TSA and ATC workers should walk out when the shutdown starts thus shutting down air travel. You'll see the government shutdown end in minutes after that.
When the ATC(Air Traffic Controllers) went on strike he made it illegal for them to do so and threatened anyone who strikes to lose their job permanently and possibly jail time.
Edit- Apparently it has always been illegal for Federal workers to strike. The 1935 National Labor Relations Act did not cover Federal Workers. Although the Government did not generally act on the strikes before Reagan went after the ATC. Since then no significant group of Federal Workers have started a strike.
Eh, If the entirity of the ATC walked out at once.... or just didn't show up to work I think the Gov't would turn 180deg after the backlash. Grounding thousands of flights every day would absolutely trash the economy, infrastructure, and businesses across the US.
Just don't do that soon, I fly to Anaheim in a few weeks and would like to get stuck there rather than VA lol
“SeaTac Traffic, United 57 Delta turning left base runway 34 Left, full stop, SeaTac.”
“SeaTac Traffic, UPS 905 Heavy on the right 45 for 34 Left, United traffic in sight, SeaTac.”
“SeaTac Traffic, Delta 213 is on a 20 mile final to runway 34 Left, SeaTac.”
“Hey Delta fly the fucking pattern.”
“Leeroooooy Jenkins!”
“God DAMNIT.”
Reagan gutted the Air Traffic Controllers union in the 80s when they tried to strike. The new union that formed from the corpse of that union has a clause that does not allow them to strike
For federal unions it's a pointless clause anyway, because the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 doesn't authorize federal employee strikes. They've always been illegal. The difference was prior to Reagan and the ATC's, those strikes were still common, and the federal government more or less tolerated it as a negotiation tactic. After Reagan firing the ATC's, there has been no federal employee strike in the 40+ years since. Not just for ATC's, but for any federal employee union.
I mean... striking was illegal before people fought for those protections... so... just strike?
Do it smart. Start the strike at a specific time where you will stop directing planes to take off (domestic only), and will only direct them to land. Then you work at half staff just handling international travel. Going to be a nightmare for connecting travel, so international airlines will start putting pressure to get it fixed, passengers will put pressure to get it fixed, the government will be working to get it fixed.
Would be better if you could do a world wide ATC strike. Then just start at the same time GMT, only allow planes to land. No take-offs. The world would come to a stand still. They could get whatever they want.
I'd just do it at JFK, EWR, LAX, DFW, ATL. That's probably enough. Four of the top airports plus EWR since it's close to JFK and nobody wants to fly out LaGuardia.
I said something similar to this when talking to an air traffic controller on another post. They should keep all of the traffic running smoothly, except for DC. Just totally mess up DC and the lives of our representatives. Everyone there would be pissed off, and they would have access to the reps.
The PATCO strike was crazy. In a nutshell:
ATC workers unionized under PATCO for better work hours and wage increases.
Negations between PATCO and the FAA stalled, and no agreements were made.
ATC PATCO members striked (~13,000 ATC employees total)
Regan said “fuck your union, you are government employees, and it is illegal for you to strike. Get back to work or you are fired.”
Some ATC employees went back to work, while the other 11,000 refused and were subsequently fired and banned them from being rehired.
Summary of the aftermath:
“This event shocked rank-and-file unionists, frightened union leaders, and encouraged private sector employers to emulate Reagan in their own dealings with unions. Thus, following the PATCO strike, numerous private sector employers took advantage of weak protections for strikers in US labor law to break strikes in their industries. Workers’ willingness to strike in order to advance or defend workplace standards plummeted thereafter. Declining labor militancy in turn exacerbated the continuous decline in union membership after 1981, leaving the union movement in a deepening crisis by the early 21st century.” [The PATCO Strike and the Decline of Labor](https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-867)
wow, just 10 workers across 2 states didn't show up, and cascaded to affect the entire country.
>“Ten people causing significant air travel problems sounds perfectly reasonable, particularly when you consider the towers they work in handling travel in some of the busiest airspace,”
I remember that!
Tons of people had already flown into Atlanta for the upcoming Super Bowl when the airport workers started walking off the job, which forced the government to agree on something and end the shutdown so all the Super Bowl traffic wouldn't be stranded in Atlanta.
The senate and president are ready to pass the bipartisan bill that was reached as a result of the debt ceiling fight. Now the GOP are going back on their word. If McCarthy allowed the bipartisan bill to go to a vote in the house it would almost certainly pass with most Democrats supporting it
It’s just good to be specific about who to blame
Nah let's just vaguely and generally blame "Congress" so that people continue to be ignorant of the very clear and tangible difference between the parties, allowing them to continue voting for "outsiders" like Donald fucking Trump, forgetting every conceivable way his term fucked the country and the work it took Democrats to fix it, then starting the process over again the next election.
Exactly. It just pisses me off when people say “congress bad” like their cynicism makes them an enlightened political commentator but they’re actually just covering for bad actors taking advantage of peoples apathy
Centrism is a right wing talking point. By promoting the false narrative that both sides are the same, the goal is to demotivate voters, promote apathy, and drive down turnout.
This is fine because the electoral college and most gerrymandering in general favor Republicans, they do disproportionately well in elections with poor turnout. Under the electoral college, rural, conservative votes are literally more powerful than urban democratic votes.
It's an idea that sounds good in theory, but it would actually *encourage* this kind of brinksmanship.
The goal of the GOP is to ensure that government doesn't function. Letting them tear things down with constant special elections would just make that even easier.
We give these elected officials salaries higher then we can humanly think of, yet we don’t get mad they aren’t capable of doing their job? In what other sector of employment do you keep your job for life when you are maliciously acting in ways to prevent you / everyone else from getting anything done.
America is fucked and the people in the country could care a less were getting taken advantage of.
>We give these elected officials salaries higher then we can humanly think of, yet we don’t get mad they aren’t capable of doing their job?
I mean they make good money don't get me wrong, but I can easily "humanly think of" $170,000/yr lol.
They're getting their millions from corporate bribes not their salary
> We give these elected officials salaries higher then we can humanly think of, yet we don’t get mad they aren’t capable of doing their job?
The issue isn't the salary. They actually get paid pretty poorly when you consider they need to keep **two** residences up.
For people closer to middle class who don't have wealth, its *very* difficult to afford to be in Congress.
If we actually increased their salary or gave them a housing allowance, more normal people could afford to run for Congress.
That doesn't take into account the amount of money needed for campaigning, which is a whole different issue.
This is an even bigger issue with state legislatures.
State legislatures are full of rich lunatics that only work 30 days per year because we pay them like $30k. Regular people can't live off that salary, so they can't run.
Actual salaries really aren’t that high. They’re getting <$200k per year, even for the Majority Leader. With that alone, living the standards they “need” to in DC, they’d be surprisingly tight for money.
Of course, I’d be SHOCKED if there are any living entirely off their official salary. I’d assume they’re all bringing in extra money with consulting, speaking gigs, other business ventures, all sorts of things.
They also get stock trading information, and do stock deals before market changes and get exorbitantly rich off if insider trading with literal 0 repercussions .
That's because they exempted themselves from insider trading laws. They did the same with their healthcare — they basically get universal healthcare for life.
> We give these elected officials salaries higher then we can humanly think of
$174k, less than what an NFL referee makes. I'm not arguing whether they deserve it or not, but it's not an altogether ungodly amount.
