It seems every couple of years it’s in danger to shut down. Is this a genuine thing, a political play or something else?
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The video in the other comment is great, but doesn’t really get into how useless this “tool” is for everyone. We never had a shutdown before the 80s, and they have turned into annual talking points. Each shutdown the rules are a bit different depending on length and if partial budgets get passed. Defense sometimes gets its own budget passed so they don’t shutdown.
In a shutdown, federal employees don’t work. It may sound like this will save the government money because people won’t get paid for their non work. This isn’t true, a vast majority of government employees continue to get paid, so the government is spending money it doesn’t have and no work is getting done. Government contractors don’t make new money during a shutdown. Large government contractors anticipate this and will plan a 14 day shutdown into their budget so they can keep working. This means they just have to over bill the government the rest of the year. Smaller contractors are the ones who actually get screwed out of pay and work, and usually subcontractors of contractors as well.
If it sounds like this doesn’t help anyone, you’d be right. It’s a bit of political theater that was more or less invented in the 80s so that congress can make the sitting president (probably from the opposing party) look bad. Government spending is never more inefficient than during a shutdown, so if you actually cared about spending, you would avoid them no matter what.
This sounds horrible. What would the mechanism to dismantle this be?
People voting for people looking to actually get shit done or collectivelly weaken their power(which the latter wont happen)
How big of a part of population would one need to actually achieve anything?
People need to vote in half to get shit done, 2/3 if vetos are used, and 3/4 if it meant amendment levels
Let me get this straight.
- Congress approves a budget.
- Congress is aware of the spending approved in that budget.
- Congress is unhappy about a need to increase the debt ceiling to accommodate the spending they themselves approved.
Is that really the thing?
Congress approves a budget.
They create and approve it. Pres can suggest budget implying that Pres won’t veto the type of stuff in the suggested budget. Pres can veto, but they can overrule with 2/3 vote.
Congress is aware of the spending approved in that budget.
Aware is not strong enough of a term. They created the spending and deficit. It’s like the difference between being aware of the algorithms that choose YouTube videos and being the engineer that makes them. There’s a little more evil involved in the latter. Especially when they know a shutdown literally causes suffering.
Congress is unhappy about a need to increase the debt ceiling to accommodate the spending they themselves approved.
No, they’re not unhappy about it. They love that they create an emergency only they can solve. Then every network talking head gets to do their streamer outrage review impressions.
Then every network talking head gets to do their streamer outrage review impressions.
Surely that gets boring pretty quickly. Can citizens do anything to get rid of the ceiling?
Surely that gets boring pretty quickly.
If it bleeds it leads. You might think it’s boring. I might think it’s boring, but on the whole outrage sells. It sells attention.
This isn’t new. Been a race to the bottom of outrage 24/7 for a while now. There used to be news reporting requirements. This is getting off topic, but read up on the Fairness Doctrine. Reagan removed it in the 80s. This essentially allowed echo chambers on national tv.
Edit: note that the doctrine wasn’t perfect, but in my opinion it’s better than nothing. Remember the debates back in 2016? The hosts said they weren’t there to fact check. Having no doctrine meant they could air whatever they wanted without rebuttal or responsibilities, and sell some premium ad time during the debates.
It’ll never be boring unless lawmakers force it to be boring. Advertises want their ads to be seen. Organizations that peddle outrage get the most eyeballs. Some might argue we shouldn’t allow lawmakers to fight the market forces that created the outrage eyeballs dynamic we have today. The dynamic we have today was created by lawmakers to begin with.
Can citizens do anything to get rid of the ceiling?
Vote. Start assassinating media mogul billionaires that profit from outrage eyeballs. Call your representatives. Think critically and be open to change. Any one or a combination of those things.
I have heard of the Fairness Doctrine. I think it was a great thing.
I’m not from US myself, but I’m still sceptical a bunch of calls to reps will do anything. I do like the other options, though!
Mostly just congress being useless, it’s a bit like the UK and their shutdowns.
