Well it seems like most of you have a good idea of how the government works, and you seem to have a good grasp on the terminology as well. I have sincerely learned from reading this thread, if what you all say is correct, I feel my knowledge is quite a bit better than it was; )

Glad to see it be educational. Some of us have unfair advantages as we're sort of involved in it for a living or were.

Pang is a democrat that why he makes stupid replies like saying that angel1 is incorrect when in all actuality he is spot on. The Democrats and Obama caused this shut down and they can un stop it any time they wish buy passing the funding bills which they have already gotten from the HOUSE.

What makes you think we need regulation and oversight in every aspect of our lives?

Do you even realize how ineffective most of those agencies are?

Do you even want me to get into what the SEC does while on the clock?

Or NSA, even...

Are you really that concerned with the "big bad businessman" that you fear for your health and life if Uncle Sam isn't there to protect you from them? You are probably one of those in favor of the lemonade stands being shut down for health reasons and tax evasion, or lack of permits, aren't you? And you have the brass to claim I am the one that has fallen for it? wow

Hear is a hint. Get out of the city and learn to live your life on your own accord. It will open your eyes. Take chances and live a little.

I thought the parks were owned by "We the People", didn't know I could be trespassing on my own property.

some good posting from Atryn

Your argument is ridiculous. The House Republicans have a majority of Americans believing that defunding of Obamacare isn't worth shutting the government down and again, the law has been passed, signed, and tested in Court.

If the Democrats had played games like this all throughout the 2000s with the Bush tax cuts, I'm guessing you'd have been all over them for irresponsible governing, and rightfully so.

The House Republicans have a small majority in one half of one third of the federal government. Somehow this makes them think they have a mandate.

OVerall, I think this was a classless move. Of course, I don't buy your argument of thinking that parks can't be closed ever. That's common practice that parks close at certain times, especially at night.

However, even as a Democrat, I see closing of parks that don't have any connection to federal funding as a classless act that just adds insult to injury. My party is incredibly good at overplaying their hand whenever the American people seem to be behind them, causing those supporters to end up turning on them.

Your party relies on people mistakenly believing that the federal govt is an essential participant in every facet of their lives. This is why they try to make it as unpleasant as possible whenever any effort whatsoever is made to reduce the size of govt. There are hundreds of billions of dollars worth of wasteful and / or duplicative federal programs, and they never see their funding cut.

They do the same thing on the state level here in Washington. Every time the voters refuse to let them fleece us more, they claim they'll have to lay off police and firefighters, or get rid of some popular program. Funny thing is, we keep calling their bluff, but the world doesn't implode.

Republicans are no better BTW. At least Democrats are honest about wanting a massive bloated government. Republicans claim to want small government, but when in power, all they do is increase it.

Two wings of the same predatory bird.

Every presidency since Lyndon Johnson has seen government shutdowns from the minority party "holding the country hostage" with the exception of Bush Jr. and What was the result? He spent WAY too much. Obama piggybacked off of it and exponentially increased the spending and here we are. The body that controls the purse of the government is using its power granted by the Constitution.


Also, quit with the "it was passed by both chambers and affirmed by he courts" as a means to proclaim the opposition just "accept it" as if that is how you treated the bush tax cuts or "dont ask, dont tell" or DOMA, which was actually passed and signed into law by YOUR party.


This is how the system is designed, to hold each other in check when one party gets too happy with the check book or the policy book.

"Your party...my party...Republican...Democrat..."

Both sides are the problem because two party systems are trash.

bing, solution put a term limit in congress...if nothing else will help get new blood in.

another idea would be to quit electing lawyers

I'm sure they have, but I'd have to go look for it. It's not really an issue _right now_ per se, its always been an issue. And its hardly a "federal government" issue either. I've seen the same in State and Local governments. Heck, I've seen the same in Private corporations that get too large too. Spend everything or else someone might realize you could get by with a smaller budget...