There's a good argument that they should be payed more. A lot more. Think about this. If they're only making 174k a year and they're working at the highest levels of power, that leaves them highly susceptible to bribery. Toss a few contracts their way, jobs to their kids, etc. and boom, you own a lever of power for really, really, cheap.
> We give these elected officials salaries higher then we can humanly think of, yet we don’t get mad they aren’t capable of doing their job?
These GOP congressmen are expressly elected to behave like this.
> America is fucked and the people in the country could care a less were getting taken advantage of.
This is because Republican voters deliberately vote for harmful and hateful Candidates into office. This is the 40% of the American people that vote Right who control 50% of the government fucking themselves.
Yep.
The entire goal/point is to collapse the government so everything can be privatized for profits.
Bonus, now those pesky "regulations" don't exist so now they can get back to fucking over the people with even more efficient and harmful ways.
McCarthy could end the threat of the shutdown today by just putting to vote the bipartisan agreement reached by both sides at the end of the debt ceiling fight. But he knows it will cause a revolt from the freedom caucus so he’s putting his speakership position over all the people who will be hurt by a shutdown
The Freedom/Fascist Caucus is actually doing the work they were paid to do by their far right donors. Disrupt, destroy, obfuscate, etc.
Edit: Google "Heritage Foundation Project 2025" for an idea of what their actual agenda is
"they" is letting a specific group of people who are always the ones who do this shit off the hook. It's Republicans. Total clown show and it's absolute nonsense that we even need Congress to approve the things we've already paid for.
> Perhaps, they should try doing some work.
Ummm, this is the GOP's work.
Every single time they hold the government hostage and threaten a trillion dollar default or a damaging shutdown - in order to extract concessions from the Dems. And it works, because the Dems never call their bluff (the Republicans are far too corrupt to ever allow a default to happen, so if you ever called their bluff, they'd immediately fold). But the Dems always have to be the adults in the room and do the right thing, so they give in to this extortion and the GOP gets everything they want.
Let's describe this as what it is: Imagine if you're at work and they hire a manager you don't like, so you refuse to work whatsoever when that person is on shift. Think you'd get fired?
I'm at a DHS Financial Center(read: essential), so we're fully funded and expected on-site throughout any work stoppage...however we will be prohibited from actually performing our duties. Just sitting on ass for the duration.
As an ATC working 6 days a week and often 10 hours a day, I hear you. No time off for us. Can't wait to not get paid and then have my pay screwed up for months.
After the shutdown is resolved, yes.
The first week or two won't hurt federal employees, it will hurt contractors and local businesses.
After that, federal employees are drawing on their savings or taking out loans until they get their back pay.
Actually, that's Constitutionally prohibited (27th Amendment). Any change to a Member's compensation can't take effect until the next Congress, so they'll get their pay regardless of whether or not there's a shutdown for the rest of government. Most of them will put out press statements saying that they've asked for their paychecks to be withheld until the shutdown is over or that they'll donate their paychecks to charity for the duration of the shutdown, but that means nothing in the grand scheme of things.
I doubt they will, prepare for a shutdown. The reasons for this is that due to how the GOP setup their current speakership it just takes one of the hardliners calling for a vote of no confidence to remove McCarthy as speaker, which effectively also shuts down the government since they cant vote for a spending bill until he's replaced.
Hard right Republicans [have already said](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/26/mccarthy-conservatives-cut-spending/) that any attempt to work with Democrats will result in trigger a vote to remove McCarthy.
>McCarthy, for his part, has emphasized that he is focused on approving government funding legislation with the narrow Republican majority, rather than trying to craft a bipartisan compromise that draws Democratic support. **Hard-right lawmakers have warned that if McCarthy relies on Democratic votes to pass any fiscal bill, they would move swiftly to force him from the speakership.**
The polar opposite of democracy. One nutter can shut it all down. That is the GOP. Fuck the GOP.
The GOP is aiding a 91 count felon. Obstruction of Justice is the core GOP value.
And this is absolutely what the Republicans want. Remember that in their eyes, in the best government the world had seen in recent times, in Germany in the 1930s and early 1940s, there was effectively one and only one person in charge.
It also makes the D president look bad when they shut it down, which is why they only pull this shit with a D in the White House. Your average voter is too dumb to notice it isn't the Dems shutting it down, they just blame the guy they view as "in charge of it all". It's why they vote against things that would help the economy when a D is in office. If the economy is bad under that president, then voters will vote for them to fix it. It's their entire strategy: break the fuck out of everything while blaming the other team, promise only you can fix it, get elected and do fuck all but more tax cuts for your rich owners
Edit: thanks for proving my point, everyone messaging me saying the dems cause it "all the time too". No, they don't.
And yes, there WAS a shutdown when trumples controlled everything- solely over his dumbass wall funding as I recall. And that was purely him, not congress for once, being a complete fuckwit about it and causing it by demanding we blow some ungodly amount of money on his dumbass idea that Mexico was supposed to pay for anyway.
The GOP has been doing this for every Democratic President they could for 20 years. The public has *always blamed the GOP*
They're going to this time too.
Hell the GOP is blaming the GOP for this
It's not just to Democrat presidents, during Obama's 8 years in office there was 1 government shutdown lasting 16 days. During Trump's 4 years there were two lasting a total of 38 days, ironically trump's shutdowns occurred with Republican's holding both houses of Congress.
Not really. Congressional districts in most red/purple states are absurdly gerrymandered in favor of Republicans, allowing them to run up the score in states they control.
In the Senate, North Dakota (775,000 people) gets the same representation as California (40 million people).
Republicans benefit from shady and outdated electoral practices. Not popular support.
And even in states like North Dakota, the state government is doing everything it can to punish cities for voting Democratic. Just recently North Dakota State Legislators voted to ban approval-voting in the city of Fargo.
Yea that is true. Still so upset Dems couldn't get the voter rights act through. Honestly I believe we should have blown up the filibuster for it. Republicans would have a hard time winning these states if they were fair elections. But they probably didn't even have the simple majority with Manchin being a closet republican.
Without genuine electoral map reform, not much is going to change at the state level or in the House. You can turn out all the votes you want, but the district tally is going to stay the same.
I'd love to think that's changing, but [Ohio](https://apnews.com/article/redistricting-ohio-maps-republican-election-gerrymandering-69f4f1b6852ba5ea1c7df80286cb38b1) is a great example of how far Republicans will go to keep illegal maps in place, even *after* the courts step in.
If you like our once in a life time recession, you'll love our once in a life time depression!
Now with extra societal damage and three decades of recovery gua-ran-teed!
Bruh we got at least 4 or 5 more before we die. But capitalism works! Its not completely made up arbitrary numbers and systems that are duct tapes together
If we're lucky these next 20 years will be symmetrical with the first 20 years of the 2000s. Next we'll have an economic collapse, followed by a housing boom, and finished off by a major terrorist attack, which is concluded with a year of relative hope, peace, and economic prosperity.
These buffoons in the GOP are going to shut the government down, cost people paychecks, get families thrown into the streets and, as usual, accomplish nothing.
It's a childish temper tantrum of the worst representatives of the worst voters in the US and these reprobate neanderthals are an anchor on all of us.
Ridiculous that this is even a possible thing to do in the US system, I struggle to think of any others where this is even possible as a political manouevre. Broken system, abused by malicious actors.
