The US Government Shutdown Thread

First-world problems: Starting to ponder if my newly ordered iPhone 5s will still make it here by Tuesday or not?
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Well, Obamacare is a left-leaning policy. But his drone campaign is a right-leaning thing.

Bit of a mishmash, but one thing's certain. There's no real impetus from the far left.
Click to expand...

Obamacare, leftish, certainly.

Drones, wars, collusion with corporations, Gitmo, NSA/Snowden, federal clampdown on marijuana dealers in states where marijuana is legal.. List goes on.

The right is the new center.
 
Randhir said:
Obamacare, leftish, certainly.

Drones, wars, collusion with corporations, Gitmo, NSA/Snowden, federal clampdown on marijuana dealers in states where marijuana is legal.. List goes on.

The right is the new center.
Click to expand...

Yeah, agreed. He pulled back from Syria, though, and left it to Congress. I think that was the left-est thing he could have done at that stage. Also came out for gay marriage.

Some of these things are out of his control, though. He can't just close down Gitmo, for example. He tried to and was blocked by the same douchebags that shut down the government.

But on the whole, yeah, the whole paradigm shifted to the right. Which is why I said there's no impetus from the left, not from the White House or in Congress. The traditional leftists in Congress also don't have enough power to make a significant impact on the national debate.
 
Republicans rip White House in shutdown counter-attack

UPDATE

Republicans launched an angry counter attack Friday as the US government shutdown dragged deep into a fourth day, with House Speaker John Boehner fuming: "This isn't some damn game."

President Barack Obama meanwhile digested an embarrassing blow to his foreign policy and the US image abroad after he was forced to cancel plans to jet to Asia for a pair of diplomatic summits

Boehner jumped at the chance to seize the high ground by citing an unnamed official who was quoted speaking dismissively of the shutdown which has sent hundreds of thousands home without pay.

Summoning outrage at a news conference, Boehner said: "This morning, I get the Wall Street Journal out and it says, 'well, we don't care how long this lasts, because we're winning.'

"This isn't some damn game. The American people don't want their government shut down and neither do I," Boehner said, theatrically waving a copy of the paper.

The White House tried to contain the damage from the Journal quote, which is certain to dominate the media messaging war raging between Obama and his Republican foes on Capitol Hill.

"We utterly disavow idea WH doesn't care when it ends. House should act now, no strings attached," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Twitter.

His deputy Joshua Earnest also jabbed at Boehner, demanding he put a temporary funding bill on the House floor "not some [darn] game? Then why not vote on the Senate-passed plan to re-open the government?" Earnest tweeted.

Obama is refusing to negotiate with Republicans over budget issues until they pass a temporary bill to open the government and agree to raise the $16.7 trillion US statutory borrowing limit -- without which Washington could default on its debts for the first time ever later this month.

But Republicans are demanding the president enter into talks on their goal to defund or delay his Obamacare health reform law -- a step Obama refuses to take.

"I was at the White House the other night and listened to the president some 20 times explain to me why he wasn't going to negotiate," Boehner complained.

Obama on Thursday took the decision to cancel his visit to Bali for the APEC summit and Brunei for the East Asia summit, in what analysts described as a blow to his signature policy of shifting more diplomatic and military weight towards rising Asia.

"The cancelation of this trip is another consequence of the House Republicans forcing a shutdown of the government," said a White House statement.

"This completely avoidable shutdown is setting back our ability to create jobs through promotion of US exports and advance US leadership and interests in the largest emerging region in the world."

Obama had previously cancelled onward visits to Malaysia and the Philippines next week as it was impossible to put together his huge traveling entourage at a time when much of his White House staff has been furloughed.

The shutdown was caused by Congress's failure to pass a spending bill to fund government operations by October 1.

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been sent home without pay, monuments like the Statue of Liberty have been barricaded and national parks have closed down.

No end is in sight to the impasse, which Obama on Thursday branded as a reckless Republican farce.

The House of Representatives was due Friday to vote on a string of measures to open favored areas of the government, including funding for suspended US intelligence operations, nuclear safety and Food and Administration inspections.

The White House warned that in the unlikely event of the bills making it through the Democratic-led Senate and reaching Obama's desk, the president would veto them.

Democrats have warned Republicans they should simply open the entire government, not make piecemeal efforts to fund popular areas of government operations.

With the shutdown threatening to last through the weekend and into next week, there were no serious compromise efforts taking place on Capitol Hill.


Source : Sapa-AFP /ge
Date : 04 Oct 2013 18:17
 
Garyvdh said:
UPDATE
Obama is refusing to negotiate with Republicans over budget issues until they pass a temporary bill to open the government and agree to raise the $16.7 trillion US statutory borrowing limit -- without which Washington could default on its debts for the first time ever later this month.

