Posted on 02/16/2011 6:14:40 AM PST by Piranha
Assume that President Obama is an ideologue who believes that the function of government is to redistribute the wealth and to concentrate power. With the great awakening of 2009-2010, he now is being asked not only to abandon his redistributive socialist agenda (as Mitch McConnell said, President Obama's legislative agenda is dead), but he also will have to dismantle other progressive programs, possibly dating back to the New Deal under President Franklin Roosevelt.
President Obama has threatened to veto the Republican budget unless it advances his agenda. Let's posit that the Republicans in Congress will not agree to do that. In that case, President Obama will push for a shut-down of the Federal government in the belief that this will strengthen the hand of the Democrats, and in particular the progressives, much as President Clinton was strengthened by the government shutdown of 1995. Of course, President Clinton was moving toward the center in his policies and President Obama remains as much of an ideologue as ever, but that is irrelevant for this discussion.
My question is the following: What would be the consequences of a prolongues (say, 2 months) shutdown of the Federal Government? I think we should start considering this,, as it seems inevitable.
The tapped out states, like Illinois and California, can completely forget about a Federal bail-out.
Flights will be disrupted as there are no airline traffic controllers.
Social security and medicare checks will not be sent.
The armed forces will be working without pay or supplies.
If I am wrong on any of these, or as you have others, please join in the discussion.
We might just find out where we really need the government, and where we do not. It’s that second part that has the politicians and bureaucrats worried.
And Texas will be just fine.
Just sayin’...
Colonel, USAFR
I have no doubt. If this works out right, our next President could preside over the biggest dismantlement of the Federal government in American history.
But I think we should understand what the consequences would be of a prolongued shutdown so that we can plan accordingly.
Well, we had a government shutdown in the 90s, and none of those things happened. ATCs stayed on the job, the military received their pay and supplies, and social security and medicare checks kept rolling out. I don’t know about state bailouts, but we didn’t really have those in those days. I do suspect states got their medicaid matches and some other funding, though.
Does this mean that President Obama presides over the breakup of the United States?
Otherwise media will be broadcasting videos of locked National Park gates, single mom government workers crying they can't feed their babies cause the Republicans laid them off, AFGE marches, with children and signs, proclaiming that republicans only care for rich folks.
That's the drill.
Reality is that only those functions that will really irritate voters if they are shut down, will be shut down.
AFGE employees will be placed on paid leave or advanced leave.
Bottom line is that this is nothing but political theater.
The single greatest benefit of a real long-term federal government shutdown would be for the first time in a century or more private enterprise would be able to pursue profits unmolested by the King’s tax collectors. The economy would boom, and all the “downsides” listed in the introductory comment above would fall by the wayside as the private sector picked up the slack.
Good points, but I think that the 1995 shutdown was for a few days, and in my opinion President Obama could get his back up (because the other choice is capitulation to a conservative view of the proper role of the Federal government) and as a result this thing could last for months. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.
I don’t think that a government shutdown would lessen the legal requirement that we pay our taxes.
I hardly think anyone would have a problem if the Congress and Senate stopped work for years.
Cept maybe those leaches who directly work for them all.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think that a government shutdown is a bad thing, or that we should fear it. I do think that it is prudent to know what to expect. That is the purpose that I had in mind when I started this thread.
I would say obma wants government shutdown, mostly to starve off the military which for obvious reasons can be a threat to any continued occupation of the Whitehouse.
I’ve been a Government contractor for about 25 years, now. Work for DoD, not one of the social/political organizations.
I’ve seen 2 Government “shut downs” from the inside.
They went through the Civil Servants and, if they had no active testing going on, they were sent home. None of the bosses went home. Contractors did not go home.
One of these lasted for about 2 weeks, IIRC, the other lasted a month. At-home CCs did not get paid during this time. The military got paid.
When a budget was finally passed, the CCs came back to work and got retroactive pay. So. Essentially, they got a paid vacation, as usual, on our dime.
This did NOT please the CCs who’d stayed at work.
Thank you. When was the month-long shutdown? Am I mis-remembering the length of the 1995 shutdown? And when was the other shutdown?
A few of those “ten million dollar grants” to study the mating habits of mosquitoes might get their checks a little late.
We could shut down all federal spending for 4 months and still have to borrow to cover the remaining 8 months. It’s that bad.
Military installations here and abroad will degrade and part-obsolete to become ghettoish & will eventually drive away recruits expecting 'decent' living conditions. Training exercises will be effected as range operations degrade.
Education-effects will not suffer. Arts-effects will not suffer. Medical products will speed to market since no FDA process, no restraining EPA laws = cheaper business, fanny/mac demise will save us all $ , ridiculous studies ......lots more...,
As FrogMom wrote, government employees and contractors probably will get back pay when the shut-down is over, so we won’t get any benefit financially from a shut-down. What we might get as a benefit is an acknowledgement that the only way to re-open the government is on a fiscally-conservative basis.
THE SURVIVAL OF AMERICA.
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