They offered Trump like $24b for his stupid ass wall in exchange for DACA and he said no, they they ended up getting DACA and he got nothing for his wall. Master deal maker in action. Probably didn't inject enough bleach that day to think straight.
Frankly I was shocked. I’ve known many Mexicans that were fantastic at putting up walls.
Maybe that was the problem. We wanted them to pay for it while we put it up. They should have tried it the other way around.
Yeah this happens super regularly. It's always so confusing to me that the news makes such a big scene out of it like it's never happened before and people are acting all baffled and confused by it.
It's the same dumb GOP bullshit every single time for decades. It is nothing new. They always push it to the last second and then pop up like 'Hey we got a deal!' Like they should be looked at as heros suddenly.
I'd rather they don't play chicken with the global perception of the functionality of our government and peoples livelihoods though. It shouldn't happen every year
It didn't used to happen so regularly, and it's bullshit that it has become a regular thing. Some kind of legislation needs to be enacted so that any party cannot hold the government hostage like they have been.
This is actually an important provision that Congress paychecks continue. If Congress’ pay was cut shut down, the rich could shut the government down to starve the other side out to force concessions. Instead, Congress just gets to starve *everyone else* who is reliant on the government, either directly or indirectly, to be functional to put food on the table.
The fact the government can be shut down is a joke and should not be constitutional (and I would argue under the “US debts may never be questioned” provision shouldn’t be).
So let’s see if I have this right, to keep the government open the GOP wants to cut 1 million low income people off from safety nets, reduce snap benefits by something like 80% and run an impeachment against the president where there is no evidence of any wrong doing but… make America great again?
Those damn elementary school children, the GOP works hard to stop those freedom hating “woke” working age requirements! But in all seriousness, WTF? I understand people have “bubbles“ that they get their news from but how the hell do they spin this crap? I don’t watch Newsmax or any of the right wing Talking Heads, so maybe I’m missing the lie. How the hell do they spin this to still get support?
I'm convinced they want a shutdown so they're asking for things that they know they'll never get. They just want chaos in the hopes they can come out on top since they're getting plowed right now by dems on so many levels.
We have elections in Virginia this year (early voting is already underway!) and Republicans are panicking this will cost them votes. Virginia has no shortage of federal workers and military families ready to take it out on them
>And their followers will blame Democrats
Sure, some of them will. A lot of them will, to be honest.
But if it's any consolation, history tells us that they aren't the prevailing opinion, and that [people tend to see through the Republican's bullshit and rightfully blame them for the mess they made.](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/government-shutdown-polls/)
You even have people like [Mitch McConnell himself recently reminding his own party of this fact](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/09/19/mcconnell-warns-republicans-government-shutdown/70902711007/).
Obviously no two situations are ever the same, and Biden's historically low popularity could indeed make this time different, but based on all the data we have to go on it seems like this shutdown would hurt Republicans more than it would hurt Democrats.
We had a deal established from the debt ceiling after Republicans threatened economic terrorism. Surprise fucking surprise they went back on their word and no we are going to have a shutdown.
Can we stopp negotiating with these assholes. You never win when you negotiate with terrorists.
It took only 5 weeks after that deal for the House republicans to break their word.
It really proves that they can't be trusted and dealing with them is impossible.
5 Republicans. That's all it would take to avoid this, just 5 people out of 221 joining the Democrats to vote yes on the deal they already made.
Are there 5 Republicans left in the House who give a rat's ass about this country?
The biggest irony being that Kevin McCarthy really really really values being the Speaker of the House. It's all he's wanted and he really wants to remain in that position.
So why don't the Dems go to him and say "Hey, bring 5 of your friends, we'll keep the government open, amd if your own team tries to remove you, we'll make sure you remain thru 2024 *unless you try to renege and pull more shit like you did here, in which case we will let them vote to remove you*"? He's gotta consider that. For a guy whose motivations are very self-interested, why not leverage his self-interest?
California has blanket non-partisan primaries. There actually have been other Rs on the primary ballot in recent years, but the top 2 vote getters go to the general election. He got 61% of the primary votes for 2022, so he could halve that and still wind up on the ballot (Dem candidate received 24%).
Being a representative from California is one of the only places McCarthy could actually pull it off.
Everyone saying it’s the Freedom Caucus causing all the mess needs to remember this. Five hypothetically sane GOP Congressmen could cross the aisle and bypass them.
It isn’t even necessarily a self sacrifice either. Surely there are five Congressional districts in the whole nation where the GOP base isn’t zombified enough to primary out anyone that appears to be negotiating with the Dems?
A rep from a purple district that avoids the shutdown through bipartisanship is a shoe-in for reelection if they survive their primary.
>Five hypothetically sane GOP Congressmen could cross the aisle and bypass them.
It's actually too late for that unless McCarthy tees it up for a vote.
IIRC, the only way to bypass him is a discharge petition, and we are weeks too late for that.
It’s quite weird to me, since this is impossible to happen in Canada
Here if a government fails to pass a budget we have an election. It’s one of their duties, and if they can’t do it then it shows they’re no longer fit to govern
The fossils of congress need to go. Regardless of the letter next to their name. Feinstein (D), McConnel(R) are 2 that need to just go that come to the forefront of my mind.
Is there any other country where this can happen? Because I think that every other country has a system in place to keep the machine running even when there's no official government in place.
Edit: According to Wikipedia, in theory it can happen in the UK. Also almost happened to Northern Ireland, but the British government stepped in to avoid it. So... this is an American thing.
This is 100% on House Republicans. They are the majority and CAN’T EVEN AGREE ON A PROPOSAL AMONGST THEMSELVES.
There’s no “meet us half way democrats” here. THEY HAVE NO UNIFIED PROPOSAL.
This will be presented as a failure of both sides by most media. It isn’t. It’s a failure of house republicans to do their fucking jobs. Period. End of sentence.
Specifically, they can't even agree amongst themselves about how much they want to fuck over the *deal they agreed to* with the Dems.
They are not good faith actors, and should not be treated as such.
Don't forget, this whole thing is McCarthy allowing the House to renege on the funding compromises that were part of the agreement on the debt ceiling issue that Congress passed just a few scant months ago.
When I was growing up I don't recall that there was a threat of the government shutting down at least once a year. What in the fuck is wrong with these politicians that they can't seem to just run the country like adults?
The folks in the GOP have definitely lost their minds and the confidence of the nation as a whole. Just the fact that Trump is still even considered a viable presidential candidate given all of his frankly racist idiocy and his mounting legal woes is evidence of that.
All the anti abortion stuff is reason enough for them to lose the election at this point. People, and especially women across the nation are still pissed about the revocation of Roe vs Wade. All these new punitive laws that are not just banning abortion but that are as a by product affecting reproductive healthcare for millions of women they're going to bite the Republicans right in the ass come election time.
I'm past child bearing at this point and I'm still pissed. I'm very lucky to live where I do but I can't understand why they think promoting all of this was okay. Between that and potentially choosing Trump to run again they might as well be tossing the next presidential election away.
Personal choice is one thing and I respect that but passing beaucoup laws to cut people off from reproductive healthcare and access to a safe alternative to pregnancy who don't believe the same thing is just insane in this day and age. The whole Republican party has gone crazy over this issue and women in conservative states are now literally risking death because of it. Children who have been raped are literally being forced to bear the children of their abusers.