But Republicans are demanding the president enter into talks on their goal to defund or delay his Obamacare health reform law -- a step Obama refuses to take.

The shutdown was caused by Congress's failure to pass a spending bill to fund government operations by October 1.

Source : Sapa-AFP /ge
Date : 04 Oct 2013 18:17
Click to expand...
If Obamacare actually turns out to be an epic failure wouldn't that help Republicans in the next election? Couldn't they then, at that point, get a process started to have it revoked?
 
themba990 said:
If Obamacare actually turns out to be an epic failure wouldn't that help Republicans in the next election? Couldn't they then, at that point, get a process started to have it revoked?
Click to expand...

Not black and white, obamacare is bound to end in doom. End of permanent employment for many people, 29 hour work weeks, down by 10 hours granted been postponed until 2015 but companies have already prepared in case it was not suspended and the middle class are suffering.

Obamacare while i understand where he is coming from, there are serious flaws that i really think obama should be addressing instead of making speeches ripping off republicans(granted i laughed because it was funny) instead of mocking each other, work together. I think governments have lost the ability to recognize they work for the people.

Let me ask a question and it may be an ignorant silly question but here we go:

Obama had some speech i watched last night, he said by raising the debt ceiling it isn't increasing their debt. So why is it called a debt ceiling indicating debt and by increasing the DEBT ceiling you would be increasing your debt.

Perhaps i have it wrong and raising the debt limit does not add debt haha but for me i hear debt ceiling and i think they can only get into x amount of debt before they need to raise it again and again and again and again. While he was mocking a republican and rightly so i thought he came across angry, arrogant and looked frustrated.

He made a valid point shutting down does not stop obama care so i did have a good laugh because i knew it already but he is an awesome speaker :D. The republicans have shut down the government saying obamacare is the issue but shutting down isn't changing it's implementation so i do have to question the logic.

As mentioned perhaps i am ignorant clueless on the topic but it is called a debt ceiling so how is it possible when you raise it obama thinks it isn't increasing debt? You would not need the debt ceiling raised if you could bring the debt down.
 
Last edited:
Stop scaremongering, killa.

Only companies with more than 50 employees will have to buy health insurance for their employees, and 96% of those companies already do. The ones with less than 50 employees will get a tax credit if they do decide to buy heath insurance for them, meaning it's a double incentive. You attract higher quality labour when you offer health insurance and you get a tax credit.
 
Obama really need to stop being such a leftist, socialist dumb ass and start listening to the right:
The right has for years been saying that the government must use its military capabilities - including drones - to root out domestic terrorism and that anarchists must be dealt with decisively as criminals and terrorists. Sign the damn executive order to update the kill list and end this madness. 80 terrorists lives over the millions of innocent American civilians .... What America needs now is a strong hawk leader who can act decisively and with purpose. The great Reagan would never allow this sort of nonsense; since when does the President of the United States negotiate with terrorists.

- in case anybody misses it this remark is with a tongue firmly lodged between the cheeks
If drones are too much of a problem he could always call Will Smith to dish out some whippass on the GOP recalcitrants
 
Paul Hjul said:
Obama really need to stop being such a leftist, socialist dumb ass and start listening to the right:
The right has for years been saying that the government must use its military capabilities - including drones - to root out domestic terrorism and that anarchists must be dealt with decisively as criminals and terrorists. Sign the damn executive order to update the kill list and end this madness. 80 terrorists lives over the millions of innocent American civilians .... What America needs now is a strong hawk leader who can act decisively and with purpose. The great Reagan would never allow this sort of nonsense; since when does the President of the United States negotiate with terrorists.

- in case anybody misses it this remark is with a tongue firmly lodged between the cheeks
If drones are too much of a problem he could always call Will Smith to dish out some whippass on the GOP recalcitrants
Click to expand...

What is even more ironic is that Obama used some of the time off during the shutdown to go and open a Muslim Museum! :D
 
Obama care has its faults, almost all of which are a result of scaremongering in the drafting process, but the major one is a fault of not sufficiently fixing a bigger problem. The unfunded mandate problem is what drives up US health care costs - in essence because the very private health care sector has to provide various instances of emergency care "stitch em and ditch em" practices abound but the costs have to be borne by the sector which then is recouped by price shifting - as prices shift preventative care measures etc ... become affordable and the price escalation continues. At the same time the profit motive drives what was cross-subsidization into becoming a game of maximum extraction. People with means put a great deal of value onto their own health and means is not exclusively cash it is access to credit. Obama care reduces a lot of the scope of the unfunded mandate and will see better early stage access to health services which will reduce health care costs but it will not do so at a rate necessary to allow for non-profit health care services to get a hold in the US - the Roman Catholic Church is not going to be able to open more hospitals on their current cost for use basis.

