Government Shutdown

[magley64]

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/10/08/2748461/members-only-congressional-gyms-deemed-essential-remain-open-during-shutdown/

 

Head Start programs have been shuttered, small businesses can’t get loans and hundreds of thousands of federal government employees are furloughed. But the exclusive gyms available only to members of Congress have remained open throughout the shutdown.

A House aide confirmed to ThinkProgress that the House member’s gym is open. The House gym features a swimming pool, basketball courts, paddleball courts, a sauna, a steam room and flat screen TVs. While towel service is unavailable, taxpayers remain on the hook for cleaning and maintenance, which has been performed daily throughout the shutdown. There are also costs associated with the power required to heat the pools and keep the lights on.

According to the aide, the decision to keep the gym open — even while other critical government services were shelved — while made by the Architect of the Capitol, but was done with the direct involvement Speaker Boehner’s office. Meanwhile, the staff gym available to Congressional staff has been closed.

It appears that the members gym in the Senate remains open on similar terms. Yesterday, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) complained to a reporter from the Omaha World-Herald that the members gym was getting “rank.”

The daily operating cost of the House and Senate gyms remains shrouded in secrecy. The Architect of the Capitol, which oversees both gyms, has previously refused to provide information about the gyms for “security reasons.” A call to the Architect of the Captol for this story was not immediately returned.

Dozens of House members — including many members of the Tea Party who pushed the government into shutdown over demands to defund Obamacare — live in their offices to save money and use the House gym to shower.

Update

 

An initial version of this piece incorrectly reported that the decision to keep the gym open was made by Speaker’s Boehner’s office. Actually, the decision was made by the Architect of the Capital. According to a House aide, the decision of the Architect of the Capitol was done with the direct involvement of Speaker Boehner’s office, however. In a phone call, a spokesman for Speaker Boehner, Michael Steel, would not answer direct questions about whether Speaker Boehner’s office recommended the decision or had any communications with the Architect of the Capitol on the matter.

 

[Gump]

Simple explanation.

[magley64]

Actually john boehner could end the shutdown right now. Call a vote on a clean cr that has already been presented to him. There are enough votes in the house to pass it, and there are enough votes in the senate. The president would sign it right now. A minority of republicans have taken the entire government hostage in a effort to circumvent the legislative process.

Edited October 13, 2013 by magley64

[ZxHooligan]

No no, that's un'merikan. jezis will heal you if you pray hard enough, you don't need no doctors pokin' around in you pulling out cancer cells.

Sorry to burst your bubble on cancer. Cancer is the abnormal growth of cells caused by a protein. The protein lacks the AUG code to stop producing the protein. You may or may not know that proteins are synthesized on the body from DNA. Therefore cancer is believed to be a genetic defect. We all have the potential to have cancer its just if we do not have the code to stop the protein manufacture that cells become cancerous. Now before you bash this statement and say have you lost anyone due to cancer yes i have. I tend to look at things from a scientific perspective. so if your gonna get cancer your gonna get cancer its natural selection

[Bad324]

I hope this shutdown lasts awhile and every one of these fools is out of a job. Every group can put blame on the other but in reality they are all to blame. Every last one of them

[ReconRat]

oh look... common sense. Wish we had more of that

 

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/13/rand-paul-obama-is-trying-to-scare-people-on-debt-ceiling/?hpt=hp_c2

 

I did not realize that among the "bargaining" was a removal of the sequester on spending increase.

I'm pretty sure we should balance our budget as best we can, and not increase our debt.

 

 

“It’s funny, (Democrats are) all about Obamacare being the law of the land, but so is the sequester,” he told CNN chief political correspondent Candy Crowley.

 

 

 

I'll say it yet again. The final solution when a country owes another a lot of money, is to give away part of your land, your country, to settle the debt. Exactly what part of the USA would we give China? Or conversely, which part would they want?

 

hint us: Southern California

hint them: mineral ore and oil territory

Edited October 13, 2013 by ReconRat

[ReconRat]

Did you know that Congress et all has raised the debt limit 7 times in the last 7 to 8 years?

That amounts to $43,000 per household. Another additional $8,800 is currently proposed.

Let's be clear, if your city did that it would be gone.

 

It's also the same as each household spending 43000 to 51800 that they don't have to spend and can't repay.

 

imho: essentially, we're already bankrupt at the federal level. No clue how to get out of it.

And yet, rather than seriously trying to fix it, all play the blame game, and ask for more money.

 

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/09/26/morning-bell-43000-per-household/

[magley64]

http://news.yahoo.com/government-shutdown-backfires-gop-says-democrats-now-guilty-133154607.html

 

Looks like Reid is playing the extortion game...

 

Of course, it could all be rhetoric.

There has not been a clean CR voted on (with or without the sequester) in the house, so no opportunity for Reid to table it. (yet)

 

I doubt that he would.

[bowdog]

Looks like this is about over, just needs to pass the house now.

[magley64]

Looks like this is about over, just needs to pass the house now.

 

The house has been the hold up since the beginning...

More specifically, the speaker of the house.

Edited October 16, 2013 by magley64

[bowdog]

Yea but Harry and him seem to have come to a small agreement to at least raise the debt ceiling and reopen for at least now.