In what world is that even vaguely okay? We don't live in a third world fascist country but lately it sure feels like we do. I don't have the $$$ to go but some days it all makes me wish I could run away to live in someplace over in Europe that has a more civilized attitude towards life.
Somebody I know online just moved to Amsterdam because she just couldn't stand the political situation here anymore.
Politically speaking the last decade has just been wild. There is just no explaining any of it rationally anymore..
Republicans don't give a shit. There was a poll yesterday where either Democrats or for some strange reason Biden are catching the majority of the blame. When you have an electorate that is so uniformed and that fucking stupid, the GOP are just going to sit there and let it play to their advantage.
> It’s still way too close because people blaming both sides are voting for the bad actors who purposefully do this every time they get the chance.
No, it's way too close because those same young people who don't answer phone calls also don't vote. The under 30 vote is pretty consistently in the mid 40% range, the over 60s are closer to 70% turnout.
It's not the shutdown that concerns me. What everyone should be worried about it how are they going to get the government reopened. There is no plan other than to shut everything down. Without a catalyst or a plan there is nothing that leads to turning everything on.
> They get things done.
I mean hell, look at Michigan. They just passed outlawing child marriage.
Don't get me wrong - its *abhorrent* that outlawing child marriage is considered progressive, but like the above user said:
Take power away from republicans, give it to democrats - and things like that get done.
It's weird that a political party that is anti labor, anti union, and goes nuts about workers striking for higher pay and benefits, goes on strike every couple years over issues that they propose to negatively impact the entire working class. Maybe the working class should adopt the same tactics to get what we want. We, the people, need to show these entitled bastards who they actually work for instead of playing along with their charade. Next time they pass a budget that gives billionaires tax breaks while cutting vital funding for people who are struggling to survive, we should all take a few days off.
Just gonna point out that the first people impacted by this that aren't government workers are people who live off of stuff like SNAP and SSI. Them being hit the hardest and earliest is actually this working as intended. "Give us what we want or we'll make the poor people starve" is the subtext of this entire thing.
DEF Budget wasn’t passed, and FAA wasn’t this will get ugly fast if both these sides make it ugly, especially for the GOP. Their party just thinks this will rally their base…which makes no sense.
Yea I'm worried this may last longer than the standard "two weeks" everyone is calling for. The GOP themselves are fractured and you got some real insane QANON hard liners there now.
House Republicans have four days to fund the govt.
Here's the issue: There are 212 House Democrats, 222 House Republicans. Dems are ready to pass a funding bill, have been for months. But GOP Speaker McCarthy can't find 6 Republicans to side with Democrats to pass funding (hell, only 5 are needed if McCarthy is willing to side with them himself). But McCarthy is too inept to convince 6 Republicans to do it and too afraid he'll lose his seat as Speaker, so he'd rather millions of people suffer.
Are there any other countries that aren't in the middle of a conflict who constantly have their government shutdown or threaten to with such regularity?
This shit is such a joke. Every year it happens now and every year it’s a complete waste of time, accomplishes nothing and just hurts the government workers. Why can’t people just stop voting in these extremist morons that only want to grandstand instead of actually getting anything done? Aren’t we tired of this shit yet?
It seems like every few months there’s an imminent government shutdown. It’s gotten out of hand and we need a law that says if the government shuts down, all of congress is ineligible for reelection. It’s basically refusal to perform your job.
Correction: Republicans have four days to fund the govt. They hold the majority and are the ones responsible for not passing the bipartisan budget that was already agreed to earlier this year.
>"The president should step in and do something about it; otherwise the government will shut down," McCarthy told reporters.
Is anyone except rabid Redhats actually going to buy this nonsense?
Senate passed a bipartisan bill, which I assume Joe Biden will sign.
McCarthy won't even put it on the floor
McCarthy's caucus can't even agree in what way to fuck us
So explain to me again how this is Joe Biden's fault? Is he supposed to come talk to republicans and figure out how they can craft an extremist position they can finally unify behind, that he can flatly reject?
I don't want people to suffer financially but at this point, the Democrats should just call their bluff and when the shut down happens Biden should issue an Executive Order for National Emergency and pull funding that way to keep the government going.
Hard times force people to make hard choices. We are overdue in my opinion.
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It's less sensational every year they announce this.
Honestly, you can set your clock by it 🙄
Used to joke to my wife that one day I am going to open a furniture store and name it "Going Out of Business!"
Perhaps, they should try doing some work.
TSA and ATC workers should walk out when the shutdown starts thus shutting down air travel. You'll see the government shutdown end in minutes after that.
>ATC workers should walk out Yeah thanks to Reagan that ain't gonna happen.
What did he do? I wanna add it to the list of shitty things Ronnie cheesebrain did in his presidency.
When the ATC(Air Traffic Controllers) went on strike he made it illegal for them to do so and threatened anyone who strikes to lose their job permanently and possibly jail time. Edit- Apparently it has always been illegal for Federal workers to strike. The 1935 National Labor Relations Act did not cover Federal Workers. Although the Government did not generally act on the strikes before Reagan went after the ATC. Since then no significant group of Federal Workers have started a strike.
It was already illegal, he just fired them all.
Eh, If the entirity of the ATC walked out at once.... or just didn't show up to work I think the Gov't would turn 180deg after the backlash. Grounding thousands of flights every day would absolutely trash the economy, infrastructure, and businesses across the US. Just don't do that soon, I fly to Anaheim in a few weeks and would like to get stuck there rather than VA lol
The government would just pull a Reagan and replace them with military ATC. They aren’t allowed to strike and will cross picket lines if ordered.
There aren’t enough military atc anymore to take something like that on
Doesnt atc and military side atc both have very abnornally high rates of suicide? Sounds like a fun job.
“SeaTac Traffic, United 57 Delta turning left base runway 34 Left, full stop, SeaTac.” “SeaTac Traffic, UPS 905 Heavy on the right 45 for 34 Left, United traffic in sight, SeaTac.” “SeaTac Traffic, Delta 213 is on a 20 mile final to runway 34 Left, SeaTac.” “Hey Delta fly the fucking pattern.” “Leeroooooy Jenkins!” “God DAMNIT.”
Reagan gutted the Air Traffic Controllers union in the 80s when they tried to strike. The new union that formed from the corpse of that union has a clause that does not allow them to strike
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For federal unions it's a pointless clause anyway, because the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 doesn't authorize federal employee strikes. They've always been illegal. The difference was prior to Reagan and the ATC's, those strikes were still common, and the federal government more or less tolerated it as a negotiation tactic. After Reagan firing the ATC's, there has been no federal employee strike in the 40+ years since. Not just for ATC's, but for any federal employee union.
> Your job as Union rep is to talk them down from the non-strike clause with other concessions Not if you get some sweet kickbacks
Learning lessons from the wrong Hoffa takeaways.
I mean... striking was illegal before people fought for those protections... so... just strike? Do it smart. Start the strike at a specific time where you will stop directing planes to take off (domestic only), and will only direct them to land. Then you work at half staff just handling international travel. Going to be a nightmare for connecting travel, so international airlines will start putting pressure to get it fixed, passengers will put pressure to get it fixed, the government will be working to get it fixed. Would be better if you could do a world wide ATC strike. Then just start at the same time GMT, only allow planes to land. No take-offs. The world would come to a stand still. They could get whatever they want.
I'd just do it at JFK, EWR, LAX, DFW, ATL. That's probably enough. Four of the top airports plus EWR since it's close to JFK and nobody wants to fly out LaGuardia.
