> The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has added a message to the top of its website blaming the looming government shutdown on the "radical left".
That’s rich coming from a department that has intentionally withheld money from our most vulnerable people this year.
Here's a collection for dang/tomhow, as this is (as it always has in the past) going to collect duplicates as everyone posts their own news source's version:
I want to point out that that a new and dangerous kind of "shutdown" was already happening before today, just in a patchy partisan manner. [0][1] In a nutshell:
1. Democrats and Republicans reach a typical legislative compromise with enough votes to pass a law, declaring that federal government shall do both [A] and [B].
2. President Trump: "Meh, I just don't wanna do [B], nobody do [B] or else you're fired."
3. Republican legislators: "Sure, we didn't want [B] anyway, we'll sit back and let Trump break the law without impeaching him. We'll can spend that money for something else we like later."
So... what's the point of Democrats compromising on a package of budget laws, when the Republican party keeps conspiring to break the very laws they agreed-to but don't like?
This is a great point, and it's something that the Founding Fathers really just kicked the can down the road for succeeding generations to find out. The executive doing so is technically in violation of the Take Care Clause ("shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"), and SOME judicial proceedings since then have found that the Executive can't use under-spending to deny or delay a congressional act or program (Train v. City of New York, 1975) - but it's still something that's up in the air if we have a complicit Congress AND judiciary.
But then again, with a complicit Congress and Judiciary - what ISN'T in the air is a shorter list.
>what's the point of Democrats compromising on a package of budget laws, when the Republican party keeps conspiring to break the very laws they agreed-to but don't like?
At this point, think of it as continuing to gather the moutains of supprot for the next impeachment trials. For when a scandal happens that Trump can't recover from. From if something untimely happens and power shifts. his won't just be forgotten to history.
It's slow and painful, but when words don't work, you point to actions. Trump has done a lot of actions out of the blue that will bite back had when the power is ceded.
If you have to use the "this hasn't happened since X" formulation for dramatic effect, at least do it when the time scale is actually impressive. Last time it happened was 7 years ago? That's not even 2 presidencies
As someone who actually worked for the Federal government when it shutdown in the past, people are exaggerating the implications for narrative purposes. This happens semi-routinely, there is a boring reality that goes along with it.
The people worst off are Federal contractors. They are effectively unemployed during these periods. Many actual employees, like me in previous shutdowns, are essentially on irregular paid time off. In theory it is unpaid, but it is always retroactively paid in practice and everyone knows this. People that are “critical” kind of get a raw deal because they still have to work while people deemed less essential don’t have to work.
It is unfortunate that it happens but I wouldn’t get overly caught up in the theater of it all.
It's not unprecedented, but I think calling it "regular" is also downplaying the issue here. We've been roughly on a schedule of once per 5 years or so.
I think it is highly irregular given this presidency. Reagan shut down 3 times to weaken various unions and facilities, really wielding it as a bargaining chip. Clinton shut down twice as a president with a congress that didn't align with him
Trump has now shut down the government 5 times, and the truly odd thing is how 4 times he had congress on his side. This isn't really something to just shake off.
(and for completeness. Carter had the first shutdown ever and Obama shut down once as well).
I think it's a bit worse this time since we have an unbridled President, that the SCOTUS has made King-adjacent, who wants to permanently fire a lot of the furloughed employees out of vengeance and with no clear logic other than he's angry. So this time it's not quite as matter-of-fact.
Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House. They didn't bother to show up to avert the shutdown. The House convened for 2 minutes and refused to allow any discussion yesterday.
33 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 47.9 ms ] threadThat’s rich coming from a department that has intentionally withheld money from our most vulnerable people this year.
Can't generate money, only lose it then refuse to allocate what we have left.
Republicans hold the majority... hello?
https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/longest-government-shu...
https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/longest-government-shu...
https://www.whitehouse.gov/
I fear this may longer than I originally suspected.
https://i.imgur.com/3SNa03R.png
Not to mention, the graphic is extraordinarily ugly.
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45423880 (NPR before the shutdown)
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45434179 (The Guardian, politically biased headline)
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45434441 (Reuters)
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45434146 (BBC News)
1. Democrats and Republicans reach a typical legislative compromise with enough votes to pass a law, declaring that federal government shall do both [A] and [B].
2. President Trump: "Meh, I just don't wanna do [B], nobody do [B] or else you're fired."
3. Republican legislators: "Sure, we didn't want [B] anyway, we'll sit back and let Trump break the law without impeaching him. We'll can spend that money for something else we like later."
So... what's the point of Democrats compromising on a package of budget laws, when the Republican party keeps conspiring to break the very laws they agreed-to but don't like?
_____________________
[0] https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/new-data-show-t...
[1] https://www.citizensforethics.org/legal-action/letters/the-t...
But then again, with a complicit Congress and Judiciary - what ISN'T in the air is a shorter list.
At this point, think of it as continuing to gather the moutains of supprot for the next impeachment trials. For when a scandal happens that Trump can't recover from. From if something untimely happens and power shifts. his won't just be forgotten to history.
It's slow and painful, but when words don't work, you point to actions. Trump has done a lot of actions out of the blue that will bite back had when the power is ceded.
The people worst off are Federal contractors. They are effectively unemployed during these periods. Many actual employees, like me in previous shutdowns, are essentially on irregular paid time off. In theory it is unpaid, but it is always retroactively paid in practice and everyone knows this. People that are “critical” kind of get a raw deal because they still have to work while people deemed less essential don’t have to work.
It is unfortunate that it happens but I wouldn’t get overly caught up in the theater of it all.
I think it is highly irregular given this presidency. Reagan shut down 3 times to weaken various unions and facilities, really wielding it as a bargaining chip. Clinton shut down twice as a president with a congress that didn't align with him
Trump has now shut down the government 5 times, and the truly odd thing is how 4 times he had congress on his side. This isn't really something to just shake off.
(and for completeness. Carter had the first shutdown ever and Obama shut down once as well).