Frankly, that is why many companies do an "across-the-board" 10% cut every few years. They know there is fat somewhere and its usually too complex/time inefficient or political to try and find it line item by line item.

As to your final point, the only real structural reforms I'm interested in right now are 1) tax reform (start clean) and 2) a 3rd party of moderates formed by the center-leaning of both parties. My bet is neither of those will happen anytime soon. ;)

I never said that. In fact, I am rather against regulation in many areas of our lives. Where regulation is typically most beneficial is where the clear motivations of the few conflict with the public good and where that conflict cannot simply be addressed reactively (i.e. poisoning the well).



No, I have experience with many of them. I would agree that many of them are _inefficient_, which is an inherent problem of government and one which always must be considered when deciding if it is an area in which government should be involved. For example, the CDC disease response team gets funded on a per-disease basis. This means that team may be carrying 6 different cell phones... literally. One is the SARS phone, one is the Ebola phone, one is the H5N1 phone, etc. (I actually met with these people). Its nuts. But it is a natural effect of managing such a complex agency where every dollar has to be accountable back to a specific purpose and "shared resources" are actually quite difficult to deal with unless separately appropriated (such as real estate often is).

That doesn't mean I want to give up CDC response to disease outbreak. Or are you suggesting we should have 50 different state-level CDC's that don't coordinate or cooperate well?



Do you want to get into what the guy in the next cubicle does on the clock? I've seen horrible practices in both public and private sector. Again, decisions on when to use government as the proper tool to address a problem are made on a bigger basis than the behavior of individual employees.



Yes and no. You used the term "businessman", which is not an accurate portrayal of my concerns. My concerns are not the individuals involved but the structural risks. Capitalism is loaded with structural risk. So is Tyranny. It is the for-profit drive of capitalism I am concerned with, not always the individuals. Although, just as there can be bad employees in government, there can be bad ones in the private sector too.



No, I am not. My kid ran a lemonade stand over the summer. It is a great way to teach about business. Thanks for trying. Play again.



You don't know me at all. Not only have I spent plenty of time outside the city, I have also spent plenty of time outside the country. It sounds like you don't see any need for our federal government, so maybe you should consider "getting out"... There are ways, you know, and places with much less "federal government" to worry about.

And if the Republicans push for repeal/defund after another election cycle, fine. If they're going to continue to bring up these bills/efforts, they shouldn't be a complete waste of time.

The number of attempts the House Republicans have made to kill Obamacare is truly ridiculous considering it's failed every time and there's no reason to think that will change. It goes back to the cliche definition of insanity.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell was a law passed in 1993 and ended in 2011. Many of the Bush tax cuts STILL exist, and those that don't were changed after a change in Presidents (so there was a reason to think the attempt wasn't a colossal waste of time).

Same with DOMA. There wasn't much traction for changes to DOMA until recently, and the major change to DOMA was enacted through a court challenge, something that thusfar, the ACA has survived.

And while you bring these examples up, in NONE of these cases did the Democrats actually cause a government shutdown or continue strife long enough to the point of having our national credit rating lowered.

So as far as I can tell, your chosen examples don't really prove that the Democrats are just as guilty of this type of stunt. Please let me know if I'm missing something though.

Twain, for me the question of who's pulling a stunt in this case comes down to who has passed different bills in an attempt to get a budget done and who has stood, arms crossed, glaring at their opponents. Just so we're clear, the Republican controlled House has passed different budgets and the Democratic controlled Senate has done nothing at all. No, spending cut carrots dangled in front of the Republicans to get them to forgo Obamacare provisions in the budget, no alternative Obamacare provisions, nothing. Matter of fact, the Democrats won't even talk.

Before we accuse the Republicans of pulling a stunt in this case, let's just be sure that the facts of the circumstance are clearly known and understood. This way we can decide if the party that's negotiating through legislative action is pulling a stunt or if the party that is not doing anything is pulling s stunt.

