... but the Federal Government did not shut down last night. If you're a Fed.gov employee whose job has been rated “nonessential,” sorry, no paid vacation for you, and if you're considered essential, you already know you weren't getting that paid vacation. Yes, I know that you don't get paid until the issue is settled so you need to live off savings for the few minutes or days that are shutdown. It never, never, hurts to have some savings you can use for times when things go pear-shaped - or however you like to describe it.
As usual, talk about that mythical debt ceiling came up and that linked article (Business Insider) brings that up as something that was a problem.
Republicans denied Trump's request to suspend or even eliminate the debt ceiling, which would have resolved a thorny political issue in advance of a likely GOP effort to extend Trump's 2017 tax law. According to Punchbowl News, Johnson said Republicans have agreed to address the nation's borrowing limit next year when the GOP will retake entire control over Washington.
I call the debt ceiling mythical because not once since it was made a law has the debt ceiling actually decreased or done anything to stop the debt from increasing. The best it has done was to hold the measured debt constant for a short period while the things being shutdown stopped the debt increasing for a few days. Which has historically often meant the groups keeping track of spending and the debt were lying. LCS - lie, cheat and steal - gets them through these times.
Here's a chart I put together using a crude tool (Microsoft Paint) that tries to depict the life of the Debt Ceiling since its inception. There are no stops, no point where the ceiling goes continually down, nothing but constant increase. The place where they meet was labeled $6 trillion on both plots, but the vertical scale is a bit compressed on the right, so the situation is actually worse-looking.
Notice how this plot ends at about $28 trillion in 2022? The current
national debt, according the excellent
US Debt Clock site is
$36.25 trillion dollars. We have been adding another $1 trillion roughly every
100 days. That's pretty much 3 months or one quarter of the year. These fights
and threats to shut the government down are show business of the worst
time. Not only is the outcome known in advance, they spend months
writing these Continuing Resolutions or CRs to keep the government running and
then drop 12 or 1500 page turds laws on the legislators with
about two days to read it and approve it. Clearly proposing any changes is actively discouraged. I've run this cartoon since it first showed up because it
sums up the story completely. They set everything up so that they can
look like heroes. It's all a show for people who understand nothing but
headlines.
You might want to read the poem at
this link: it's one of Rudyard Kipling's best.
The government workers who don't get paid during a shutdown include active-duty military personnel. Missing a paycheck for several weeks can be quite serious for most ordinary people, even if they get back pay when the shutdown ends. Most people don't have a lot of savings. A few weeks with no paycheck could easily mean not being able to pay the rent.
ReplyDeleteGood point. I forgot to mention that. It's another example of the how the permanent establishment screws over the people they look down on to preserve their position as "our betters."
Deleteand why is it that, as well as we all understand this, nobody steps up to do the necessary:
ReplyDeletebuild a gibbet, build a guillotine, a pillory at the very least; not necessarily for use, but as a reminder, an historical monument
Why? You might remember a book from the mid to late 70s called Winning Through Intimidation? I think it was a management or business book, but only the title sticks with me.
DeleteThe whole idea of the pillory in the public square in New England likely deterred a few offenders
DeleteBTW: never read it so I've ordered the book, sounds interesting
In other news, corruption in Washington still exists . . .
ReplyDeleteIt's all nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. With over $36 trillion in debt and another $100+ trillion in unfunded mandatory future spending the Fed Gov is broke, flat broke and tapped out. The collapse and end of the dollar is unavoidable. And until that moment arrives the criminals in power will continue looting the Treasury.
ReplyDeleteI'm totally with you on the $36 trillion, growing by another $1 trillion every hundred days. I have slightly different take on "unfunded mandates", FWIW. I don't think they're as big a problem as the straight deficit.
DeleteThose are debts that are due in the future, over time, not all at once. The way I look at it, everyone with a mortgage has an unfunded debt for the amount of the mortgage that's unpaid. Everybody that has a credit card they're paying on every month has an unfunded debt. If you stay employed, manage your risks and "don't do anything too stupid" you'll pay it off. In the Fed.gov's case, if they keep the revenue stream to pay these things going and don't destroy the currency, it's not like one thing is going to make it all collapse at once.