[magley64]

I've yet to see what the republicans "got" out of this deal.

[Bad324]

I've yet to see what the republicans "got" out of this deal.

 

and here in lies the problem with the god damn government. Who gives a fuck what the republicans or democrats got out of this? We should be far more concerned with what the hell we the people get out of this

 

More debt? YAYYYYYYY. They are all terrible and get every last one of them out of there and ditch this 2 party system that isn't working anymore

Edited October 16, 2013 by Bad324

[magley64]

They were hoping to "get" the ACA repealed by refusing to fund the government. I don't know what they did end up compromising about, or if they just caved

[magley64]

And its over... Looks like the only change to the aca was stricter income verification...yay more red tape!

[magley64]

Does stricter income verification make the aca better? Or is it just one more hassle for people trying to sign up for health insurance?

[Tonik]

Does stricter income verification make the aca better? Or is it just one more hassle for people trying to sign up for health insurance?

 

 

Yes, because it stops fraud and saves the money for the people that need the subsidies.

[magley64]

Yes, because it stops fraud and saves the money for the people that need the subsidies.

Stops fraud how?

 

Just like voter ID laws stop fraud?

[magley64]

Too bad the microphone was off...

 

From the sound of things this would have been even more entertaining.

 

Some religious nut goes to the main podium of the house during the vote to reopen the government and starts spouting off about god.

http://news.yahoo.com/house-employee-escorted-off-floor-after-rant-074436271.html

[redkow97]

what a crock of shit.  I can't believe this "compromise" was approved...

 

And people just do not seem to understand at all what is really happening.   The (fiscally liberal) Cleveland radio host on my drive in was talking about how this was a necessary thing, "so the government can pay its bills."  That makes no sense.   The government still can't pay its bills - they've just agreed to amend the law to allow the nation to go further into debt.

 

 

If this were your household or mine, it would be like me talking to my wife and saying, "Honey, we're at the $12,000 limit on the Visa.  We can't spend any more on that card, and we're only making $50 payments each month, so the balance isn't going down.  But I've worked out a solution - I'm going to ask for Visa to raise our credit limit to $15,000!  We still can only afford to pay $50/month, but we have a little bit of time before we hit our new increased limit."

 

Literally the ONLY way to fix this problem is to decrease spending and/or increase the nation's income to the point that it is greater than what we spend.  It's not a hard concept... 

[magley64]

what a crock of shit.  I can't believe this "compromise" was approved...

 

And people just do not seem to understand at all what is really happening.   The (fiscally liberal) Cleveland radio host on my drive in was talking about how this was a necessary thing, "so the government can pay its bills."  That makes no sense.   The government still can't pay its bills - they've just agreed to amend the law to allow the nation to go further into debt.

 

 

If this were your household or mine, it would be like me talking to my wife and saying, "Honey, we're at the $12,000 limit on the Visa.  We can't spend any more on that card, and we're only making $50 payments each month, so the balance isn't going down.  But I've worked out a solution - I'm going to ask for Visa to raise our credit limit to $15,000!  We still can only afford to pay $50/month, but we have a little bit of time before we hit our new increased limit."

 

Literally the ONLY way to fix this problem is to decrease spending and/or increase the nation's income to the point that it is greater than what we spend.  It's not a hard concept... 

 

So do you ask for a raise or stop paying the mortgage? electric bill? stop buying groceries?

 

our number 1 expenditure is social security.. why? Baby boomers...

 

when the social security pyramid scheme was started, it was supposed to be a government charity for widows and orphans, it got expanded into a "retirement plan"

 

Works great as long as there are lots of workers paying in and fewer people retired collecting. Baby boomers flipped the script so to speak, and now they are at the top of the pyramid collecting (and thanks to longer lifespans usually much more than they paid in).

 

As soon as the baby boomers die off, this debt problem will "begin" to fix itself. The social security pyramid scheme will be righted again.

Edited October 17, 2013 by magley64

[magley64]

Look at the numbers... Where does the money go?

 

I didn't say it was the baby boomers' fault (themselves) but blaming that "bill" on the current administration is just as ignorant.

Social security was a bum deal for america, but it was still a deal we made and a deal we have to pay for.

 

It's like we bought a lemon on credit, it didn't pan out well for us cost us a lot more in maintenance than we ever anticipated, but it got the kids to soccer practice.

We still have to pay for it, and we can't ignore our other bills either so we're gonna be in debt until it's paid off.

 

I'm kind of in the same boat, I'm in debt, and I have bills. the bills are temporary, and once they are paid off I'll begin digging myself out of debt more quickly.

Edited October 17, 2013 by magley64

[4DAIVI PAI2K5]

[redkow97]

There is more to the problem than just baby-boomers collecting social security.

 

I believe the government should follow-through on the promises it has made to citizen, but also stop making the same expensive promises to future generations.

 

I'm not naïve enough to think that change happens over night, but we have to start weaning the nation off the government's teat at some point.  It may as well be now.  In conjunction with restructuring social security, we can absolutely eliminate a huge portion of military spending.  I'm all for defense spending when it actually goes toward defense.  I am not in support of the US playing "world cop" and propping up other volatile nations.  "Foreign aid" causes domestic problems.