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.
No, PPs path is that we don’t do this in the first place. We simply do not have government shutdowns.
But if they do happen, how do you know your version of a shutdown impacts less people? How do you know it minimizes suffering?
Because I'm not an idiot. Every other person on here is arguing that we need to make the consequences of a shutdown much more harsh - and your question is that how do you *know* that completely shutting down everything will be worse? Good grief.
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.
Many grants expired in December, shutdown ended on January 25th. Talk with Jemine.
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 is more absurd to have millions of Americans working without pay because the political leadership is dysfunctional. No other industry has to do this, but every few years we expect millions of civil servants and members of the military to quietly do their jobs with no pay because their jobs are very important to the daily functioning of our country and the public couldn't be inconvenienced. Shut down all of the airports, absolutely. Business leaders with influence would force the politicians to find a solution. Instead we have a bunch of GS-7 TSA employees bearing the cost of this dysfunction and they are the least to blame with the most to lose.
Can we please stop with the "working without pay" nonsense? No government worker is "working without pay." The pay is delayed. (Contractors, of course don't get paid, and I really feel sorry for them.) What is really happening is that all government workers get paid late, and many get paid for not working.
You all are coming at this form the point of view of the workers, which is understandable. But from the perspective of a person not involved, it's far more important to minimize disruption to the rest of the country, and economy, than it is to take draconian measures to try to prevent shutdowns. And it's unfortunate that federal employees' pay is *delayed* - but that's far better, for the country as a whole, than shutting down entirely.
My mortgage is still due on time. We need food and the water bill paid and gas in the car because we are still expected to go to work. These don't get "delayed". And yes, we have savings for emergencies. And yes we have credit cards. However, you are still putting the onus of the shutdown on workers.
Far better for the country would be not to have this type of instability to begin with.
Even worse, you are likely a GS-13 or higher being paid in the six figures (which is the majority of federal workers who post on DCUM). The same thing is happening to GS-1 through GS-10 workers who are making low to mid five figures. Many of them don't have emergency options like savings to pay bills due while not getting a paycheck. Some of them might be able to swing one month of missed mortgage payments, but many do not have two months of mortgage and utilities and food bills, etc to cover more than a month of delayed payment.
And while the PP feels really sorry for the contractors, the federal contract workforce is almost double the federal civil service workforce. There are roughly 1.2M civil service employees and well over 2M federal contractors. Of those federal contractors, only a small portion have forward funded contracts that allow them to work. There are millions of contractors who will not get paid for time off during a shutdown. So, PP's sympathy is pretty much worth the same as conservatives "thoughts and prayers" when children are slaughtered by guns.
What we really need is to have rules on automatic continuance of federal pay for employees (both civil service and contractors) during a shutdown. Pay for employees needs to be pulled from discretionary spending and put into essential funding that is not covered by lack of appropriations. There are many things that are not included in discretionary spending and we need to move employee pay from one side of the ledger to the other so that federal employees (both civil service and contractor) are no longer political pawns of the childish Congress.
If not, then perhaps a rule that the Congressional appropriations bill should be the last bill to pass. In several of these shutdowns, the Congressional appropriations was passed when others were not, so that the Congress and their staff were paid to work through the shutdown while others were not. Congressmen should learn to work without pay or have their pay delayed until after they do their jobs and if they have to do their jobs with no staffers to help them, then maybe they'll actually feel like acting more like an adult than like a toddler.
I am the PP everyone hates, and I don't have a problem with this. I would note, however, that you are arguing that the government should mitigate the effect of the shutdown, not make it worse. That's exactly what I'm saying. Your fellow travelers, on the other hand, want to shut down everything - make the consequences for the country much worse if a shutdown happens.
DP. I don't hate you but I think you're veru incorrect.
PPs are trying to deal in incentives. Either make a shutdown so bad nobody does it / they pass legislation to make it impossible, or make it so toothless it's not a bargaining chip.
