USA Federal shutdown. What's happening?

**Menelik_I** · April 07, 2011, 06:27 PM

Looks like the Republican continuing resolution passed :

Speaking of Boehner’s resolution, it passed this afternoon 247-181.

**motiv-8** · April 07, 2011, 06:28 PM

Originally Posted by Cougar109

Come on now, we all know the military has it's fair share of red-tape-guzzling bureaucrats occupying mundane positions.

Maybe once. Most of those have been outsourced to contractors.

**Matthias** · April 07, 2011, 06:30 PM

Originally Posted by motiv-8

It might have somethign to do with the fact that a soldier serving overseas is a distinctly different position than a red-tape-guzzling bureaucrat occupying a mundane position in XYZ branch of ABC department.

(Consistent Tea Party mindset) No, no they don't. As you say, all government workers are inefficient

s that are parasites on societies. This includes soldiers, who also murder and maim innocents. Really, soldiers are the worst government workers, as they make sure that the government stays in power and enforce government decrees. And the government is evil. Tell me how soldiers are not parasites on society, wasting my hard earned money? I can protect myself dammut!!! I don't need no mother fing nanny state government worker looking out for me! And look at them, with their wonderful benefits, damn

s.(End)

Ahh, if only the Tea Party weren't such huge hypocrites.

**Cougar109** · April 07, 2011, 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by motiv-8

Maybe once. Most of those have been outsourced to contractors.

Oh God, government contractors. Now we're vastly over-paying a private company to be red-tape-guzzling bureaucrats occupying mundane positions.

**motiv-8** · April 07, 2011, 06:34 PM

Originally Posted by Cougar109

Oh God, government contractors. Now we're vastly over-paying red-tape-guzzling bureaucrats occupying mundane positions.

I have a serious beef with government contractors after they failed to feed me and my platoon several times over and then mysteriously misplaced all my medical records. If I have to get all my vaccinations redone because of it I will be in rage mode.

**Cougar109** · April 07, 2011, 06:42 PM

Originally Posted by motiv-8

I have a serious beef with government contractors after they failed to feed me and my platoon several times over and then mysteriously misplaced all my medical records. If I have to get all my vaccinations redone because of it I will be in rage mode.

Hey now, at $300 a can you guys can't be expecting to get your Spaghetti-O's every night. Some expensive

right there.

**selder** · April 07, 2011, 07:03 PM

What no good old MREs from Korea left, damn they couldn't all be eaten by now

**Border Patrol** · April 07, 2011, 07:36 PM

I think a HSR from Fargo, ND to Horseshoe, NC would solve the budget problems.

**Menelik_I** · April 07, 2011, 09:17 PM

Republicans are war Criminals ... somebody call the UN we need a no fly ZONE

“We are absolutely outraged. This is the functional equivalent of bombing innocent civilians,” DC Dem Deleguate.

Read more: http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/poli...#ixzz1ItUSjaTi

**motiv-8** · April 07, 2011, 09:40 PM

Wowww that's dumb.

**Ahlerich** · April 08, 2011, 04:16 AM

Originally Posted by motiv-8

Wowww that's dumb.

posting a fox link or reading fox news?

**~~Exarch~~** · April 08, 2011, 04:22 AM

around this time tomorrow, we'll know who's twisted whose nipples in order to get what they want.

**Captain Jin** · April 08, 2011, 04:52 AM

Originally Posted by Matthias

Patently false. The Obama stimulus package was $787 billion dollars, and was a compromise with Republicans, so that 1/3 went to investing in infrastructure, 1/3 was tax cuts, and 1/3 went to states that couldn't meet their budget deficits. So only 1/3 of that money was actually government spending and not transfers, so about $225 billion dollars was spent. It was also in response to the worst recession since the Great Depression.

The Iraq War, on the other hand, in the long run, according to CBO estimates, will cost us 1.9 trillion dollars. Between 350 billion to 700 billion will be spent on long term health care of injured soldiers alone. And this is just Iraq. And the Iraq War is still going, and I will bet you a trillion that the 1.9 trillion estimate, made in 2007, will be too low.