What this really is is that the Democrats thought they could set the rules of governing right now and their throwing a temper tantrum because the Republicans have not so politely reminded them that they can take their rules and shove them.

Boehner claims that there aren't enough votes to pass an appropriations bill without the ACA cutbacks. If that's true, why doesn't he schedule a vote and see what happens? At the least, either the shutdown will end, or the Republicans can back up his claims and gain some leverage.

In either case, if they don't raise the debt ceiling, I'm going to fluffing scream..

US can borrow my credit card. it has around 97% available for purchases at the moment. unfortunately I'll have to charge them around a 60% interest rate because i think i should make as much money as my creditors off of the transactions.

Let me see if I understand your point right. It's hogwash for Republicans to try to garner any changes to Obamacare? And, as you put it, a waste of time? I mean that's the President's point of view too. It's especially ironic coming from the President given his unlateral decision to delay the employer mandate.

Where else could the law possible attract bipartisan support for delays, defunding efforts or repeals? Clearly not the cost containment mechanism, aka IPAB, right? I mean, there is zero chance Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) would be a co-author of the bill (with an evil Republican, no less) or that it would attract 25 Democrat co-sponsors from Progressive Caucus members to Blue Dogs, right? Ok, fine, what about on the revenue side of the equation. You don't think there would be any broad support to, say, repeal the ACA's medical device tax, do you? I mean, such a bill would never pass the Senate with 32 Democrat votes, right?

Oh yes, but the law's been passed! It's been upheld! There have been elections! Really, that's the rationale? Prohibition was also passed and upheld. You can call efforts to repeal parts or all of the law as "insanity," but given the national polling data on the law as a whole, I would call it prudent. People don't like the law and in some cases it's Democrats and Republicans actually working TOGETHER to repeal portions of it (including a portion the President said we should "double down" on). I could appreciate your point as it related to tactical timing of such efforts (ie, leverage used), but your broadbrush is wrong.

Oh, p.s., Democrats have voted against the debt ceiling and used it to try to extra policy changes:

http://blogs.wsj.com/...ing-negotiations-not-new/

And post post script- "Don't Ask, Don't Tell was a law passed in 1993 and ended in 2011" .... Do tell me the vote on this law that was passed in 1993 ;). A law was used to repeal DADT, but I would absolutely love to see the vote of enactment. (It doesn't exist).

Agreed on use it or lose it. Honestly, domestic discretionary isn't a big enough piece of the pie to really alter the debt issues at all unless it experienced some unforeseen magical growth.

I tend to see a third party as a real long shot. Don't get me wrong, the structural change could really alter the landscape and force a different style of governing all together (for better or for worse is up in the air), but I just don't see it in the near run.

I think the pragmatist perspective toward addressing it all is to figure out a lever that allows both sides to save face. Ironically enough, that's what sequestration was supposed to fulfill. Republicans would want to avoid defense cuts and Democrats would want to avoid the entitlement and discretionary cuts. Obviously, that didn't work out.

But I think the crux of it was right. Democrats will want to maintain or increase spending on entitlements. Republicans will want maintain or lower taxes while lowering or maintaining entitlement spending. So a solution has to intricately weave the two together. Something that passes a debt celing far in advance of the current process but says if we hit X % of the debt-to-GDP (really that's the number we care about) then entitlement spending will be reduce by a factor of X and taxes will be increased by a factor of X with all proceeds going toward maintaining on-time interest payments and maintaining existing services.

Essentially, you're giving both sides a way to save face. Otherwise voters will kick them out. Any Republican voting for a tax hike will be toast. Any Democrat voting for significant entitlement reform (ie, cuts) will similarly be toast. Since it does not appear we have a quorom of people willing to walk those planks, any solution must really give everyone a way out. Otherwise kicking the can continues as the status quo, which works fine until the music stops.

Some humor:

http://xkcd.com/1274/

I think that remains to be seen... remember, if left unchanged, sequestration gets remarkably worse in each successive year. They have to do something.