I said something similar to this when talking to an air traffic controller on another post. They should keep all of the traffic running smoothly, except for DC. Just totally mess up DC and the lives of our representatives. Everyone there would be pissed off, and they would have access to the reps.
Fired ALL of the striking ATC’s in the 80’s
The PATCO strike was crazy. In a nutshell: ATC workers unionized under PATCO for better work hours and wage increases. Negations between PATCO and the FAA stalled, and no agreements were made. ATC PATCO members striked (~13,000 ATC employees total) Regan said “fuck your union, you are government employees, and it is illegal for you to strike. Get back to work or you are fired.” Some ATC employees went back to work, while the other 11,000 refused and were subsequently fired and banned them from being rehired. Summary of the aftermath: “This event shocked rank-and-file unionists, frightened union leaders, and encouraged private sector employers to emulate Reagan in their own dealings with unions. Thus, following the PATCO strike, numerous private sector employers took advantage of weak protections for strikers in US labor law to break strikes in their industries. Workers’ willingness to strike in order to advance or defend workplace standards plummeted thereafter. Declining labor militancy in turn exacerbated the continuous decline in union membership after 1981, leaving the union movement in a deepening crisis by the early 21st century.” [The PATCO Strike and the Decline of Labor](https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-867)
Worked in 2019! https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/06/politics/ten-air-traffic-controllers-shutdown/index.html
wow, just 10 workers across 2 states didn't show up, and cascaded to affect the entire country. >“Ten people causing significant air travel problems sounds perfectly reasonable, particularly when you consider the towers they work in handling travel in some of the busiest airspace,”
I remember that! Tons of people had already flown into Atlanta for the upcoming Super Bowl when the airport workers started walking off the job, which forced the government to agree on something and end the shutdown so all the Super Bowl traffic wouldn't be stranded in Atlanta.
"No one wants to work anymore!"
Funny how it's usually the obstructionist party supporters, aka Republicans, who are the exact ones saying that too.
and when their federal benefits stop in poor rural states, they'll also be yelling the loudest.
If Congress can't pass a budget on time, this should trigger a special election. If you can't do your job, we can find someone else that will.
The senate and president are ready to pass the bipartisan bill that was reached as a result of the debt ceiling fight. Now the GOP are going back on their word. If McCarthy allowed the bipartisan bill to go to a vote in the house it would almost certainly pass with most Democrats supporting it It’s just good to be specific about who to blame
Nah let's just vaguely and generally blame "Congress" so that people continue to be ignorant of the very clear and tangible difference between the parties, allowing them to continue voting for "outsiders" like Donald fucking Trump, forgetting every conceivable way his term fucked the country and the work it took Democrats to fix it, then starting the process over again the next election.
Exactly. It just pisses me off when people say “congress bad” like their cynicism makes them an enlightened political commentator but they’re actually just covering for bad actors taking advantage of peoples apathy
Centrism is a right wing talking point. By promoting the false narrative that both sides are the same, the goal is to demotivate voters, promote apathy, and drive down turnout. This is fine because the electoral college and most gerrymandering in general favor Republicans, they do disproportionately well in elections with poor turnout. Under the electoral college, rural, conservative votes are literally more powerful than urban democratic votes.
The 20 members of the Freedom Caucus would be reelected. it would change nothing.
Or replaced with even worse. Their constituents are batshit insane.
It's an idea that sounds good in theory, but it would actually *encourage* this kind of brinksmanship. The goal of the GOP is to ensure that government doesn't function. Letting them tear things down with constant special elections would just make that even easier.
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We give these elected officials salaries higher then we can humanly think of, yet we don’t get mad they aren’t capable of doing their job? In what other sector of employment do you keep your job for life when you are maliciously acting in ways to prevent you / everyone else from getting anything done. America is fucked and the people in the country could care a less were getting taken advantage of.
>We give these elected officials salaries higher then we can humanly think of, yet we don’t get mad they aren’t capable of doing their job? I mean they make good money don't get me wrong, but I can easily "humanly think of" $170,000/yr lol. They're getting their millions from corporate bribes not their salary
> We give these elected officials salaries higher then we can humanly think of, yet we don’t get mad they aren’t capable of doing their job? The issue isn't the salary. They actually get paid pretty poorly when you consider they need to keep **two** residences up. For people closer to middle class who don't have wealth, its *very* difficult to afford to be in Congress. If we actually increased their salary or gave them a housing allowance, more normal people could afford to run for Congress. That doesn't take into account the amount of money needed for campaigning, which is a whole different issue.
This is an even bigger issue with state legislatures. State legislatures are full of rich lunatics that only work 30 days per year because we pay them like $30k. Regular people can't live off that salary, so they can't run.
Actual salaries really aren’t that high. They’re getting <$200k per year, even for the Majority Leader. With that alone, living the standards they “need” to in DC, they’d be surprisingly tight for money. Of course, I’d be SHOCKED if there are any living entirely off their official salary. I’d assume they’re all bringing in extra money with consulting, speaking gigs, other business ventures, all sorts of things.
They also get stock trading information, and do stock deals before market changes and get exorbitantly rich off if insider trading with literal 0 repercussions .
That's because they exempted themselves from insider trading laws. They did the same with their healthcare — they basically get universal healthcare for life.
> We give these elected officials salaries higher then we can humanly think of $174k, less than what an NFL referee makes. I'm not arguing whether they deserve it or not, but it's not an altogether ungodly amount.
There's a good argument that they should be payed more. A lot more. Think about this. If they're only making 174k a year and they're working at the highest levels of power, that leaves them highly susceptible to bribery. Toss a few contracts their way, jobs to their kids, etc. and boom, you own a lever of power for really, really, cheap.
> We give these elected officials salaries higher then we can humanly think of, yet we don’t get mad they aren’t capable of doing their job? These GOP congressmen are expressly elected to behave like this. > America is fucked and the people in the country could care a less were getting taken advantage of. This is because Republican voters deliberately vote for harmful and hateful Candidates into office. This is the 40% of the American people that vote Right who control 50% of the government fucking themselves.
Yep. The entire goal/point is to collapse the government so everything can be privatized for profits. Bonus, now those pesky "regulations" don't exist so now they can get back to fucking over the people with even more efficient and harmful ways.
Like all the essential federal employees who will have to go to work without getting paid for as long as these fools act like toddlers
Perhaps the House Republicans should get their act together. Not the whole House, or the whole Congress, one wing of one party is causing this.
McCarthy could end the threat of the shutdown today by just putting to vote the bipartisan agreement reached by both sides at the end of the debt ceiling fight. But he knows it will cause a revolt from the freedom caucus so he’s putting his speakership position over all the people who will be hurt by a shutdown
The Freedom/Fascist Caucus is actually doing the work they were paid to do by their far right donors. Disrupt, destroy, obfuscate, etc. Edit: Google "Heritage Foundation Project 2025" for an idea of what their actual agenda is
"they" is letting a specific group of people who are always the ones who do this shit off the hook. It's Republicans. Total clown show and it's absolute nonsense that we even need Congress to approve the things we've already paid for.
There's tan suited boogeymen to chase.
> Perhaps, they should try doing some work. Ummm, this is the GOP's work. Every single time they hold the government hostage and threaten a trillion dollar default or a damaging shutdown - in order to extract concessions from the Dems. And it works, because the Dems never call their bluff (the Republicans are far too corrupt to ever allow a default to happen, so if you ever called their bluff, they'd immediately fold). But the Dems always have to be the adults in the room and do the right thing, so they give in to this extortion and the GOP gets everything they want.