What I fear Obama care without reform over the next 7 years is going to do is to see a shift from the Federal Deficit (which it does squarely reduce) onto Social Security with the possible outcome that Social Security will hit underfunded status and that is a problem for the US economy for a whole additional batch of reasons.

-- The US health care cost spiral is similar to the 90's Telkom cost problem: Telkom was obliged to provide how ever many thousand unviable lines and services in exchange for a special monopoly. Because one group of users had to subsidize another group through service costing the price escalator can run rampant.
 
Obama calls on Congress to stop 'Farce', end Shutdown

President Barack Obama called on Republicans Saturday to "stop this farce" as the US government shutdown entered a fifth day with no signs of an end to the impasse.

With public discontent building, the House of Representatives voted 407 to 0 to pass a measure to retroactively pay the hundreds of thousands of government workers furloughed during the crisis.

But there were no overt movements by Republicans and Democrats to negotiate a way out of the first federal government shutdown in 17 years, as both sides blamed each other.

"Take that vote. Stop this farce. End this shutdown now," Obama exhorted the Republican-controlled House in his weekly radio and video address.

Eric Cantor, the number two Republican in the House, said the impasse could be worked out but Obama "seems to be unwilling to sit down and talk with us."

"It doesn't make any sense if the president has an ax to grind with the opposing party, why he would want to put the American people in the middle of that," he said.

The US government closed all but its essential operations earlier in the week when Republican lawmakers refused to approve money for government operations without first delaying or defunding the new health care law, commonly known as Obamacare.

The US Senate has already approved a budget, and "there are enough Republican and Democratic votes in the House of Representatives willing to do the same, and end this shutdown immediately," Obama said.

"But the far right of the Republican Party won't let Speaker John Boehner give that bill a yes-or-no vote."

Obama said he "won't pay a ransom in exchange for reopening the government. And I certainly won't pay a ransom in exchange for raising the debt ceiling."

Obama is refusing to negotiate with Republicans over the budget issues until they pass a temporary bill to open the government and agree to raise the $16.7 trillion US statutory borrowing limit -- without which Washington could default on its debts for the first time ever starting on October 17.

"For as reckless as a government shutdown is, an economic shutdown that comes with default would be dramatically worse," Obama said.

But some Republican pragmatists who have signaled they would vote to pass a fresh spending bill worried that such a resolution is no longer achievable.

"I think that ship has sailed," Congressman Michael Grimm said Friday.

"We're getting too close to the debt ceiling vote. It looks like the only thing that's going to work right now is a dialogue."

Boehner on Friday appeared to be equally frustrated.

"This isn't some damn game," he said after a news report cited an unnamed official saying that the White House is benefiting from the shutdown.

"All we're asking for is to sit down and have a discussion, reopen the government and bring fairness to the American people under 'Obamacare,'" Boehner said.

Secretary of State John Kerry, traveling in Indonesia, warned Saturday that the political standoff was "reckless" and threatened to weaken the US standing abroad.

"If it were prolonged, or repeated, people would begin to question the willingness of the United States to stay the course and its ability to," Kerry told reporters at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum on the Indonesian island of Bali.

"But that's not the case and I don't think it will be the case."

Obama had been due to travel to Bali for an APEC leaders' summit starting Monday, but canceled the trip -- which would also have taken him to Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines -- to deal with the government shutdown.

Kerry, who is filling in for Obama, made it clear he believed that the Republicans blocking government spending were playing a dangerous game.

"I think it is reckless, personally, to even provide those moments where you have these risks that are exposed," Kerry said, referring to areas of spending on global security hotspots that have been suspended because of the shutdown.

Kerry also insisted that Obama's so-called strategic pivot to the Asia-Pacific had not been weakened by the president canceling his trip.

Meanwhile Kerry's predecessor, former secretary of state and possible 2014 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, decried the "scorched earth" tactics in the government shutdown.

"We watch what happens in Washington with a certain amount of bewilderment, even disgust," she said late Friday in a speech at Hamilton College in the town of Clinton, in upstate New York.

"The rest of the world watches it closely. When we let partisanship override citizenship, when we fail to make progress on the challenges facing our country, our standing in the world suffers," Clinton said.


Source : Sapa-AFP /ma
Date : 05 Oct 2013 18:41
 
Taliban mock US over gov't shutdown

http://www.news24.com/World/News/Taliban-mock-US-over-govt-shutdown-20131009

Kabul - Taliban militants fighting US troops in Afghanistan taunted Washington on Wednesday over the government shutdown, accusing US politicians of "sucking the blood of their own people". The Islamist militants issued a statement describing how US institutions were "paralysed", the Statue of Liberty was closed and a fall in tourist numbers had hit shops, restaurants and hotels in the capital.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X