I have to say as a non-American I’m astounded the political situation there could get to the point where the government has literally shut down because it doesn’t have any money.
That’s the sort of thing I imagine happening in third world banana republics and tinpot dictatorships, not a (ostensibly) civilised first world nation and certainly not one as large as the USA.
I would have thought the situation would lead to rioting in the streets (pitchforks, burning torches and all), mass protests and increasingly forceful demands this all get sorted out now or else and so forth, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.
Instead, people seem to be fairly “meh” about the whole thing. I appreciate it’s happened before and the “essential services” are still operating, but your federal government is out of cash and has shut down - so why aren’t you all out there loudly declaiming that [Tony Harrison*This is an Outrage![/Tony Harrison], even though nearly a million people are off work without pay through no fault of their own?
It does help that many services are provided by the state and local government. There isn’t a lot of day to day dependency on the Feds. We also fully expect some retroactive fixing of the financial impact of the shutdown.
This whole thing is like a toddler’s tantrum, sometimes it’s best to walk away and not give them any attention.
It has the money. It shut down because its institutions couldn’t agree on how to spend it (or on what policies should be repealed before they agree to spend it, at least). That’s not a problem that occurs in tinpot dictatorships. I doubt North Korea has ever had a government shutdown because the Supreme People’s Assembly couldn’t pass a budget.
It runs out of money in about two weeks. That’s a whole different issue that could cause a whole new artificial crisis, either in addition to or on top of the current shutdown. But if it runs out, it will be because it couldn’t agree to get the money, not because it can’t do it. That’s also not a tinpot dictatorship problem. I doubt North Korea has ever had a fight over how much money to borrow at 0.1% interest.
No. It cannot happen in “banana republics” and “tinpot dictatorships”. Syria, in the midst of a civil war is still getting a functioning government. Everywhere else, if budget cannot be agreed, then the politicians get sent home and the government continues to function. Over in the good old US and A? The civil service gets shut down and the pols lap it up and get paid.
Unions are also a must bigger factor in many other countries. Government workers are unionized, and if the legislature stopped paying them, the unions would shut the whole country down.
The mental image I get of a “No money in the budget, so the government has shut down and nothing is getting done” scenario is of a unshaven man in a sweaty, unironed uniform sitting with his feet on the desk (maybe reading a magazine) under a slowly rotating fan in a fairly basic (and dated) office where you can see a lot of palm trees out of the window. A line of people are coming to this official - perhaps he is a customs officer, or a local administrator of some kind - asking for his help and he just shrugs uninterestedly. The government is not paying him, so why should he work? Perhaps tomorrow he will be paid, and then the banana consignment export quota will be approved, or the building permit will be issued. But until then, the rubber stamp of officialdom shall remained parked uninked in his desk drawer.
Isn’t that what’s happening? The government hasn’t got the money in the budget to pay most of it’s staff, so they’re off work, ergo the country (at federal level) is being shut down?
This is also an entirely manufactured crisis. It’s like a couple arguing over finances, and the man says says “I won’t co-sign the document that transfers money from our savings to our checking unless you agree to go to my cousin’s wedding”. You know the money is there, you know, ultimately, that he’s not going to let the house get foreclosed on, and put the two of you out on the street, he’s just using the checkbook as a weapon to get his way.
It’s very different than actually not having the money at all, THAT is a crisis.
The whole thing is intensely stupid, embarrassing on the international stage, and frustrating–but it’s more irritating than anything else. Americans are annoyed and frustrated rather than terrified or taking to the streets because we know it’s mostly bullshit.
It’s “political theater”–the country hasn’t actually “run out of money” or “gone broke” or anything like that; it’s just a stupid political fight. Our idiosyncratic “checks and balances” system of government (with independent executive and legislative branches; a legislative branch with two independent houses, both of which have real power; and fixed terms for all of these guys with no possibility of a vote of no confidence and early new elections) makes this nonsense possible and, in an increasingly polarized and partisan era of American politics, probably inevitable.
This has happened before; while it was idiotic then (and arguably damaged the Republican Party, as I sincerely hope happens this time around too) it wasn’t the end of the world or anything. As pointed out, a lot of government functions in the United States take place at the state or local level. Furthermore, even at the federal level the “shutdown” is somewhat symbolic (although obviously it’s very real to the people who work for the government who aren’t getting paid, and to citizens who aren’t receiving government services they ought to be getting). Still, if you don’t have a solid grasp of how American government works–which, kind of like having a solid grasp of the rules of baseball or cricket, can be hard to come by if you haven’t grown up in this system–it’s easy to overestimate or misunderstand what’s going on. (One might perhaps wonder how the Belgians were able to cope in their presumably Mad Max-like howling wasteland of a country with no functioning government for almost a year and a half!)
Even at the federal level it’s not like they’ve turned off the radars at NORAD, or shut down the air traffic control system, or left aircraft carriers drifting aimlessly at sea. Federal law enforcement agents are still on the job (although if I understand it correctly, they aren’t actually getting paid–comforting thought). “Essential” functions continue. And the whole thing will probably blow over in a couple of weeks.