A bit of a misnomer there, or a jump of steps. Democrats certainly don't want to increase spending. Some Democrats want to increase benefits or increase the population receiving benefits, and that often drives higher spending. But not all Dems want that and many are interested in ways to approach it that don't increase spending.

One of my preferred items right now is raising the retirement age. This will, in turn, lower certain Social Security and healthcare costs. Those benefits could still be available at 65 if you met any of the conditions which make them available pre-retirement today. But I'd like to see retirement age going up by 2 years now and 1 year every 5 or so for the forseeable future. For me, that would mean retirement ~70 yrs old. Since I plan to live past 100, maybe that isn't fast enough. ;)

We cannot possibly continue to increase lifespan and hold retirement age constant. It makes no sense. Either you end up capping benefits (people run out and then you let them die???) or you need to raise the age at which benefits start. I favor the latter.

does our lifespan go up 1 year every 5 ?

i just found out canada got rid of the penny last week... tell me more :P

US Life Expectancy

69.77 in 1960
78.54 in 2010

So that is ~9 years in 50 years.

I expect it will go up faster with a few large breakthrough-related jumps over the next 50 years.

http://www.google.com/...n&dl=en&ind=false

It is unquestionably better for the higher-end, however. poor/rural areas in the US have lower life expectancy than wealthy/educated areas:

http://singularityhub.com/...ng-especially-in-the-u-s/

Haha, Democrats don't want to increase spending. By that argument process, Republicans aren't opposed to more revenue, they simply want a "fair" tax system ;). I'm just skipping past the partisan talking points and getting to the center of the matters otherwise it's way too easy to rhetorically dance around the issues.

On the principel of fairness, I agree with raising the age. Speaker Boehner tossed out raising it by 2 years during the 2011 negotiations. CBO scored it as $130 something billion over the 10 year window, which really isn't that much. (They also said it simply shifts the burden to states via Medicaid and businesses, split about equally). I suppose that makes sense since over a third (almost 40%) of your Medicare costs come from the recipient's last year. It's somewhere to start.

But again, for most the pols, why do you agree to something like that? I mean look what happened to Paul Ryan and Ron Wyden. The former's attempt at these sort of things turned into campaign fodder against his colleagues and the latter was pillaged for even daring to dream across the aisle. That's why any solution has to have a mutually assured destruction sort of provisio to it. Even then, I still doubt it happens.

The good (and bad because it's many of our parents) news is that eventually the baby boomers aren't a fiscal drag anymore and most of this talk becomes a moot point.

I love how any sign of flexibility to make things hopefully operate more smoothly is a sign of weakness and the law's inevitable failure.



If they want to work on reforms of the law, I'm all for it. Full repeal/defund is a waste of time though. I'm not wearing blinders to the fact that the law is far from perfect.




The favorable/unfavorable for Obamacare is still better then favorable/unfavorable attitudes towards shutting down the government to attack Obamacare. Furthermore, the polls on Obamacare are very similar to the polls on Medicare during the limbo period between when Medicare was passed and enacted. Now, people on Medicare can of course find minor problems, but overall, polls I've looked up have shown at LEAST a 2/3 majority are pro-Medicare. I'll concede this doesn't necessarily prove the same will be true for Obamacare, but most likely, it will receive a bump in support once people realize some of the benefits (they've been inundated with information about how bad it is).



Fair enough. I was wrong on the verbage in my discussion on DADT. It wasn't a law, but merely a policy. Regardless, mdevol's point that these were issues that Democrats have been crusading against for awhile as a comparison to the Republicans fervor against Obamacare is still a poor comparison.

Although despite the fact that I'm arguing with you here trumper, I actually find your discussion with Atryn in the most recent posts to be quite interesting. I think it's amusing how vitriolic many of these discussions become when most of us can probably agree on a lot more things than we'd disagree on.