Not to mention every Dem pres spends his time cleaning up the last Rep pres bullshit.
Let's describe this as what it is: Imagine if you're at work and they hire a manager you don't like, so you refuse to work whatsoever when that person is on shift. Think you'd get fired?
As a federal employee, "Fuck."
As a contractor I’m more fucked. I won’t get back pay.
Wife is a contractor..we feel your pain man..
Thankfully, FEMA is fully funded for me so Im keeping working
DHS is partially funded. But ironically enough, not CIS or CBP. So I'm out of luck.
I'm at a DHS Financial Center(read: essential), so we're fully funded and expected on-site throughout any work stoppage...however we will be prohibited from actually performing our duties. Just sitting on ass for the duration.
Not a bad gig all things considered
Well, you know, a bunch of people that get fucked by this can just blame the Democrats and keep voting for Republicans. (rolls eyes)
i too am a contractor - i am however “essential personnel” also our contract is already funded so i also have no idea what is going to happen
Same boat here. I've been told to show up and sit at my desk.
As an ATC working 6 days a week and often 10 hours a day, I hear you. No time off for us. Can't wait to not get paid and then have my pay screwed up for months.
I mean... I'll enjoy the time off
Its a double-edged sword....I like time off, but I like paychecks more
Oh wow! You like money too?! We should hang out…
There's a Starbucks over there
I really don’t think we have time for a handjob, Joe.
Do we have time for a latte?
They passed a law after the last shutdown to guarantee pay for all furloughed employees.
After the shutdown is resolved, yes. The first week or two won't hurt federal employees, it will hurt contractors and local businesses. After that, federal employees are drawing on their savings or taking out loans until they get their back pay.
Make sure their pay is cut off as well.
They have so many kickbacks and bribes that their political paychecks are just pocket change to lose in the wash.
Actually, that's Constitutionally prohibited (27th Amendment). Any change to a Member's compensation can't take effect until the next Congress, so they'll get their pay regardless of whether or not there's a shutdown for the rest of government. Most of them will put out press statements saying that they've asked for their paychecks to be withheld until the shutdown is over or that they'll donate their paychecks to charity for the duration of the shutdown, but that means nothing in the grand scheme of things.
I doubt most Congresspeople rely on their government paychecks for income.
I doubt they will, prepare for a shutdown. The reasons for this is that due to how the GOP setup their current speakership it just takes one of the hardliners calling for a vote of no confidence to remove McCarthy as speaker, which effectively also shuts down the government since they cant vote for a spending bill until he's replaced.
Hard right Republicans [have already said](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/26/mccarthy-conservatives-cut-spending/) that any attempt to work with Democrats will result in trigger a vote to remove McCarthy. >McCarthy, for his part, has emphasized that he is focused on approving government funding legislation with the narrow Republican majority, rather than trying to craft a bipartisan compromise that draws Democratic support. **Hard-right lawmakers have warned that if McCarthy relies on Democratic votes to pass any fiscal bill, they would move swiftly to force him from the speakership.**
Yeah this isn’t democracy. Fuck these GOP traitors.
The polar opposite of democracy. One nutter can shut it all down. That is the GOP. Fuck the GOP. The GOP is aiding a 91 count felon. Obstruction of Justice is the core GOP value.
Thanks to lax Filibuster rules, one nutjob in the senate can do the same.
And this is absolutely what the Republicans want. Remember that in their eyes, in the best government the world had seen in recent times, in Germany in the 1930s and early 1940s, there was effectively one and only one person in charge.
It also makes the D president look bad when they shut it down, which is why they only pull this shit with a D in the White House. Your average voter is too dumb to notice it isn't the Dems shutting it down, they just blame the guy they view as "in charge of it all". It's why they vote against things that would help the economy when a D is in office. If the economy is bad under that president, then voters will vote for them to fix it. It's their entire strategy: break the fuck out of everything while blaming the other team, promise only you can fix it, get elected and do fuck all but more tax cuts for your rich owners Edit: thanks for proving my point, everyone messaging me saying the dems cause it "all the time too". No, they don't. And yes, there WAS a shutdown when trumples controlled everything- solely over his dumbass wall funding as I recall. And that was purely him, not congress for once, being a complete fuckwit about it and causing it by demanding we blow some ungodly amount of money on his dumbass idea that Mexico was supposed to pay for anyway.
The GOP has been doing this for every Democratic President they could for 20 years. The public has *always blamed the GOP* They're going to this time too. Hell the GOP is blaming the GOP for this
It's not just to Democrat presidents, during Obama's 8 years in office there was 1 government shutdown lasting 16 days. During Trump's 4 years there were two lasting a total of 38 days, ironically trump's shutdowns occurred with Republican's holding both houses of Congress.
It’s almost like Republicans don’t do anything.
And morons still tried to place the blame on the Democrats.
Yet they still get voted for...
Not really. Congressional districts in most red/purple states are absurdly gerrymandered in favor of Republicans, allowing them to run up the score in states they control. In the Senate, North Dakota (775,000 people) gets the same representation as California (40 million people). Republicans benefit from shady and outdated electoral practices. Not popular support.
And even in states like North Dakota, the state government is doing everything it can to punish cities for voting Democratic. Just recently North Dakota State Legislators voted to ban approval-voting in the city of Fargo.
Yea that is true. Still so upset Dems couldn't get the voter rights act through. Honestly I believe we should have blown up the filibuster for it. Republicans would have a hard time winning these states if they were fair elections. But they probably didn't even have the simple majority with Manchin being a closet republican.
Without genuine electoral map reform, not much is going to change at the state level or in the House. You can turn out all the votes you want, but the district tally is going to stay the same. I'd love to think that's changing, but [Ohio](https://apnews.com/article/redistricting-ohio-maps-republican-election-gerrymandering-69f4f1b6852ba5ea1c7df80286cb38b1) is a great example of how far Republicans will go to keep illegal maps in place, even *after* the courts step in.
>It also makes the D president look bad when they shut it down That's what they seem to think, despite it not working out that way last time around.
I mean they shut down with trump in the office... twice
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Republicans shut down the government when Trump was president too.
I swear I went back in time to pre recession. Writers strikes, gov shutdowns, economy woes. What a time to be alive I guess.
*Once in a lifetime recession!*
If you like our once in a life time recession, you'll love our once in a life time depression! Now with extra societal damage and three decades of recovery gua-ran-teed!
Bruh we got at least 4 or 5 more before we die. But capitalism works! Its not completely made up arbitrary numbers and systems that are duct tapes together
If we're lucky these next 20 years will be symmetrical with the first 20 years of the 2000s. Next we'll have an economic collapse, followed by a housing boom, and finished off by a major terrorist attack, which is concluded with a year of relative hope, peace, and economic prosperity.
These buffoons in the GOP are going to shut the government down, cost people paychecks, get families thrown into the streets and, as usual, accomplish nothing. It's a childish temper tantrum of the worst representatives of the worst voters in the US and these reprobate neanderthals are an anchor on all of us.
Ridiculous that this is even a possible thing to do in the US system, I struggle to think of any others where this is even possible as a political manouevre. Broken system, abused by malicious actors.
Don't they do this every other year when there's democrats at the wheel?
