Government Shutdown
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@boomzilla said:
I don't have any particular prejudice for or against the House or Senate as institutions. Both have their purposes. But at the moment, only one is lead by a man who can't think of a reason to help a kid with cancer.
That would be Boehner, presumably?
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
I don't have any particular prejudice for or against the House or Senate as institutions. Both have their purposes. But at the moment, only one is lead by a man who can't think of a reason to help a kid with cancer.
That would be Boehner, presumably?
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
I don't have any particular prejudice for or against the House or Senate as institutions. Both have their purposes. But at the moment, only one is lead by a man who can't think of a reason to help a kid with cancer.
That would be Boehner, presumably?No, dumbass, it was Harry Reid.
BASH: But if you can help one child who has cancer, why wouldn’t you do it?
REID: Why would we want to do that? I have 1,100 people at Nellis Air Force base that are sitting home. They have a few problems of their own. This is — to have someone of your intelligence to suggest such a thing maybe means you’re irresponsible and reckless –
The mind boggles at how stupid this man is to say things like this out loud. I mean, I get what he's saying, which is that the kids with cancer are his hostages and a key part of his leverage. But anyone with a triple digit IQ should know better than to say things like this, especially the leader the Senate. And remember, the current White House line is that Reid is in the driver's seat, as far as dealing with the shut down goes. Obama's voting present again and letting Reid do his dirty work.
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@rad131304 said:
@joe.edwards said:
Congress can't, but couldn't an Executive Order do it?@russ0519 said:
Comically? enough, it's actually against the 27th Amendment to the Constitution of the US to withhold their pay - the amendment actually makes it illegal to change a sitting Congressperson's pay during that session of Congress, but it has the unintended effect of guaranteeing them pay while the Government is shut down. It was actually proposed with the Bill of Rights in 1789 but not enacted until 1992 when enough states finally ratified it to become law.I think it's ridiculous that the congressmen/senators are getting paid while they have caused a shutdown. They should not get paid as an incentive for them not to pull shit like this.
Yeah! We should pass legislation that stops them from getting paid. I'm sure it will have no problem getting through the system.
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@anotherusername said:
@rad131304 said:
Comically? enough, it's actually against the 27th Amendment to the Constitution of the US to withhold their pay - the amendment actually makes it illegal to change a sitting Congressperson's pay during that session of Congress, but it has the unintended effect of guaranteeing them pay while the Government is shut down. It was actually proposed with the Bill of Rights in 1789 but not enacted until 1992 when enough states finally ratified it to become law.
Congress can't, but couldn't an Executive Order do it?I can't imagine how that could be done legally. So I guess it's still on the table for the current Administration.
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I don't understand why there's no mechanism to get around a deadlock.
As far I can see your system is consensus based with no way around a lack of consensus?
Seems like the nuclear option of "fire the whole Congress if they can't get their shit together in a reasonable time frame" would be suitable here?
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@KillaCoda said:
I don't understand why there's no mechanism to get around a deadlock.
As far I can see your system is consensus based with no way around a lack of consensus?
Seems like the nuclear option of "fire the whole Congress if they can't get their shit together in a reasonable time frame" would be suitable here?
Problem: How do you get them to pass that law?
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@KillaCoda said:
I don't understand why there's no mechanism to get around a deadlock.
As far I can see your system is consensus based with no way around a lack of consensus?
Seems like the nuclear option of "fire the whole Congress if they can't get their shit together in a reasonable time frame" would be suitable here?
The only conceivable mechanism would be coup or revolution. Eventually, someone will cry uncle and life will go on. This is nothing new, and will certainly happen again. Also, who defines what having "shit together" means?
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@Ben L. said:
@KillaCoda said:
I don't understand why there's no mechanism to get around a deadlock.
As far I can see your system is consensus based with no way around a lack of consensus?
Seems like the nuclear option of "fire the whole Congress if they can't get their shit together in a reasonable time frame" would be suitable here?
Problem: How do you get them to pass that law?
I guess I'm thinking of when the gov was designed and set up. Did they just assume people would be basically reasonable and eventually compromise?
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@boomzilla said:
@KillaCoda said:
I don't understand why there's no mechanism to get around a deadlock.
As far I can see your system is consensus based with no way around a lack of consensus?
Seems like the nuclear option of "fire the whole Congress if they can't get their shit together in a reasonable time frame" would be suitable here?
The only conceivable mechanism would be coup or revolution. Eventually, someone will cry uncle and life will go on. This is nothing new, and will certainly happen again. Also, who defines what having "shit together" means?
That there isn't a non violent way of ending the deadlock sooner seems strange to me. The politicians who cry "uncle" won't really have suffered, it's the ordinary people who suffered, and that's horrible. Having there shit together is defined as doing the job they were elected to do and not bringing huge chunks of the gov to a screeching halt I guess? I dunno it's not my country. You guys just seem like your own worst enemies a lot of the time.
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@KillaCoda said:
I guess I'm thinking of when the gov was designed and set up. Did they just assume people would be basically reasonable and eventually compromise?
They assumed people would be people and expected them to fight it out. If it was that unworkable, the states could call another convention and start over.
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@boomzilla said:
@KillaCoda said:
I guess I'm thinking of when the gov was designed and set up. Did they just assume people would be basically reasonable and eventually compromise?
They assumed people would be people and expected them to fight it out. If it was that unworkable, the states could call another convention and start over.
That's silly. You don't build your system to collapse in troubled times. You build in mechanisms to avoid or defuse that trouble. The idea that the United States should "start over" if some folks in Congress refuse to compromise is laughable. I don't think that would make sense in the 18th century. It certainly doesn't in the 21st.
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@KillaCoda said:
That's silly. You don't build your system to collapse in troubled times. You build in mechanisms to avoid or defuse that trouble. The idea that the United States should "start over" if some folks in Congress refuse to compromise is laughable. I don't think that would make sense in the 18th century. It certainly doesn't in the 21st.
The system hasn't and isn't collapsing. The current "shutdown" has delayed something like 17% of the spending our government normally spends. The states could decide to start over at any time, BTW (not that there's much chance of that, of course). That's built in to the Constitution, and you were asking about failsafe type mechanisms.
It's not clear what you're thinking about as a reasonable solution. Someone (maybe all of them) will ultimately compromise. I'm always amazed at people who can't understand the function and importance of checks and balances and distributed power in a government. You'd think the last century would have been enough. Enjoy your bread and circuses.
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@boomzilla said:
The system hasn't and isn't collapsing.
No shit. Your "solution" was the collapse I'm talking about. "Hmm how will we solve a total deadlock and shutdown of government?" "Um complete collapse of country and start over?" As I said, silly. And unrealistic. There should be a more civilised way to deal with deadlock.@boomzilla said:
The states could decide to start over at any time, BTW (not that there's much chance of that, of course). That's built in to the Constitution, and you were asking about failsafe type mechanisms.
Lolno. The Civil War showed the states are NOT independent, they are just parts of a nation, and if any tried to leave or start over they would be hammered back into line, just like any other secession in any other country.@boomzilla said:
It's not clear what you're thinking about as a reasonable solution.
If they've been deadlocked and gov shutdown for a certain length of time (1 month?), the Senators (or whoever, not sure which house [or both] is holding things up) are tossed out, and new elections held so that reasonable people are elected. Repeat as necessary.@boomzilla said:
Someone (maybe all of them) will ultimately compromise.
That's terrific. They take the country to the brink, damage (or at least inconvenience) millions of people, and suffer nothing for it. How can you accept that? If THEY can't do their job, THEY should suffer. Instead they are just playing games and having a ball and still drawing their paychecks.@boomzilla said:
I'm always amazed at people who can't understand the function and importance of checks and balances and distributed power in a government. You'd think the last century would have been enough. Enjoy your bread and circuses.
Don't know what the hell you are talking about here. Checks and balances are terrific. Holding an entire nation's government/bureaucracy hostage, refusing to compromise, and suffering nothing for it doesn't fit into that category though. Your nations checks and balances already worked for Obamacare. The President wanted it, both houses passed it, the Supreme Court upheld it. This situation here is just crazy, hostage taking brinksmanship. I don't see how it has any place in a system. What is this accomplishing? Look this isn't a "Lol America" rant it's just utter confusion about how anyone can defend this Particular part of your system
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Because the Constitution says spending bills must originate in the House. You don't get to pick which parts of the Constitution you like, just like Obamacare wasn't automatically overturned because a GOP majority came in for 2011 and automatically invalidated the previous Senate's all-Democrat vote for it.
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@operagost said:
Because the Constitution says spending bills must originate in the House. You don't get to pick which parts of the Constitution you like, just like Obamacare wasn't automatically overturned because a GOP majority came in for 2011 and automatically invalidated the previous Senate's all-Democrat vote for it.
If the House (or rather the leadership in the House) wanted to “originate” what the Senate had in mind, they could. Just take the document, add in a few pork-barrel clauses and claim that it is all new: Tada! Problem solved. (Hey, that's what they do with bills written by lobbyists, so it can't be too hard to do with a proposal from anyone else.) Total sophistry, but since when was that ever a new thing in politics?The real key is that the majority in the House and the majority in the Senate have some serious disagreements (the ACA isn't the only one) and neither has the power to do an end-run around the other. Someone's going to have to give way at least a bit, but right now everyone's thinking it's going to be the other lot. Deadlock ensues. There are a number of possible fixes (e.g., making one chamber superior to the other, or requiring finance bills to be on a single topic) but all require constitutional changes for them to be effective.
I feel sorry for the people caught in the crossfire, some of whom I know.
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@KillaCoda said:
@boomzilla said:
The system hasn't and isn't collapsing.
No shit. Your "solution" was the collapse I'm talking about. "Hmm how will we solve a total deadlock and shutdown of government?" "Um complete collapse of country and start over?" As I said, silly. And unrealistic. There should be a more civilised way to deal with deadlock.It eventually resolves itself. When both Houses vote and the President signs whatever it is.
@KillaCoda said:
@boomzilla said:
The states could decide to start over at any time, BTW (not that there's much chance of that, of course). That's built in to the Constitution, and you were asking about failsafe type mechanisms.
Lolno. The Civil War showed the states are NOT independent, they are just parts of a nation, and if any tried to leave or start over they would be hammered back into line, just like any other secession in any other country.Ah, so you're ignorant of history and the American Constitution.
@KillaCoda said:
If they've been deadlocked and gov shutdown for a certain length of time (1 month?), the Senators (or whoever, not sure which house [or both] is holding things up) are tossed out, and new elections held so that reasonable people are elected. Repeat as necessary.
That seems wasteful and silly, and would definitely take longer than letting them work it out.
@KillaCoda said:
That's terrific. They take the country to the brink, damage (or at least inconvenience) millions of people, and suffer nothing for it. How can you accept that? If THEY can't do their job, THEY should suffer. Instead they are just playing games and having a ball and still drawing their paychecks.
I'd be willing to triple their paychecks if they'd halve their workload. I don't "accept" that. I'm pretty upset. But we can't all agree on which side to be upset at. The status quo is already pushing us towards the brink. It's only standing up to the bullshit and not being doormats that we've made even the slightest progress in fighting against that.
