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Feds Prep For E-Gov Shutdown
dcblogs writes "If the federal government is shutdown midnight Friday, the feds plan to stop updating government Web sites that aren't delivering essential services. 'Most Web sites will not continue, only those Web sites that are part of these accepted activities would continue to operate,' the senior White House official said Tuesday. 'Accepted activities,' refers to essential, life and safety-related government services. The IRS, however, will continue to accept tax returns filed electronically and to process payments. 'We need to be able to collect the money that is owed to the U.S. government,' the official said. Paper-based returns won't be processed."
The federal shutdown is only affecting 800,000 employees out of a few million uniformed servicemen, civilian employees and contractors. I would be surprised if it's even 25% of the federal workforce.
What this shutdown means is that until the budget goes through, the feds aren't buying any new toys and those considered "non-essential" to the mission of their agency (or department, in some cases) will be treated like dead weight.
Ironically, this would be an excellent time for an audit of the federal labor force and contracts to see who should be permanently let go and/or have their contract torn up.
it was permanent. This shutdown only brings a temporary respite to the oppression the American people suffer at the hands of it's own government.
Yes, my work on automation software flight plan management for the FAA is very oppressive to you. Douchebag.
This is true only if Congress agrees to make it so after the fact. It would be political suicide to not pay active duty. Civilian employees might be a toss up depending upon whether they get lumped into the same bill as the active duty.
As the budget situation now is significantly worse than 15 years ago, it seems unlikely that Civilian employees will be made whole after the fact. I love the republicans talking about 'where are the jobs' and then deciding to furlough close to 4 times the number of workers that were added in the latest jobs report over the sum of ~$7B. If the government is closed for a week, that's less than the interest on the National Debt.
The Active Duty military people will be forced to remain, even those that fulfill office type jobs, and will be unpaid until a resolution comes.
This is worse than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. This is arguing deck chair arrangement theory.
Here's a handy little tip for you. As long as you are able to complain about being oppressed by a government in a public forum, you aren't.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
You conveniently left out that Obama tried to negotiate a budget and the Republicans decided to change their goal from $33 billion in cuts to $40 billion, just a few days ago. Note, I'm an independent, I hate both parties, but really the Tea Party Republicans are being idiots here...and at least some of the non-Tea Party Republicans seem to agree with that sentiment. It's called negotiating; what we instead have is "I'm taking my ball and going home!!"
Furthermore, it's all really idiotic, because that $40 billion or whatever in cuts doesn't apply to this year's budget only. It applies to this year and the next several years! The actual cuts in any given year are relatively small, but they multiply them out over several years to make the numbers look bigger so we're all impressed by how Congress is cracking the whip. And it's moot, since Congress passes a new budget every year (roughly), because next year they could change what's funded/cut anyway; there's nothing forcing them to uphold the cuts/spending made in a previous year.
In short, as usual, the politicians are lying. They could cut $1 out of this year's budget, the remainder out of the next 9 years, and all we'd hear is how they saved $40 billion.
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TehFlyinator: Hai guise you know what my altitude is in feet? IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAAND! #lolz
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CommercialCeilingCat: np
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Officially, civilians don't get paid. Not sure about the military. Last time, when they finally passed the resolution they opted to retroactively restore pay for those days (even though no work got done) as a good faith measure. they also realize what a paltry sum federal employee wages are when compared to the actual debt total, so it was a relatively cheap form of goodwill from the guys that just finished pissing off most of the country.
Ya if deficits were the real issue then it would take some real work to deal with it. That would involve two things:
1) Some cuts to big spending programs. I'm not saying that smaller programs can't share in cuts as well, I mean some rather significant cuts need to be made, however before bothering with that you have to agree to include big ones. Arguing over a couple billion in small programs while refusing to talk about the DoD's $700ish billion is useless and irresponsible. If you really care, you've got to make cuts in multiple places, and the DoD has to be one just because of the size of the budget. That doesn't mean slash and burn, get rid of everything, but it does mean trim off things. Like maybe we could get along with only 8 aircraft carriers instead of 12, as an example.
2) Increase taxes. There is no reasonable way to cut spending enough to close the deficit down without gutting the government to a problematic level. For better or worse, there are plenty of things the government does that people rely on. That means income must increase and that means higher taxes. May not need to be that drastic, if coupled with cuts, perhaps just a restoration to levels around a decade ago but an increase will be needed.
If you are serious about deficit reduction, you'd be talking those things. That they aren't means they aren't.
Now I should note, I'm completely ok with the view that we shouldn't be doing that right now. The economy is still weak, those things could cause it to tank, and economic growth creates solutions of its own to the deficit as revenues increase. It is valid to say "The government can borrow extremely cheaply right now and now isn't the time for cuts or more taxes. Leave it as is for another year, we look at it again when things are better off."
However it really is one or the other. You either are ok with it for now, and need to not whine, or you are willing to make more broad cuts and increase taxes.
This bullshit that is being pulled of "We want to get tough on it, but only tiny programs and NO TAX INCREASES EVAR!" is stupid and shows pretty clearly that deficit reduction is not what they are after.
You're confusing the Discretionary Budget and Mandatory Spending. Continuing Resolutions can ONLY affect discretionary spending. Things like Social Security, medicare, medicaid, welfare, etc. are all part of the mandatory expenditures, and can't be cut in budget bills, only by passing new laws to revise their growth rate. Right now, the mandatory spending exceeds revenues, so whether the Tea Party wants to cut them or not (and they do) there's no way to touch them, and they would amount to a nearly $200B deficit *on their own*.
So, even if they zeroed all discretionary budgets -- kind of like a total shutdown of all the things you're hearing demagogued at the moment -- they still would be running a deficit.
America is broke, and it's getting worse. Bernanke is printing money like a crack addict with a credit card. Inflation is on pace to top 20% by next year. If you're not scared to death by the economics of the situation, then you're not paying attention. Go read what happened to the Wiemar Republic.
$40 Billion, $70 Billion, none of it will make a difference. Call me when they're cutting Trillions from the budget.
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Since WWII, Federal revenue has been 18-19% of GDP, no matter what the tax rates were. This suggests that increasing taxes will not significantly increase the amount of money that the federal government collects. If increasing taxes will not increase the percentage of GDP that the federal government collects in revenue (which historical figures suggest is indeed the case), I do not see how increasing taxes will help reduce the deficit.
You are not being factual here. This shows federal revenue varying from 14.4% to 20.4% over that period. That's quite a bit different than 18-19%, which sounds flat. It was not flat.
The highest personal marginal tax rates did vary significantly, from 94% in 1945 to 35% today, but this does not shed light on the subject as it's only one of a large number of contributing variables.
Of particular note, the revenue as a % of gdp dropped from 20.6 in 2000 to 14.9 in 2009. That's quite a significant drop. Combine that with increased apparent spending, which went from 18% of gdp in 2000 to 24% of gdp in 2010 (primarily because of large drop in gdp in 2008-9 due to the recession), and you have a problem.
Back to your point. You were implying that there is a causal relationship between federal receipts and GDP, but your data was faulty. If no such link exists, then increasing taxes will indeed reduce the deficit. In fact, this is strongly suggested by the opposite case in the last decade: we have been cutting taxes, and federal revenue has fallen. Therefore, increasing taxes (within reason) will increase federal revenues, and won't affect GDP.
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