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Shutdown 2023

My wife and I just recently returned from a long weekend vacation to DC. We had originally wanted to go in later October but planning around potential government shutdowns is simply a part of navigating the DC tourism industry these days. Must really suck for the hospitality industry to have their lifeline periodically cut to 0 every few years. I feel bad for anyone who didn't take this into account and is facing the prospect of every major tourist destination in DC being closed during their visit.

The Smithsonian museums are excellent and 100% free, assuming this country isn't doing its "failed state" routine.
 
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Worth recalling that there have been proposed solutions to put this fake crisis to bed forever.

The treasury could mint a trillion dollar coin and deposit it into the fed.

I don't see how Dems playing along with this fake crisis does anything but help their opposition. These freakouts about government debt and spending are entirely cynical and it only gives credence to the conservative idea that debt spending in inherently bad or whatever. A total surrender of the political initiative to the Republicans to have to deal with this nonsense.

Minting the coin would require a bit of creativity and decisive action from the Dems, so it'll never happen.
 
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I have said it before, and I will say it again:

We NEED that trillion dollar coin, if only as a prop in the next Big Heist movie.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
The treasury could mint a trillion dollar coin and deposit it into the fed.
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That's one weird trick for the debt limit, not the annual appropriations process. The former is an artificial self-imposed limitation, the latter is just how money flows to all the various agencies.
 
d4m10n said:
That's one weird trick for the debt limit, not the annual appropriations process. The former is an artificial self-imposed limitation, the latter is just how money flows to all the various agencies.
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Ahh, an important correction, thank you. My comment about the coin is not relevant here.

At least this squabble is directly about the budget as opposed to the ridiculousness of debt ceiling showdowns.
 
theprestige said:
Oh no! The Dreaded Shutdown! I guess we're all ******, for the thirty seconds it actually takes for some political clowns to agree on which one gets out of the car first!
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Exactly, what are the other frogs complaining about? The water is just fine.
 
Ah yes our on schedule comment from the "It's our fault for having a government in the first place and we deserve to be punished for depending on it" squad.
 
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Brainster said:
How many times has this happened in the last 20 years? And how many times has the end of the world resulted? Or meltdown of the US economy?

It's theatre for both sides.
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Who cares about paying the troops? I'm glad you decided to drop that pretense.
 
It's interesting to see conservatives pretend to not care about shutdowns now that their party is finally eating its own face like a leopard on PCP and there's no way to blame it on Democrats.
 
d4m10n said:
It doesn't need to be a total meltdown to cause significant and measurable damage.
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Federal workers won't be paid during the shutdown, but they'll be paid for that time after the shutdown ends. That includes the non-essential workers who are barred from doing anything useful during the shutdown.

Who'd have thought that paying people not to work would become such a prominent element of Republican political philosophy?
 
W.D.Clinger said:
Federal workers won't be paid during the shutdown, but they'll be paid for that time after the shutdown ends
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And cue every Republican Troll (but I repeat myself) giving us the same "It's their fault for not having an emergency fund" hot take.

Republicans expect working people to be able to survive forever while they play whatever games they want to play but are the same ones who act like a billion dollar business can't survive if their cash flow stops for 4 seconds when their workers go on strike.
 
3point14 said:
You have one of those?

We don't!
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You actually do. And like all our governments, it clanks and rumbles and pootles along well enough most of the time. Just as long as someone at least half competent has the wheel.

Its just that some people can't accept that it's their fault for driving this calliope off a cliff despite plenty of warning signs and shouting from the passengers.
 
Again the "LOL the government doesn't work anyway hardy har knee slap" routine is meant to demean social programs people depend on by pretending they don't really work in the first place.
 
Just copying and pasting myself from the last time we went through this:

Let me explain this because it's so stupid it sounds like a joke.

Congress, by law, decides two things.

1. How much money the government will spend.
2. How much money the government collects in taxes.

The President, by law, must

1. Put the budget AND tax law Congress sets into action.

Here's where it get stupid.

Congress can make the amount they want to spend bigger than the amount they want to bring in in taxes, leading to a deficit.

The President must then ask Congress for permission to borrow over a set limit in order to pay for the things Congress says he has to buy with the amount of money Congress gives him.

And Congress can tell him no. That's where reality breaks. In any sane world if Congress goes "You must spend 10 dollars and I'm only giving you 5" the right of the President to borrow the remaining 5 would be implied but that's not how it works in this nut house.

That's it. That's all this is. THAT'S ALL THIS IS. A quirk of governmental procedures allows Congress to go "Here's 10 dollars. Go to the store and buy 20 dollars worth of things. You can only put 5 dollars on the credit card."

That's it. Seriously look at me. Look me in the eyes. That's all it is. I tell you this because literally any moment now Republican Trolls are going to flood this thread to tell you that it is literally anything other than that and it is not, they will be lying.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Just copying and pasting myself from the last time we went through this:

Let me explain this because it's so stupid it sounds like a joke.

Congress, by law, decides two things.

1. How much money the government will spend.
2. How much money the government collects in taxes.

The President, by law, must

1. Put the budget AND tax law Congress sets into action.

Here's where it get stupid.

Congress can make the amount they want to spend bigger than the amount they want to bring in in taxes, leading to a deficit.

The President must then ask Congress for permission to borrow over a set limit in order to pay for the things Congress says he has to buy with the amount of money Congress gives him.

And Congress can tell him no. That's where reality breaks. In any sane world if Congress goes "You must spend 10 dollars and I'm only giving you 5" the right of the President to borrow the remaining 5 would be implied but that's not how it works in this nut house.

That's it. That's all this is. THAT'S ALL THIS IS. A quirk of governmental procedures allows Congress to go "Here's 10 dollars. Go to the store and buy 20 dollars worth of things. You can only put 5 dollars on the credit card."

That's it. Seriously look at me. Look me in the eyes. That's all it is. I tell you this because literally any moment now Republican Trolls are going to flood this thread to tell you that it is literally anything other than that and it is not, they will be lying.
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That's not what is happening here. This is literally a showdown about the budget, not the debt ceiling. The current budget expires Oct 1st.

The shutdown of the federal government would occur because there is no agreed upon budget to keep things running, not because of a debt default.
 
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