@KillaCoda said:
Checks and balances are terrific. Holding an entire nation's government/bureaucracy hostage, refusing to compromise, and suffering nothing for it doesn't fit into that category though. Your nations checks and balances already worked for Obamacare. The President wanted it, both houses passed it, the Supreme Court upheld it. This situation here is just crazy, hostage taking brinksmanship. I don't see how it has any place in a system. What is this accomplishing? Look this isn't a "Lol America" rant it's just utter confusion about how anyone can defend this Particular part of your system
The checks and balances are still working their thing on Obamacare. See, in the past, there has been some genuine bipartisanship when big programs were created. Obamacare got rammed down our throats without anything even remotely approaching a legislative consensus or even public support. The House is meant to be most responsive to the changing will of the people, and looky here! That's exactly what it's doing. "Both Houses wanted it," three years ago. Those Congresses (and many of the members) are gone, however, and the current or future Congresses are free to shit can previous Congress' work.
Democrats are just butt hurt because they haven't gotten away with fleecing us as cleanly as they'd hoped. It's rare, of course, that government programs, no matter how terrible, go away. But just because one is in existence doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't go away. And the Republicans have been working entirely within the framework of the Constitution, which is more than can be said for the Administration with respect to Obamacare.
I'm sure the Democrats expected the Republicans to fold like a cheap suit like they always have in the past. I'm sure that if they knew the depth of resolve, they would have come up with some sort of faux compromise, like getting rid of the medical device tax, which is particularly stupid, and would probably be cast out unanimously. But I think the Republicans finally realized that their back was up against the wall, and it was time to really fight for something (and a delay is still pretty weak stuff, especially considering the disaster of a rollout the exchanges has been).
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I'd hate to get in the middle of this really fun flamewar, but WTH.
@boomzilla said:
Obamacare got rammed down our throats without anything even remotely approaching a legislative consensus or even public support.
Obamacare (henceforth referred to as the ACA) was the compromise position. I know it's fashionable to think its some sort of OMG SOSHALIST TAKEOVER OF TEH HEALTHCARES***, but that wasn't what the left wing wanted. They did (and still do) simply want to extend Medicare to all US Citizens. The ACA was, as you've pointed out, something that a conservative think-tank dreamed up. It has already been implemented in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney (that socialist).
To you main point, yes, it was rammed down your throat. It should have been. The Republican Party didn't get a majority in either house of congress in the 2008 elections. Losing elections means your team doesn't have a say in how the country is governed. Sure, that's a departure from historical norms, but only because our parties weren't ideologically sorted until recently. In the old days, you had conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans. Today, no such thing exists.
***You want to see a socialist takeover of healthcare? Read up on the NHS.
If you want to claim that the ACA sucks, I'll listen. I happen to think a lot of it sucks. If you want to claim that not passing a CR (or God forbid, a budget) is reasonable behavior, I'll have to disagree. And circle gets the square.
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@KillaCoda said:
@boomzilla said:
The system hasn't and isn't collapsing.
No shit. Your "solution" was the collapse I'm talking about. "Hmm how will we solve a total deadlock and shutdown of government?" "Um complete collapse of country and start over?" As I said, silly. And unrealistic. There should be a more civilised way to deal with deadlock."Shutdown of government" isn't supposed to entail what the Obama administration wants people to think. "Critical" government functions are still funded. "Non-critical" ones are shut down, ostensibly to save the government money [which it doesn't have].
Unfortunately, the people who get to decide what is "critical" and what is "non-critical" are dicks, which means that all of Obama's favourite federally-owned golf course is "critical" and remains open, while privately owned, operated, and funded landmarks that happen to be on Federal land - but cost the government nothing, and actually pay dues to it - are being forcibly shut down by the Feds. Since the police which come to shut them down are paid by the government, the government is spending money [which it still doesn't have] to shut down parks that cost it nothing, just to poke the eyes of the public so that we'll realise how awful a government shutdown is (er, can be when the people running it are gigantic assholes).
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@stinerman said:
Obamacare (henceforth referred to as the ACA) was the compromise position.
Yes, the compromise among Democrats. So, not much of a compromise in the big picture.
@stinerman said:
The ACA was, as you've pointed out, something that a conservative think-tank dreamed up.