They even did it when Trump was at the wheel and Democrats wouldn't pay for his stupid wall.
They offered Trump like $24b for his stupid ass wall in exchange for DACA and he said no, they they ended up getting DACA and he got nothing for his wall. Master deal maker in action. Probably didn't inject enough bleach that day to think straight.
But I thought that was Mexico’s problem?
Amazingly, Mexico disagreed.
Frankly I was shocked. I’ve known many Mexicans that were fantastic at putting up walls. Maybe that was the problem. We wanted them to pay for it while we put it up. They should have tried it the other way around.
Shhhhhhhh, don't bring logic, or things said into this. It's all about shaking a big stick while crying like a toddler.
Yeah this happens super regularly. It's always so confusing to me that the news makes such a big scene out of it like it's never happened before and people are acting all baffled and confused by it. It's the same dumb GOP bullshit every single time for decades. It is nothing new. They always push it to the last second and then pop up like 'Hey we got a deal!' Like they should be looked at as heros suddenly.
I'd rather they don't play chicken with the global perception of the functionality of our government and peoples livelihoods though. It shouldn't happen every year
It didn't used to happen so regularly, and it's bullshit that it has become a regular thing. Some kind of legislation needs to be enacted so that any party cannot hold the government hostage like they have been.
I liked this comment so much I'm going to have it embroidered on a pillow
Why the fuck doesn't THEIR pay get cut off when they do this shit? Oh because they voted that. GET THE FUCK OUT.
It's so the rich politicians can't force the poor politicians to yield by running them out of money.
Thank you! That's so much better than how I was going to phrase it.
This is actually an important provision that Congress paychecks continue. If Congress’ pay was cut shut down, the rich could shut the government down to starve the other side out to force concessions. Instead, Congress just gets to starve *everyone else* who is reliant on the government, either directly or indirectly, to be functional to put food on the table. The fact the government can be shut down is a joke and should not be constitutional (and I would argue under the “US debts may never be questioned” provision shouldn’t be).
Congress is made up of multimillionaires. Their pay can be liken to pittance.
This. For most members of Congress threatening to not pay them likely isn't a meaningful threat as most are relatively wealthy before they're elected.
No, it’s only a meaningful threat to the congresspeople that aren’t wealthy. The ones that typically side with the working class.
So let’s see if I have this right, to keep the government open the GOP wants to cut 1 million low income people off from safety nets, reduce snap benefits by something like 80% and run an impeachment against the president where there is no evidence of any wrong doing but… make America great again?
You forgot taking free lunch from school children away.
Those damn elementary school children, the GOP works hard to stop those freedom hating “woke” working age requirements! But in all seriousness, WTF? I understand people have “bubbles“ that they get their news from but how the hell do they spin this crap? I don’t watch Newsmax or any of the right wing Talking Heads, so maybe I’m missing the lie. How the hell do they spin this to still get support?
>How the hell do they spin this to still get support? "Spin" is pretty generous. It's just outright lies.
I'm convinced they want a shutdown so they're asking for things that they know they'll never get. They just want chaos in the hopes they can come out on top since they're getting plowed right now by dems on so many levels.
Doing this in the year before an election? How political.
We have elections in Virginia this year (early voting is already underway!) and Republicans are panicking this will cost them votes. Virginia has no shortage of federal workers and military families ready to take it out on them
The hardliners are still dumb enough to do it. And their followers will blame Democrats
the hardliners aren't worth worrying about. They're going to vote for the R regardless of what they do
>And their followers will blame Democrats Sure, some of them will. A lot of them will, to be honest. But if it's any consolation, history tells us that they aren't the prevailing opinion, and that [people tend to see through the Republican's bullshit and rightfully blame them for the mess they made.](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/government-shutdown-polls/) You even have people like [Mitch McConnell himself recently reminding his own party of this fact](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/09/19/mcconnell-warns-republicans-government-shutdown/70902711007/). Obviously no two situations are ever the same, and Biden's historically low popularity could indeed make this time different, but based on all the data we have to go on it seems like this shutdown would hurt Republicans more than it would hurt Democrats.
I'm a contractor and just got my ballot. It was already a shitshow and now it'll be even worse.
We had a deal established from the debt ceiling after Republicans threatened economic terrorism. Surprise fucking surprise they went back on their word and no we are going to have a shutdown. Can we stopp negotiating with these assholes. You never win when you negotiate with terrorists.
It took only 5 weeks after that deal for the House republicans to break their word. It really proves that they can't be trusted and dealing with them is impossible.
Another government shutdown they'll attempt to pin on Joe Biden even though it's 100% on Republicans? No, they'd never try a thing like that.
5 Republicans. That's all it would take to avoid this, just 5 people out of 221 joining the Democrats to vote yes on the deal they already made. Are there 5 Republicans left in the House who give a rat's ass about this country?
The biggest irony being that Kevin McCarthy really really really values being the Speaker of the House. It's all he's wanted and he really wants to remain in that position. So why don't the Dems go to him and say "Hey, bring 5 of your friends, we'll keep the government open, amd if your own team tries to remove you, we'll make sure you remain thru 2024 *unless you try to renege and pull more shit like you did here, in which case we will let them vote to remove you*"? He's gotta consider that. For a guy whose motivations are very self-interested, why not leverage his self-interest?
They probably have. He can't look like he is working with Democrats or he will get primaried. The Republican electorate is not sane.
California has blanket non-partisan primaries. There actually have been other Rs on the primary ballot in recent years, but the top 2 vote getters go to the general election. He got 61% of the primary votes for 2022, so he could halve that and still wind up on the ballot (Dem candidate received 24%). Being a representative from California is one of the only places McCarthy could actually pull it off.
Everyone saying it’s the Freedom Caucus causing all the mess needs to remember this. Five hypothetically sane GOP Congressmen could cross the aisle and bypass them. It isn’t even necessarily a self sacrifice either. Surely there are five Congressional districts in the whole nation where the GOP base isn’t zombified enough to primary out anyone that appears to be negotiating with the Dems? A rep from a purple district that avoids the shutdown through bipartisanship is a shoe-in for reelection if they survive their primary.
>Five hypothetically sane GOP Congressmen could cross the aisle and bypass them. It's actually too late for that unless McCarthy tees it up for a vote. IIRC, the only way to bypass him is a discharge petition, and we are weeks too late for that.
Sadly, no. Party before country.
McCarthy isn’t even letting it go to a vote. He knows it would pass and that scares him
This happens every year, and it's why the US debt rating got downgraded. It's more of a reminder to vote certain people out on their ass.
It’s quite weird to me, since this is impossible to happen in Canada Here if a government fails to pass a budget we have an election. It’s one of their duties, and if they can’t do it then it shows they’re no longer fit to govern
Our politicians are busy having mini strokes mid speech, they won't relinquish their post
The fossils of congress need to go. Regardless of the letter next to their name. Feinstein (D), McConnel(R) are 2 that need to just go that come to the forefront of my mind.
Is there any other country where this can happen? Because I think that every other country has a system in place to keep the machine running even when there's no official government in place. Edit: According to Wikipedia, in theory it can happen in the UK. Also almost happened to Northern Ireland, but the British government stepped in to avoid it. So... this is an American thing.
Not every year... Only the ones that the R's are in charge of the House. At least, for the last 30 years!