Your suggestion - that the less visible parts of government shut down (including payroll) - is the staus quo. It enables one side to hold the other hostage by making human shields out of SSA recipients and others, and is therefore no solution. It also has contributed to the slow denigrating of government services that allows people to say government doesn't do anything, because anything above the bare minimum keeps getting shut down every couple years.
I understand that they're dealing in incentives, or disincentives, and that the status quo sucks. No argument there. And I'm fine with making the shutdown so toothless that it ceases to be a bargaining ship. But I also think that making a shutdown "so bad nobody does it" is wildly optimistic, bordering on naive. Congress has shown no indication that they would be constrained in that way.
And from a partisan political standpoint, this would completely screw the Democrats, and the programs they support. Only one party has shown that it is willing to take the country hostage, and shoot the hostage, to get what they want. Making a shutdown catastrophic for the country would only give the GOP *more* leverage, and force the Democrats to make more and more concessions, and further gut government programs. Best case scenario, they would have to depend on rational republicans, the few that remain, to prevent disaster (and they'd get primaried during the next election).
Yes, the status quo sucks. But it's better than that alternative. This is a harsh way to say it, but we're making an omelet here, and federal workers are the eggs. I'm sorry about that, but there it is.
I don’t think it’s better than the alternative and I don’t think your political analysis is correct. My rural in-laws used to vote Democrat but after Clinton they’ve been increasingly voting for angry culture warrior republicans. Despite the fact they get federal agricultural payments, disability, Medicaid and are paying off federal student loans they say the federal government has never done anything for people like them. They should live with the choice they made, their congressman has been outspoken about shutting down our useless federal government so I think we should stop shielding them from the consequences of their actions, same for the businessmen who voted for this and are waiting to get through TSA right now. Why are my colleagues and I the only ones to pay for this?
And what about their next door neighbors, who have voted D for the last 40 years? Should they live with the choice your inlaws made?
Yes. We live in a democracy and we deserve to get the government we’re willing to pay for based on our votes. Right now everyone gets to have their choices consequence free and the result is someone silently carries the burden for them. The current system isn’t working.
But you're really arguing for the same thing, just on a much wider scale. The neighbors who voted for rational politicians all these years are going to have to carry the burden for others who made bad choices. You think that they just need to suck it up and take the consequences - why don't you just do the same?
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 is more absurd to have millions of Americans working without pay because the political leadership is dysfunctional. No other industry has to do this, but every few years we expect millions of civil servants and members of the military to quietly do their jobs with no pay because their jobs are very important to the daily functioning of our country and the public couldn't be inconvenienced. Shut down all of the airports, absolutely. Business leaders with influence would force the politicians to find a solution. Instead we have a bunch of GS-7 TSA employees bearing the cost of this dysfunction and they are the least to blame with the most to lose.
Can we please stop with the "working without pay" nonsense? No government worker is "working without pay." The pay is delayed. (Contractors, of course don't get paid, and I really feel sorry for them.) What is really happening is that all government workers get paid late, and many get paid for not working.
You all are coming at this form the point of view of the workers, which is understandable. But from the perspective of a person not involved, it's far more important to minimize disruption to the rest of the country, and economy, than it is to take draconian measures to try to prevent shutdowns. And it's unfortunate that federal employees' pay is *delayed* - but that's far better, for the country as a whole, than shutting down entirely.
My mortgage is still due on time. We need food and the water bill paid and gas in the car because we are still expected to go to work. These don't get "delayed". And yes, we have savings for emergencies. And yes we have credit cards. However, you are still putting the onus of the shutdown on workers.
Far better for the country would be not to have this type of instability to begin with.
Even worse, you are likely a GS-13 or higher being paid in the six figures (which is the majority of federal workers who post on DCUM). The same thing is happening to GS-1 through GS-10 workers who are making low to mid five figures. Many of them don't have emergency options like savings to pay bills due while not getting a paycheck. Some of them might be able to swing one month of missed mortgage payments, but many do not have two months of mortgage and utilities and food bills, etc to cover more than a month of delayed payment.
