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foothead
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I spent way too long trying to figure out what the second pane had to do with the first one.
Sorry about that....From what I've been reading the government has shutdown because the "ObamaCare" bill couldn't be passed if I am correct.
Smart_Guy
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I heard USA is having internal problems. Is it that bad? Can't trust the media.
foothead
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That's not really what's going on. I'll try to explain.
Congress is supposed to pass a bill every year to allocate funding for all the various government programs that have been put in place over the years. If it doesn't pass, the programs have no funding and can't continue to operate. That's what's going on here. A certain group of Republicans in congress got together and basically decided to use this as leverage to force "obamacare" to be repealed. They're taking advantage of a quirk in our legal system that allows the speaker of the house to block bills from being voted on unless the majority of his specific party is in favor. The demand is that if "obamacare" gets repealed, they'll allow the budget to go to a vote (which it will pass.)
They're taking advantage of the general public's ignorance of the political system to try to blame the president for the shutdown that they themselves planned. We end up with crazies like Michelle Bachmann going on about how excited she was that her plan is working on one day. Then the next day she's with a group of veterans outside a closed memorial, talking about this is all the president's fault for not being willing to negotiate the budget. It's scary, because very few people even know what the whole argument is over. They just buy into whatever their party tells them.
*sigh* I feel stupider just for writing that. Our politicians are like children here. I actually just changed my party affiliation over this stupidity. Guess I'm independent now. :/
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foothead
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Just realized I made a bit of a mistake in the above post. Technically, they're trying to use congress's control of the budget to block all funding that would previously have been allocated to implementing the ACA (aka obamacare.) While this wouldn't be a true repeal, it'd effectively be the same thing since the law would become impossible to implement any further without funding. The true repeal would come (presumably) at a later date.
For anyone who isn't really familiar with our systems, it should be noted that this budget appropriation thing is normally considered routine, since congress would have already modified whatever programs they wanted to beforehand. This is happening because the law they don't like is already passed, and doesn't have the votes to be repealed, (and believe me, it's been tried. Something like 43 times iirc) so one house is hanging the budget up as an attempt to get around the normal system.
Yeah, it's really complicated. My understanding really isn't that great, so if anyone sees more mistakes, please point them out.
For what it's worth, while the shutdown is bad, it's not going to cause any significant longterm effects. The debt ceiling needs to be raised before the 17th, so it's expected to be resolved before then. Boehner (the current speaker of the house) has made it clear he's not willing to let it go that far. Probably what happens is Boehner finally caves at the last minute, then uses this as the prime example for the whole "Obama is never willing to negotiate" narrative he's been pushing. President Obama gets to go on about how the evil Republicans took away all the government workers' pay for a couple weeks because they don't want poor starving children to have healthcare, etc. It's almost a win/win for both sides, since they get something new to get their base all outraged about.
For anyone who isn't really familiar with our systems, it should be noted that this budget appropriation thing is normally considered routine, since congress would have already modified whatever programs they wanted to beforehand. This is happening because the law they don't like is already passed, and doesn't have the votes to be repealed, (and believe me, it's been tried. Something like 43 times iirc) so one house is hanging the budget up as an attempt to get around the normal system.
Yeah, it's really complicated. My understanding really isn't that great, so if anyone sees more mistakes, please point them out.
For what it's worth, while the shutdown is bad, it's not going to cause any significant longterm effects. The debt ceiling needs to be raised before the 17th, so it's expected to be resolved before then. Boehner (the current speaker of the house) has made it clear he's not willing to let it go that far. Probably what happens is Boehner finally caves at the last minute, then uses this as the prime example for the whole "Obama is never willing to negotiate" narrative he's been pushing. President Obama gets to go on about how the evil Republicans took away all the government workers' pay for a couple weeks because they don't want poor starving children to have healthcare, etc. It's almost a win/win for both sides, since they get something new to get their base all outraged about.
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Smart_Guy
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Government shutdown? Sounds bad indeed.
Why don't they restart it instead?
Seriously now, how can a government shutdown? I mean logically?
Besides, it is like having more than one god. Each one of them comes with decisions and cause conflict to the universe. Sci-Fi (or anime) anyone?
My point is, I believe their should be a single person with (semi)complete authority to give the final decision or come up with one if the underlings screw things up. This might screw things as well, but a conclusion will be made at least. Why doesn't the president have full authority?
What is the purpose of life?
What are we to do? Where are we to turn? Who will save us from this menace? ( I heard this in captain Quazar the game)
Sorry for the above bluff.
Why don't they restart it instead?
Seriously now, how can a government shutdown? I mean logically?
Besides, it is like having more than one god. Each one of them comes with decisions and cause conflict to the universe. Sci-Fi (or anime) anyone?
My point is, I believe their should be a single person with (semi)complete authority to give the final decision or come up with one if the underlings screw things up. This might screw things as well, but a conclusion will be made at least. Why doesn't the president have full authority?
What is the purpose of life?
What are we to do? Where are we to turn? Who will save us from this menace? ( I heard this in captain Quazar the game)
Sorry for the above bluff.
foothead
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The government is on partial shutdown. What this means is that services deemed nonessential are suspended due to lack of funding.
Our government was intentionally set up so no single person or branch would have full authority. There are three main federal branches, which each have their own responsibilities divided up in such a way that they oversee the others. This is typically referred to as checks and balances, though I'm not entirely sure where that specific term originated.
Despite how the position is sometimes presented, the president does not have full authority. However, he does have limited authority to make decisions in cases where using the full route would be impractical for whatever reason (referred to as the executive order.) The limits to this are clearly laid out in the constitution. Making a budget is one of the things that has to go through congress, so the president really has very little power here.
Haha. As I said before, it's being made out to be a bigger deal than it really is. Services seem to be shut down in an almost political manner. For example the amber alert website (used for tracking child abductions) is down, but Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" website remains up (or at least that was the case yesterday.) Also, a lot of agencies that are partially shutdown have the homepage entirely removed despite the fact that parts of the website remain functional. For example, the NOAA homepage just tells you the website is down, but the hurricane tracking section remains up - if you can navigate to it. Also, there's things like barricading monuments. From what I hear, there's actually more staff at some of them keeping people out than if they were operating as usual.
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