Bullshit. That's not at all what I said. I said that a conservative think tank came up with the idea that everyone should have at least catastrophic coverage. You don't need thousands of pages of laws and regulations to state that. Obamacare is a whole shitload of other stuff, too, plus its mandates go way the fuck beyond catastrophic coverage.
@stinerman said:
To you main point, yes, it was rammed down your throat. It should have been. The Republican Party didn't get a majority in either house of congress in the 2008 elections. Losing elections means your team doesn't have a say in how the country is governed.
Yes, they won a lot of seats and managed to do some awful things. But now that the Republicans got a lot of them back, they do have a say in how things are governed. I wasn't saying that they didn't have the right or the power to pass it. But when you don't even try to get buy in, it shouldn't come as a shock that you don't get it.
@stinerman said:
You want to see a socialist takeover of healthcare? Read up on the NHS.
Yes, I agree with you. Obamacare is a lot of really retarded stuff, but not a full on socialistic takeover. Several Democrats have talked about it as a stepping stone to something like the NHS. Parts of Obamacare is super corporatist. Stupid people say things like, "Hey, this is total capitalism, because now everyone has to buy stuff from these private companies. You should totally love this!" It's sad that people who think this are able to vote.
@stinerman said:
If you want to claim that the ACA sucks, I'll listen. I happen to think a lot of it sucks.
Yes, it sucks. It sucks a lot. Things it directly does sucks (e.g., the medical device tax). Things it indirectly does sucks (if we like our plan, we probably can't keep it). Things it passes the buck on suck (someone counted the number of times it says something like, "the secretary shall determine," and I don't remember the number, but it was big. Most of the things that sound good, probably suck because they are a bad way to try to solve the problem (preexisting conditions).
@stinerman said:
If you want to claim that not passing a CR (or God forbid, a budget) is reasonable behavior, I'll have to disagree.
Yes, I think it is very unreasonable, and it's yet one more reason to despise Harry Reid. Not only does he want to hasten the deaths of cancer stricken kids, but he wants to unleash the WTFs of healthcare.gov upon us.
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@KillaCoda said:
If they've been deadlocked and gov shutdown for a certain length of time (1 month?), the Senators (or whoever, not sure which house [or both] is holding things up) are tossed out, and new elections held so that reasonable people are elected. Repeat as necessary.
I find your optimism in the ability of the electorate, in general, somewhat amusing.
Meanwhile, here in the real world, the same people would simply get re-elected, perpetuating the problem.
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@Ben L. said:
@KillaCoda said:
easy: you bylaw it to a law they do wantI don't understand why there's no mechanism to get around a deadlock.
As far I can see your system is consensus based with no way around a lack of consensus?
Seems like the nuclear option of "fire the whole Congress if they can't get their shit together in a reasonable time frame" would be suitable here?
Problem: How do you get them to pass that law?
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@PJH said:
Meanwhile, here in the real world, the same people would simply get re-elected, perpetuating the problem.
That's why you ideally prohibit the incumbents from running in the special election.Hey, I did say “ideally”. I know the likelihood is desperately low, but a guy can dream, yes?
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@dkf said:
That's why you ideally prohibit the incumbents from running in the special election.
If they can't run in the special election, will you at least let them run in the special Olympics?
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@Ronald said:
@dkf said:
Lack of an ethical sense is not usually considered a barrier to entering politics, but I don't think it qualifies anyone for the Paralympics.That's why you ideally prohibit the incumbents from running in the special election.
If they can't run in the special election, will you at least let them run in the special Olympics?
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Has the US government started up again? I'm not getting any tweets and tumbls about it at all anymore through my filter bubble.
It's like HARHGRHAL THIS SHIT IS HAPPENING and then people's typing hands or retweeting fingers get tired or something and it's back to 100% lolcats and lunchtweets.
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@dhromed said:
Has the US government started up again? I'm not getting any tweets and tumbls about it at all anymore through my filter bubble.
I think we're up to about 15% still down, as opposed to about 17% down at peak shutdown.
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15th down, 50-love, free shot, parry, handicap 5.