And while the PP feels really sorry for the contractors, the federal contract workforce is almost double the federal civil service workforce. There are roughly 1.2M civil service employees and well over 2M federal contractors. Of those federal contractors, only a small portion have forward funded contracts that allow them to work. There are millions of contractors who will not get paid for time off during a shutdown. So, PP's sympathy is pretty much worth the same as conservatives "thoughts and prayers" when children are slaughtered by guns.
What we really need is to have rules on automatic continuance of federal pay for employees (both civil service and contractors) during a shutdown. Pay for employees needs to be pulled from discretionary spending and put into essential funding that is not covered by lack of appropriations. There are many things that are not included in discretionary spending and we need to move employee pay from one side of the ledger to the other so that federal employees (both civil service and contractor) are no longer political pawns of the childish Congress.
If not, then perhaps a rule that the Congressional appropriations bill should be the last bill to pass. In several of these shutdowns, the Congressional appropriations was passed when others were not, so that the Congress and their staff were paid to work through the shutdown while others were not. Congressmen should learn to work without pay or have their pay delayed until after they do their jobs and if they have to do their jobs with no staffers to help them, then maybe they'll actually feel like acting more like an adult than like a toddler.
I am the PP everyone hates, and I don't have a problem with this. I would note, however, that you are arguing that the government should mitigate the effect of the shutdown, not make it worse. That's exactly what I'm saying. Your fellow travelers, on the other hand, want to shut down everything - make the consequences for the country much worse if a shutdown happens.
DP. I don't hate you but I think you're veru incorrect.
PPs are trying to deal in incentives. Either make a shutdown so bad nobody does it / they pass legislation to make it impossible, or make it so toothless it's not a bargaining chip.
Your suggestion - that the less visible parts of government shut down (including payroll) - is the staus quo. It enables one side to hold the other hostage by making human shields out of SSA recipients and others, and is therefore no solution. It also has contributed to the slow denigrating of government services that allows people to say government doesn't do anything, because anything above the bare minimum keeps getting shut down every couple years.
I understand that they're dealing in incentives, or disincentives, and that the status quo sucks. No argument there. And I'm fine with making the shutdown so toothless that it ceases to be a bargaining ship. But I also think that making a shutdown "so bad nobody does it" is wildly optimistic, bordering on naive. Congress has shown no indication that they would be constrained in that way.
And from a partisan political standpoint, this would completely screw the Democrats, and the programs they support. Only one party has shown that it is willing to take the country hostage, and shoot the hostage, to get what they want. Making a shutdown catastrophic for the country would only give the GOP *more* leverage, and force the Democrats to make more and more concessions, and further gut government programs. Best case scenario, they would have to depend on rational republicans, the few that remain, to prevent disaster (and they'd get primaried during the next election).
Yes, the status quo sucks. But it's better than that alternative. This is a harsh way to say it, but we're making an omelet here, and federal workers are the eggs. I'm sorry about that, but there it is.
I don’t think it’s better than the alternative and I don’t think your political analysis is correct. My rural in-laws used to vote Democrat but after Clinton they’ve been increasingly voting for angry culture warrior republicans. Despite the fact they get federal agricultural payments, disability, Medicaid and are paying off federal student loans they say the federal government has never done anything for people like them. They should live with the choice they made, their congressman has been outspoken about shutting down our useless federal government so I think we should stop shielding them from the consequences of their actions, same for the businessmen who voted for this and are waiting to get through TSA right now. Why are my colleagues and I the only ones to pay for this?
And what about their next door neighbors, who have voted D for the last 40 years? Should they live with the choice your inlaws made?
Yes. We live in a democracy and we deserve to get the government we’re willing to pay for based on our votes. Right now everyone gets to have their choices consequence free and the result is someone silently carries the burden for them. The current system isn’t working.
But you're really arguing for the same thing, just on a much wider scale. The neighbors who voted for rational politicians all these years are going to have to carry the burden for others who made bad choices. You think that they just need to suck it up and take the consequences - why don't you just do the same?
I’m saying everyone should accept the consequences, all of us, rather than asking a small group of people to bear all of it.