We (I'm including myself) just tend to pigeonhole each other and dig in defensively against each other on certain things.

I think it's important to remember that most people lean the way they do because they feel it's truly what's best for the country and its people. People aren't Democrats because they want everyone to have 10 abortions and because they want to bloat the economy with excessive bureaucracy, and likewise people aren't Republicans because they want completely unregulated capitalism where children are working in mines and no one but the rich have health care.

I know sometimes I lose focus of that when arguing, and I'm sure that can be said for others here too.

Keep the shutdown going and don't raise the debt ceiling, I am short the market.

Cheers
Qazulight

the debt problem scares me more.

$13B / year isn't nothing, but it isn't much. My plan would have a 2 yr boost now, another 1 year in 5 years and another 1 year at 10 years, so conceivably a bit more than $130B.

And yes, the cost would have to shift somewhere since people don't like to just lie down and die.

However, I wonder if the CBO took everything into account. It isn't just the cost savings that matter, it is the revenue you get from taxation on 2-3 years additional work time before retirement. Do you know if they included that in their analysis? Those last years are (for some) when they are making the most...

As far as more revenue, I just want to close loopholes. That's what I meant by real tax reform, starting clean. Recognizing all forms of income / net worth appreciation, not just traditional salaries or what-not. We need a clean system that doesn't encourage or support so much hiding or offshoring of profits and wealth... (companies and individuals)

I'd love to see us clean up the mess that is "non-profits" right now as well.

As mentioned before, I also think that we need to seriously cut back on military spending. I hesitate to even refer to it as defense spending anymore... that's become an inaccurate description.

Riddle me how Republicans are irresponsible for seeking a delay in the individual mandate when the President issued a unilateral decision to delay the employer mandate? And didn't the latter decision by the President show that he's willing to bend on some of the law?

As for the other point, I just wanted to point out that Washington power players (I would say DC, but I recognize most folks here see it as Washington) often suffer from selective memory disorder. A disorder where they see their past actions as saintlike and conveniently forget when they used the same tactics. The WSJ link cites the Democrats using the debt ceiling to extra policy changes going back as far as 20 years ago.

I would love to know how CBO determines their scoring process because one year they say SGR repeal costs $275 billion and the next year they say it costs $130 billion. I don't think they use fully dynamic scoring, but often they do show addiitional costs. In this case, that's how the report shows the additional Medicaid and private employer costs.

Many of those workers going onto Medicare don't just stop working when they hit that number, it's just a switch of plans. Typically their employers force them onto Medicare and they provide a Medigap sort of coverage. So raising it for those folks simply means the money is spent on private plans or if those folks are too poor, on Medicaid longer.

The notion of employers dropping folks and forcing them into government programs is an interesting sidestory to the whole Obamacare debate. One of the biggest issues is lurking a few years down the road when employers providing so-called "cadillac" plans will be forced to pay taxes on them. The problem is that if they switch now, they will also lose their grandfather status as it relates to meeting other ACA-requirements. So a number of these employers will drop their plans entirely. Last week, Fairfax Water (water company for Fairfax County, a Northern VA suburban DC-area county with one million or so people) said they're dropping all the plans.

Agreed on lowering defense spending. Similar to entitlements, you have to ween people off it.

I'm fine with closing loopholes so long as the whole thing becomes revenue-neutral or new spending is matched by appropriate reductions. After four years of dealing with state government budgets, the one thing I learned was that there is never enough food to feed a government spending beast. Every single time revenue went up, spending went zooming by and it created a viscious cycle of needing more revenue. And that's why I think you tie the two together and you effectively force both parties to the table to either negotiate a deal or at least keep our government from drunk budget driving.

Would not disagree although I'm certainly guilty of pigeonholing posts. I let frustration get the better of me sometimes because frankly a lot of folks don't know what they're talking about from the left or right on these issues. Education can take the form of being direct (often ignored) or patronizing (never ignored, but always hated).