Now, going off the 1.9 trillion figure alone, that means the Iraq War will cost each US citizen $6,300. Other estimates say 3 trillion when all is said and done.

There are a multitude of different estimates regarding the bailout and stimulus expenses. Bush and Obama are as much to blame for both. But I've heard estimates as much as 3 trillion or more in the long run for these bailouts. Not only that, but the government, both Obama and Bush, have let the financial sector have their way. Knowingly defrauding the country by selling bs securities, even going so far as to claim we're too big to let us fail. So what, they screwed the pooch and caused the economic mess and the tax payers bailed them out. No one was punished for any of it, they all got away free and Obama had even said he'd put restrictions and more government oversight on the sector if he got into office. He got into office and he did. So we go and bail out these

bags and who knows if in ten years they don't do the same thing to as they just did.

No, no, no, and no. The reason for our deficit has been stupid wars and tax cuts, with more tax cuts, followed by more tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts cost us the most money.

Tax cuts sure. But no, the Iraq war did not contribute to a large amount of the deficit. It was in the hundreds of billions in 2008 (also the most expensive year of the war) and now it's in the trillions thanks to bailouts and stimulus packages. You think I'm trying to make a political statement of Obama vs Bush or something. I'm not, they're both responsible for these stupid policies in place.

Why is the stimulus package "failed"? We are no longer in a recession. What would have been a success? The bank bailouts have almost all been paid back by the way (the Tarp funds), Social Security has been used to pay for other programs for years (like the wars), and our healthcare costs are so high because we have a privatized system that is subsidized by government, unlike any other developed nation on Earth, and it shows.

That's debatable. Unemployment is still absurdly high and the numbers we see aren't real because it only includes people that are getting unemployment from the government. There are many, many more people unemployed that can no longer collect the money from the government but are dropped from the statistics. SS didn't get used to pay for the wars, money from the China did. Healthcare is a bloody mess, but has nothing to do with the conversation save for the fact that it needs to be reformed but not in the middle of a damn enormous recession like Obama was pulling.

This is the logic that is killing the US. Instead of investing in technology to wean us off of oil, we spend trillions of dollars and lots of blood intervening all over the world and getting people pissed at us. There is no way the cost/beneift is positive. The truth is, oil companies have a lot of clout, as do defense companies.

Not to mention the "morality" of it.

Nope. It's not the logic at all. It's a completely separate logic. No one in the military wants to risk their lives and time to keep resources open to the US, but it's our job. We intervene because it's our job. The mindset that keeps us from investing in alternative technologies again lies with the policy makers and big time oil barons who pay the policy makers boat loads of money through lobbyists. I'm all for alternatives, but get your ideas straight. Having a large military has absolutely

all to do with funding alternative energy sources.

And don't try and make mention or morality. If any government in the world was ever concerned about morality over practicality the west would be living in 3rd world conditions.

**RollingWave** · April 08, 2011, 05:00 AM

Why not, lets see what happen, maybe this will finally put an end to the insanity that American politics have fallen further and further into.

I mean really, I live in a country where parliment member use to beat the crap out of each other just a decade ago and even now still have occasional physical confrontations, and even here a lot more got done even when the ruling party was a clear minority, the US political system is quickly turning into a real disgrace.

**Sadreddine** · April 08, 2011, 05:03 AM

Can't you just print more money?

**Mangalore** · April 08, 2011, 05:13 AM

Originally Posted by Ibn Rushd

Can't you just print more money?

Not sure, given foreign debtors like China already indicated they don't trust the dollar anymore and will shift their monetary policy elsewhere aka pushing their own currency into the international market.

...
And don't try and make mention or morality. If any government in the world was ever concerned about morality over practicality the west would be living in 3rd world conditions.

Well, not that it's morality which keeps the 3rd world in the garbage bin.

**MathiasOfAthens** · April 08, 2011, 06:20 AM

Printing money raises inflation which is raises the actual cost of items. For instance. An F-18 should cost around 18 million a piece. In actuality because of the rise of inflation in the last 20-30 years the cost has risen to 60 million a fighter.