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.
This is well articulated. I do not believe we can get to Case 2 without severe consequences, and perhaps irreversible impacts. So I'd rather not do so.
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 is more absurd to have millions of Americans working without pay because the political leadership is dysfunctional. No other industry has to do this, but every few years we expect millions of civil servants and members of the military to quietly do their jobs with no pay because their jobs are very important to the daily functioning of our country and the public couldn't be inconvenienced. Shut down all of the airports, absolutely. Business leaders with influence would force the politicians to find a solution. Instead we have a bunch of GS-7 TSA employees bearing the cost of this dysfunction and they are the least to blame with the most to lose.
Can we please stop with the "working without pay" nonsense? No government worker is "working without pay." The pay is delayed. (Contractors, of course don't get paid, and I really feel sorry for them.) What is really happening is that all government workers get paid late, and many get paid for not working.
You all are coming at this form the point of view of the workers, which is understandable. But from the perspective of a person not involved, it's far more important to minimize disruption to the rest of the country, and economy, than it is to take draconian measures to try to prevent shutdowns. And it's unfortunate that federal employees' pay is *delayed* - but that's far better, for the country as a whole, than shutting down entirely.
My mortgage is still due on time. We need food and the water bill paid and gas in the car because we are still expected to go to work. These don't get "delayed". And yes, we have savings for emergencies. And yes we have credit cards. However, you are still putting the onus of the shutdown on workers.
Far better for the country would be not to have this type of instability to begin with.
Even worse, you are likely a GS-13 or higher being paid in the six figures (which is the majority of federal workers who post on DCUM). The same thing is happening to GS-1 through GS-10 workers who are making low to mid five figures. Many of them don't have emergency options like savings to pay bills due while not getting a paycheck. Some of them might be able to swing one month of missed mortgage payments, but many do not have two months of mortgage and utilities and food bills, etc to cover more than a month of delayed payment.
And while the PP feels really sorry for the contractors, the federal contract workforce is almost double the federal civil service workforce. There are roughly 1.2M civil service employees and well over 2M federal contractors. Of those federal contractors, only a small portion have forward funded contracts that allow them to work. There are millions of contractors who will not get paid for time off during a shutdown. So, PP's sympathy is pretty much worth the same as conservatives "thoughts and prayers" when children are slaughtered by guns.
What we really need is to have rules on automatic continuance of federal pay for employees (both civil service and contractors) during a shutdown. Pay for employees needs to be pulled from discretionary spending and put into essential funding that is not covered by lack of appropriations. There are many things that are not included in discretionary spending and we need to move employee pay from one side of the ledger to the other so that federal employees (both civil service and contractor) are no longer political pawns of the childish Congress.
If not, then perhaps a rule that the Congressional appropriations bill should be the last bill to pass. In several of these shutdowns, the Congressional appropriations was passed when others were not, so that the Congress and their staff were paid to work through the shutdown while others were not. Congressmen should learn to work without pay or have their pay delayed until after they do their jobs and if they have to do their jobs with no staffers to help them, then maybe they'll actually feel like acting more like an adult than like a toddler.
I am the PP everyone hates, and I don't have a problem with this. I would note, however, that you are arguing that the government should mitigate the effect of the shutdown, not make it worse. That's exactly what I'm saying. Your fellow travelers, on the other hand, want to shut down everything - make the consequences for the country much worse if a shutdown happens.
DP. I don't hate you but I think you're veru incorrect.
PPs are trying to deal in incentives. Either make a shutdown so bad nobody does it / they pass legislation to make it impossible, or make it so toothless it's not a bargaining chip.
Your suggestion - that the less visible parts of government shut down (including payroll) - is the staus quo. It enables one side to hold the other hostage by making human shields out of SSA recipients and others, and is therefore no solution. It also has contributed to the slow denigrating of government services that allows people to say government doesn't do anything, because anything above the bare minimum keeps getting shut down every couple years.