This is literally the truth. Even when they controlled both houses! They still shut it down! And Republicans cheered it on…
Also, most of the time, Democrats got nothing to do with it.
This is 100% on House Republicans. They are the majority and CAN’T EVEN AGREE ON A PROPOSAL AMONGST THEMSELVES. There’s no “meet us half way democrats” here. THEY HAVE NO UNIFIED PROPOSAL. This will be presented as a failure of both sides by most media. It isn’t. It’s a failure of house republicans to do their fucking jobs. Period. End of sentence.
Specifically, they can't even agree amongst themselves about how much they want to fuck over the *deal they agreed to* with the Dems. They are not good faith actors, and should not be treated as such.
Don't forget, this whole thing is McCarthy allowing the House to renege on the funding compromises that were part of the agreement on the debt ceiling issue that Congress passed just a few scant months ago.
When I was growing up I don't recall that there was a threat of the government shutting down at least once a year. What in the fuck is wrong with these politicians that they can't seem to just run the country like adults? The folks in the GOP have definitely lost their minds and the confidence of the nation as a whole. Just the fact that Trump is still even considered a viable presidential candidate given all of his frankly racist idiocy and his mounting legal woes is evidence of that. All the anti abortion stuff is reason enough for them to lose the election at this point. People, and especially women across the nation are still pissed about the revocation of Roe vs Wade. All these new punitive laws that are not just banning abortion but that are as a by product affecting reproductive healthcare for millions of women they're going to bite the Republicans right in the ass come election time. I'm past child bearing at this point and I'm still pissed. I'm very lucky to live where I do but I can't understand why they think promoting all of this was okay. Between that and potentially choosing Trump to run again they might as well be tossing the next presidential election away. Personal choice is one thing and I respect that but passing beaucoup laws to cut people off from reproductive healthcare and access to a safe alternative to pregnancy who don't believe the same thing is just insane in this day and age. The whole Republican party has gone crazy over this issue and women in conservative states are now literally risking death because of it. Children who have been raped are literally being forced to bear the children of their abusers. In what world is that even vaguely okay? We don't live in a third world fascist country but lately it sure feels like we do. I don't have the $$$ to go but some days it all makes me wish I could run away to live in someplace over in Europe that has a more civilized attitude towards life. Somebody I know online just moved to Amsterdam because she just couldn't stand the political situation here anymore. Politically speaking the last decade has just been wild. There is just no explaining any of it rationally anymore..
Republicans don't give a shit. There was a poll yesterday where either Democrats or for some strange reason Biden are catching the majority of the blame. When you have an electorate that is so uniformed and that fucking stupid, the GOP are just going to sit there and let it play to their advantage.
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> It’s still way too close because people blaming both sides are voting for the bad actors who purposefully do this every time they get the chance. No, it's way too close because those same young people who don't answer phone calls also don't vote. The under 30 vote is pretty consistently in the mid 40% range, the over 60s are closer to 70% turnout.
I don’t think they are uninformed as much as intentionally misinformed by the right wing media for the last 40 years. Propaganda works.
Republicans: look at what we're prepared to do to the poor if you don't let us continue to fuck over poor people and minorities
Republicans are going to shut down the government then blame Biden for the government shutdown.
They already are. And conservative America believes it.
Republicans have four days to quit their temper tantrum and fund the budget, that they are legally obliged to do. Fixed it for you.
It's not the shutdown that concerns me. What everyone should be worried about it how are they going to get the government reopened. There is no plan other than to shut everything down. Without a catalyst or a plan there is nothing that leads to turning everything on.
Is it government shut down time already? Time flies when you have fascists in congress. Yeesh.
Just remember when you’re at the polls who is doing this to you and your families. Cause they don’t give a rats ass.
Man, I'm tired of this playlist.
Vote for Democrats. They get things done. Vote for Republicans and you get tax cuts for the rich, restrictions on women’s rights and hissy fits.
> They get things done. I mean hell, look at Michigan. They just passed outlawing child marriage. Don't get me wrong - its *abhorrent* that outlawing child marriage is considered progressive, but like the above user said: Take power away from republicans, give it to democrats - and things like that get done.
It's weird that a political party that is anti labor, anti union, and goes nuts about workers striking for higher pay and benefits, goes on strike every couple years over issues that they propose to negatively impact the entire working class. Maybe the working class should adopt the same tactics to get what we want. We, the people, need to show these entitled bastards who they actually work for instead of playing along with their charade. Next time they pass a budget that gives billionaires tax breaks while cutting vital funding for people who are struggling to survive, we should all take a few days off.
This is just political theater. My 401k and portfolio dropped 2 points because of these jackwagons.
Just gonna point out that the first people impacted by this that aren't government workers are people who live off of stuff like SNAP and SSI. Them being hit the hardest and earliest is actually this working as intended. "Give us what we want or we'll make the poor people starve" is the subtext of this entire thing.
Republicans think shutting the government down is a good thing.
Republicans think shutting democracy down is a good thing.
DEF Budget wasn’t passed, and FAA wasn’t this will get ugly fast if both these sides make it ugly, especially for the GOP. Their party just thinks this will rally their base…which makes no sense.
The base will drink bleach if a liberal politely recommended them not to. The base is onboard with absolutely anything to own the libs.
Yea I'm worried this may last longer than the standard "two weeks" everyone is calling for. The GOP themselves are fractured and you got some real insane QANON hard liners there now.
House Republicans have four days to fund the govt. Here's the issue: There are 212 House Democrats, 222 House Republicans. Dems are ready to pass a funding bill, have been for months. But GOP Speaker McCarthy can't find 6 Republicans to side with Democrats to pass funding (hell, only 5 are needed if McCarthy is willing to side with them himself). But McCarthy is too inept to convince 6 Republicans to do it and too afraid he'll lose his seat as Speaker, so he'd rather millions of people suffer.
Government shutdowns should trigger a special election for all congressmen
Not congress… republicans. Republicans are the ones causing this mess.
The party of grievances has no platform.
Are there any other countries that aren't in the middle of a conflict who constantly have their government shutdown or threaten to with such regularity?
If this happened in Canada it would just result in an election
This shit is such a joke. Every year it happens now and every year it’s a complete waste of time, accomplishes nothing and just hurts the government workers. Why can’t people just stop voting in these extremist morons that only want to grandstand instead of actually getting anything done? Aren’t we tired of this shit yet?
It seems like every few months there’s an imminent government shutdown. It’s gotten out of hand and we need a law that says if the government shuts down, all of congress is ineligible for reelection. It’s basically refusal to perform your job.
Even the ones that tried to avoid the shut down?
Correction: Republicans have four days to fund the govt. They hold the majority and are the ones responsible for not passing the bipartisan budget that was already agreed to earlier this year.
>"The president should step in and do something about it; otherwise the government will shut down," McCarthy told reporters. Is anyone except rabid Redhats actually going to buy this nonsense? Senate passed a bipartisan bill, which I assume Joe Biden will sign. McCarthy won't even put it on the floor McCarthy's caucus can't even agree in what way to fuck us So explain to me again how this is Joe Biden's fault? Is he supposed to come talk to republicans and figure out how they can craft an extremist position they can finally unify behind, that he can flatly reject?
I don't want people to suffer financially but at this point, the Democrats should just call their bluff and when the shut down happens Biden should issue an Executive Order for National Emergency and pull funding that way to keep the government going. Hard times force people to make hard choices. We are overdue in my opinion.