Of course, the dialogue here is about 100x better than it is on Capitol Hill. The two party's have really made it a negative to have a beer or cigar with the opposition (I say this as someone whom had cigars with a key Democrat Leader's former aide). I watched Huffpost try to exploit two sides (staff) meeting together once for a fun event. It led to one staffer getting fired and another reprimanded. So, yah, I have very little hope for the future.

But hey, you never know, we could hash out a workable plan and maybe some in charge even see it.

who will spy on meeee.

The President urged the Speaker to hold a vote in the House of Representatives on the Senate-passed measure that would re-open the federal government immediately. Citing the Senate’s intention to pass a clean, yearlong extension of the debt limit this week, the President also pressed the Speaker to allow a timely up-or-down vote in the House to raise the debt limit with no ideological strings attached. He noted that only Congress has the authority to raise the debt limit and failure to do so would have grave consequences for middle class families and the American economy as a whole.

By clean, he means the CR that did not incorporate sequestration. Ironic given his signature to the Budget Control Act and statements that the CR shouldn't be used to advance policy (except, evidently, in repealing sequestration). Of course the media is lagging about five days behind stuck between the jargon and reality.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...ched-to-the-debt-ceiling/

Some more reading for interested parties claiming non-fiscal items haven't been used in debt or CR debates.

The WaPo goes on to list some of the issues:
-campaign finance reform
-national highway system
-Social Security changes
-ending bombing in Cambodia
-banning integrated bussing
-nuclear free zones
-repeal of an oil import free (successful), which had been a key plank in Pres. Carter's energy policy

Oh, and that's just a tasting of attempts to add items by both sides of the aisle. The story indicates these attempts were only successful about 10% of the time.

http://www.zerohedge.com/...rease-americas-debt-limit

Obama...classic

I disagree with this. We need to reduce the deficit. You don't get there by having everything be revenue neutral or spending=cuts... We need new revenue and spending cuts.

^
Very true how else is the gov going to give everyone the staples of an acceptable life?

We have to drain the value out of anything that could produce more than it needs to provide to make up for being short in another area. This makes everything real inexpensive.

any chance that we could just replace them all by hiring minimum wage workers?

we need to go over this fiscal cliff, and go over it hard.

at the rate of spending we have we are going to default, maybe not today but soon. very soon

we need to do something drastic and clearly the retards we have put in Washington don't have the balls to pull the plug on ANY entitlement programs.

they are killing us. period.

perhaps if boehner stands firm we will work to scale back some.probably not, but maybe.

Your rationale makes perfect sense, but Washington is an imperfect place. My experience is that the more you feed the beast, the more it wants to eat. Even the so-called Clinton surplus (ie we weren't increasing the debt and were slightly paying down the deficit) was only something he begrudingly accepted because he wanted to spend this newfound money.

I actually believe a more fax tax code may generate more revenue without penalizing folks more. Although that's a tricky item and the last tims this really succeeded was with a lame duck President, which is still a year and a half away.

Washington DC is several hundred square miles surrounded by reality.

I say we default, let the world economy tank some more, let the humans thin their herds a little, then hope that the right people get dead so we can take our country back from these criminals.

Like that will ever happen.

Your opinion is pretty much on par with a lot of America where only 30% of people say the debt limit should be raised:

"Yet only 30 percent say they support raising the limit; 46 percent were neutral on the question."
http://www.npr.org/...ory.php?storyId=230635128

I am only interested in that survey if they excluded anyone who didn't actually understand the mechanics of debt, deficits, leverage, etc.

Otherwise it is as useless as asking them whether they prefer ACA or Obamacare.

Well, that's why we should ideally have mature adults in Congress to show some spending restraint during a surplus... Alas, I haven't found Theory yet, although it sounds like a nice place to live.

we can't tax ourselves out of this that is for sure. there is no way this things gets paid off ever.it is like a fluffing snowball rolling down hill pretty damn hard to stop.