I understand that they're dealing in incentives, or disincentives, and that the status quo sucks. No argument there. And I'm fine with making the shutdown so toothless that it ceases to be a bargaining ship. But I also think that making a shutdown "so bad nobody does it" is wildly optimistic, bordering on naive. Congress has shown no indication that they would be constrained in that way.
And from a partisan political standpoint, this would completely screw the Democrats, and the programs they support. Only one party has shown that it is willing to take the country hostage, and shoot the hostage, to get what they want. Making a shutdown catastrophic for the country would only give the GOP *more* leverage, and force the Democrats to make more and more concessions, and further gut government programs. Best case scenario, they would have to depend on rational republicans, the few that remain, to prevent disaster (and they'd get primaried during the next election).
Yes, the status quo sucks. But it's better than that alternative. This is a harsh way to say it, but we're making an omelet here, and federal workers are the eggs. I'm sorry about that, but there it is.
I don’t think it’s better than the alternative and I don’t think your political analysis is correct. My rural in-laws used to vote Democrat but after Clinton they’ve been increasingly voting for angry culture warrior republicans. Despite the fact they get federal agricultural payments, disability, Medicaid and are paying off federal student loans they say the federal government has never done anything for people like them. They should live with the choice they made, their congressman has been outspoken about shutting down our useless federal government so I think we should stop shielding them from the consequences of their actions, same for the businessmen who voted for this and are waiting to get through TSA right now. Why are my colleagues and I the only ones to pay for this?
And what about their next door neighbors, who have voted D for the last 40 years? Should they live with the choice your inlaws made?
Yes. We live in a democracy and we deserve to get the government we’re willing to pay for based on our votes. Right now everyone gets to have their choices consequence free and the result is someone silently carries the burden for them. The current system isn’t working.
But you're really arguing for the same thing, just on a much wider scale. The neighbors who voted for rational politicians all these years are going to have to carry the burden for others who made bad choices. You think that they just need to suck it up and take the consequences - why don't you just do the same?
I’m saying everyone should accept the consequences, all of us, rather than asking a small group of people to bear all of it.
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.
Many grants expired in December, shutdown ended on January 25th. Talk with Jemine.
I remember this. I was working on the hill, and we had to broker a solution with HUD to keep a men’s shelter in my member’s district from running out of money.
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 is more absurd to have millions of Americans working without pay because the political leadership is dysfunctional. No other industry has to do this, but every few years we expect millions of civil servants and members of the military to quietly do their jobs with no pay because their jobs are very important to the daily functioning of our country and the public couldn't be inconvenienced. Shut down all of the airports, absolutely. Business leaders with influence would force the politicians to find a solution. Instead we have a bunch of GS-7 TSA employees bearing the cost of this dysfunction and they are the least to blame with the most to lose.
Can we please stop with the "working without pay" nonsense? No government worker is "working without pay." The pay is delayed. (Contractors, of course don't get paid, and I really feel sorry for them.) What is really happening is that all government workers get paid late, and many get paid for not working.
You all are coming at this form the point of view of the workers, which is understandable. But from the perspective of a person not involved, it's far more important to minimize disruption to the rest of the country, and economy, than it is to take draconian measures to try to prevent shutdowns. And it's unfortunate that federal employees' pay is *delayed* - but that's far better, for the country as a whole, than shutting down entirely.
My mortgage is still due on time. We need food and the water bill paid and gas in the car because we are still expected to go to work. These don't get "delayed". And yes, we have savings for emergencies. And yes we have credit cards. However, you are still putting the onus of the shutdown on workers.
Far better for the country would be not to have this type of instability to begin with.
Even worse, you are likely a GS-13 or higher being paid in the six figures (which is the majority of federal workers who post on DCUM). The same thing is happening to GS-1 through GS-10 workers who are making low to mid five figures. Many of them don't have emergency options like savings to pay bills due while not getting a paycheck. Some of them might be able to swing one month of missed mortgage payments, but many do not have two months of mortgage and utilities and food bills, etc to cover more than a month of delayed payment.
