US government shutdown becomes longest in history
Source: The Guardian
Martin Pengelly in New York
@MartinPengelly
Sat 12 Jan 2019 07.32 EST
The US government shutdown is now the longest such closure in history. On Saturday, day 22, members of Congress were out of Washington, Donald Trump was unmoved in the White House, his border wall unbuilt, and around 800,000 federal workers were still without pay and facing mounting hardship.
Friday was the first payday of the year for such workers and contractors, some at home, some forced to work. Some paychecks turned up blank. Contractors may not recoup lost earnings. As callouts rose among workers deemed essential, so did problems for government programmes, for courts, national parks and vital transport and infrastructure services including major airports. Even White House staffing is severely affected.
As Friday ticked into Saturday, the shutdown passed the 21-day mark set when Bill Clinton faced a hostile Republican Congress in 1995 and 1996. Nine of 15 cabinet-level departments were not funded. Earlier, Trump backed away from threats to declare a national emergency and build the wall with money appropriated from military, water management and disaster management funds, among other sources.
“We want Congress to do its job,” the president said in a discussion on border security at the White House. “What we’re not looking to do right now is national emergency.”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/12/donald-trump-government-shutdown-border-wall-democrats
= new reply since forum marked as read
downsize and privatize our government that's taken so long to build......
Each and every event like this:
* diminishes the public's trust in government (thereby making citizens more open to no services or privatized services),
* diminishes government employee's dedication to their jobs,
* causes good government employees to lose trust and seek employment elsewhere. That loss of experience and expertise thereby further weakens the effectiveness of government programs and adds fuel to claims that privatization would be better,
* makes it easier for right-wing administrations to pass austerity budgets and implement rules that render agencies useless, and
* runs up the deficit so they can cut spending across the board on even more programs.
To Republicans, the resulting pain and suffering of our citizens is just collateral damage needed to accomplish their long-term goals.
Rant done......
Last edited Sat Jan 12, 2019, 10:37 PM - Edit history (2)
was mainly the result of the Newt demanding a balanced budget from Bill Clinton. Interestingly, 5 years later when Republicans took control of all three branches the first thing they did was to show how committed they really were to that balanced budget idea by spending months passing tax cuts (instead of monitoring terrorists in the U.S. planning big attacks). Clinton's fiscally responsible surpluses were expected to retire the national debt in a decade or so, but the Republican tax cuts and unnecessary wars came along and blew that idea into the next galaxy--culminating in the Great Recession. So much for the "party of fiscal responsibility" and phony GOP shutdowns.
The biggest FAILURE, slash TRAITORS In American History!!!
