would look approximately like one of two things (can anybody think of more?):
1. Shutdowns are made impossible by carefully crafted legislation. Rational actors in Congress would be required.
2. Shutdowns are made untenable because the consequences are dire enough that politicians who are blamed for shutdowns get voted out of office routinely.

Case 1 would be great but we can probably all see that it’s a fantasy at the moment. For Case 2 there are two groups of PPs who are debating about whether the dysfunction of the status quo is better or worse than Case 2. The best argument in favor of Case 2 is to take the big hit of a devastatingly complete shutdown so that we don’t have an endless stream of minor shutdowns. The question that we should be asking is whether it is possible to have just enough devastation to get to Case 2 without actually having lots of people die or some other irreversible consequences. If we can’t prove that it is, then we’re stuck in Shutdown Ground Hog Day.

And maybe that’s ok. After all, there are legislative approaches that would eventually significantly reduce mass murders, but as a society we’re accepting the level of killings we have.

I work in SS Disability and Medicare. What makes you think people don’t die in “minor shutdowns”? (And I take issue with a 35 day shutdown being minor). That delays in being awarded Medicare and Medicaid and SSI and SSDI and Retiremgent and all the other benefits government being processed when we droop everything and walk away doesn’t result in people dying. Because I see these cases everyday. And what stresses me about a shutdown is that I know a certain percent of my claimants won’t be alive when I get back. F terminal illness. Of lose their homes and being mentally ill and on the streets. Of suicide. Many of the suicides by vets with 100% SC durability. You need to check your privilege.

I work at HUD. During the last 35 day shutdown we stopped funding for shelters, domestic violence shelters around the country closed their doors and sent people out into the streets. We received calls from mothers with small children who had to either go back to an abuser or sleep on the streets with their children in January. There are real consequences to real people from our shutdowns now, unfortunately they are people that our country doesn’t value. Sadly I think shutting down TSA to inconvenience the business traveler might end the shutdown fast and save the abused children and I’m all for it.

I also work for HUD in the office that funds shelters and this is not true. As long as the grants were already in place, recipients could still draw funds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
+2! I also will have to work with no pay and think literally everything should grind to a halt. You vacation is not essential, airports should close, trains should stop, because these things require the federal government to operate. Literally everyone should feel the pain of their idiotic votes.

Just stop. No you won't.

pp will have to work while having their pay suspended for an indefinite period of time.

"work, and we will pay you eventually, when we get our head out of our ass, which could be in two weeks or could be three months, who knows?"

meanwhile mortgage is still due and kids have to be fed, but somehow pp is irresponsible if they have to run up credit card debt because their employer won't pay them in a timely fashion.

I never suggested that the PP would be irresponsible. But there's a material, significant difference between having pay delayed, and not getting paid at all. If you have to resort to misrepresentations to make your point, perhaps it isn't worth making.

Says the person at no risk of having their pay delayed by months… or even completely losing paychecks, like contractors.

You are exactly the type of person who should directly experience pain from a government shut down so you aren’t so flippant about it in the future.

What is your objection here? Are you saying there is absolutely no difference between not getting paid for work, and having your pay delayed?