And while the PP feels really sorry for the contractors, the federal contract workforce is almost double the federal civil service workforce. There are roughly 1.2M civil service employees and well over 2M federal contractors. Of those federal contractors, only a small portion have forward funded contracts that allow them to work. There are millions of contractors who will not get paid for time off during a shutdown. So, PP's sympathy is pretty much worth the same as conservatives "thoughts and prayers" when children are slaughtered by guns.
What we really need is to have rules on automatic continuance of federal pay for employees (both civil service and contractors) during a shutdown. Pay for employees needs to be pulled from discretionary spending and put into essential funding that is not covered by lack of appropriations. There are many things that are not included in discretionary spending and we need to move employee pay from one side of the ledger to the other so that federal employees (both civil service and contractor) are no longer political pawns of the childish Congress.
If not, then perhaps a rule that the Congressional appropriations bill should be the last bill to pass. In several of these shutdowns, the Congressional appropriations was passed when others were not, so that the Congress and their staff were paid to work through the shutdown while others were not. Congressmen should learn to work without pay or have their pay delayed until after they do their jobs and if they have to do their jobs with no staffers to help them, then maybe they'll actually feel like acting more like an adult than like a toddler.
I am the PP everyone hates, and I don't have a problem with this. I would note, however, that you are arguing that the government should mitigate the effect of the shutdown, not make it worse. That's exactly what I'm saying. Your fellow travelers, on the other hand, want to shut down everything - make the consequences for the country much worse if a shutdown happens.
We live in a representative democracy. My fellow Americans voted for the buffoons who are voting for a shutdown. Many of them are cheering these clowns on. If my fellow citizens vote for people who don’t hide the fact they want shutdowns, like the FC, then they should get actual shutdowns. Why would we protect people from the consequences of their votes? Nobody held a gun to their head and made them vote for Matt Gaetz. If they become the dogs who catch the car, they should have to live with the consequences. Maybe they will contact their Rep and tell them to cut it out. And then the Rep will, or lose the next election. It’s how democracy works.
I don’t believe it’s healthy to give people a choice on — anything really— and then work as hard as we can to protect them from the downsides of that choice. That’s called enabling. And no, we shouldn’t enable the crazy caucus on the backs of GS7s.
Exactly - people think federal employees do nothing - let them see what happens when feds really aren't working.
The ones who don't have to come in, yeah you don't do a whole lot. The ones that have to keep working actually do work.
That is absolutely untrue. Everything just gets pushed or "delayed" like you like to talk about the paychecks. The work is still done. Just frantically to stay on deliverables. And all those people will be working nights and weekends to make it happen.
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.
Hmmm. I've worked on the ground with HUD programs and that doesn't reflect my experience. Shelters get ESG grants, expend money and then draw down from HUD. Section 8 payments continued to go out. How it worked was we could still go online and draw down the existing funds. We just couldn't speak to a HUD rep or get assistance from them in the draw down, but not an issue if the agency knew what they were doing. We never experienced disruptions like this even during the big shutdown, much less before, and we had very large programs (urban area). What we did get were a lot of calls from worried people but they still received services.
Anonymous wrote:I read that there might be some movement on the defense bill.
Where are you seeing this? I did just google, but didn't see it.
It was in a WSJ article. Movement here just being that McCarthy thinks he has agreement from enough FC folks to start the process with the defense bill.
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.
Hmmm. I've worked on the ground with HUD programs and that doesn't reflect my experience. Shelters get ESG grants, expend money and then draw down from HUD. Section 8 payments continued to go out. How it worked was we could still go online and draw down the existing funds. We just couldn't speak to a HUD rep or get assistance from them in the draw down, but not an issue if the agency knew what they were doing. We never experienced disruptions like this even during the big shutdown, much less before, and we had very large programs (urban area). What we did get were a lot of calls from worried people but they still received services.
I’m glad your grant didn’t end in December 2018, many others did and they ran out of money as that shutdown continued until January 25, 2019. Many shelters ran out of money, shelters closed and people had nowhere to go.
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but I think you're veru incorrect.