Now, some kind of federal government “default”–the “debt ceiling” idiocy–that would be unprecedented. The markets might shrug it off, the way they did the credit rating downgrade–I don’t think anyone is actually saying the U.S. should really default on its debts; I think any “default” would be pretty technical in nature. But the damnfools in Washington might send the whole planet back into recession (and parts of it have never really come out of recession). They might blow the whole thing completely to hell, and make the Great Depression look like a case of the sniffles. IANAEconomist, and I’m not really sure anyone is 100% sure of what would happen.
There is a pretty limited number of things everyday people can do to actually affect what happens in Washington. We’re not going to storm the Bastille and get our asses shot off. We could launch recall or impeachment type efforts in some cases - but most of these people will be up for reelection in the near future (the very near future, some of them) and it makes better tactical sense to focus on electing someone new than to spend your money and time on recalling the current asshole. We can contact our various Representatives but most of them let the machine pick up. We don’t really blame them for that, either. We could smoke weed and wave signs, I guess. That’s always a good time - but you’d have to take off work which most of us can’t afford and really, the last we thing need right now is even more people, not working.
Americans mostly settle their problems at the voting booth and trust the government to handle their own shit on a day-to-day basis. (Which is why I think vehement “Government Sucks!” rhetoric is so unAmerican.) This too shall pass - or we’ll elect a different set of assholes who can get some shit done. It’s not that we don’t care - we do - we just have an easier solution than rioting or striking.
Like ME Buckner says - right now, this is irritating, not life-threatening. If we manned the barricades every time our politicians annoyed us we’d never have time for anything else.
I get the sense of the population tensely waiting, giving Congress time to recognize just how badly they are perceived by most citizens. Underneath the waiting, though, there is an immense rage. People are almost universally fed up. Most of their anger seems to be directed at Congress, despite repeated attempts by congress-critters to deflect blame to the White House.
I haven’t seen people this mad for a long, long time. The next set of elections is going to be depressing for a lot of people.
Members of Congress can’t be recalled anyways. They can only be kicked out by a two-third majority of their own house. Which is obviously not happening.
Right right. Wasn’t the last time that happened James Trafficant? So really, elections are the main focus for replacing horrible politicians.
The more I think about it, the more I think it’s our clockwork election cycle really does act like a pressure valve on society. It leads to a populace that’s disinclined to riot in between elections - and at the same time, also inclined to completely lose our shit when Election day is getting close and the pressure is building up. We don’t need to freak out today - because we know Election Day is coming and we’re already preparing to freak out then.
Except in a few cases where it may very well be life-threatening.
I worked at the NIH in the past and I know that it’s god’s work that they do over there. So it pains me to hear that kids are being denied access to treatment that for some will mean the difference between life and death if this fuckery goes on for too long.
So if anything puts a knot in my shorts about the shut-down it’s this one thing.
Also, I heard that the people who come by with therapy dogs for the kids already being treated in the fascilities can no longer do so. It took me by surprise how sad that news made me because I’m usually a heartless bastard IRL.
For those reasons alone, I feel like congress deserves all the ire they get and more.
Inaccurate. Governments do not run out of money, or at least they have not since about 1700. You are making the mistake of thinking that the Government is like you and me, we have less cash on hand, less good our lifestyle is. Governments do not function that way. The shortfall between expenditures and revenues is met by borrowing; from a variety of sources, banks, other countries, own citizens (bonds) etc etc. A government can always borrow money. Now a less stable government will find itself having to pay much higher rates of interest than a stable (or a perceived stable one).
Of course this means that they have to often spend much more of their actual money on debt servicing (to get more credit) than on other things, but they will never really run out of money to pay. They can have less money to spend on individual things, but not no money at all.
So in your sencario, the man in question might be poorly or rarely paid. But, his office is still functioning (meaning it is getting money), his superiors are still doing their jobs(ditto), other types of personnel are working, otherwise, who let the banana consignment into the ports, who let people into the building for him to meet?
Easiest way to destroy your country is to make your creditors think you are insane and unreliable and the USG is doing a fantastic job of that.
The problem is not this shutdown, the problem is the continuous slide of self inflicted wounds, like the failure to pass a budget for 4 years, the astronomical debt, the sequesters, debt limits arguments etc, all the ridiculous political deadlocks.
All these reduce confidence, increase the costs of borrowing, increasing debt…all of which has an adverse impact
Yup. The Republicans voted 39 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and that failed 39 times, so now they’re holding all the government programs up, including stuff that really matters now. Beyond the hundreds of thousands of government employees that aren’t getting paid, the NIH isn’t running some studies, the CDC isn’t tracking outbreaks at the start of influenza season, WIC programs may run out of funding by the end of the month, NOAA’s tracking is offline and a tropical storm is approaching - and the exceptions that some want to fund are the “popular” stuff like opening up tourist attractions? :smack: