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Slashdot Asks: How Does the US Gov't Budget Crunch Affect You?
The partial government shut-down that the U.S. is experiencing right now is about to enter its second week. Various government functions and services have been disrupted (including some web sites, whether it's a good idea or not), and lots of workers on the Federal payroll have been furloughed. But since the U.S. government is involved in so many aspects of modern American life, you don't have to work for the government to be affected by the budget politics at play. So, whether or not you work for the government in any capacity, the question we'd like to hear your answer to is this: What does the shutdown mean to you, in practical terms, whether the effects are good, bad, or indifferent?
I work at McChord AFB (Joint Base Lewis McChord). The last âoefurloughâ, I did not work and so was not paid. They spread the days out such that you could not get unemployment. As well, we could not use earned leave (even though that's my leave which they must pay me for anyway).
This time around, I was classified as a âoemission essentialâ employee, so I have to work or lose my job. But I will be paid retroactively, and not until the budget is passed. So again, no pay and because I am working, no unemployment or other low income services.
The thing is, for some reason a lot of people think that Federal employees all make six figures. It isn't so. The vast majority make $50,000 or less. I'm not complaining about my pay scale. But having lost around $2500 in savings with the last âoefurloughâ, my accounts are a bit thin.
I wonder if my landlord and the electric company will take âoeretroactiveâ payments? I suspect not. As my wife has MS, we are a single income family. And again, I'm not complaining about my pay rate, I took this job, no one twisted my arm. Fortunatly for me, I have a large family that will pitch in and help me out. Others are not so fortunate, this will hurt a lot of worker bees.
The only good thing out of this is that the Republicans â" most of whom would vote to end this if Boehner would allow a vote â" are slitting their own throats because they are scared of a minority of Tea Baggers. Next election, the House will belong to the Democrats, and the Tea Baggers will return home frothing at the mouth. Good for them.
The republicans have *always* relied on the votes of the stupid, by telling them that they (the Republicans - the greedy business elite) are just like them and are on their side. Now their dupes are the govt-haters who don't want to pay their taxes. Not long ago it was the bible thumpers and Jesus lovers, who hoped the "moral" Republicans would put down those pinko atheist Democrats. Before that, before they changed their name, the Republicans were âoeSouthern Democratsâ who yelled "The niggers are taking over and want to marry your lily-white daughter." The Republican politicians are just careerists who take money from the elite in order to remain in office. *Their* goal is power and the perks.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
... it only affects me by having too many stories about it on /.
Life goes on in the rest of the world...
Well, I've subjectively seen one effect -- a huge spike in the number of telemarker calls I've received in the past week, apparently due to no longer being able to report them to the DO NOT CALL registry (which is shutdown due to the gov't shutdown).
I did not receive my government cheese and hot grits ration.
Since congress already voted to pay all furloughed workers for the days they missed, what is exactly the point of not having them come into work anymore? Now they basically get a free paid vacation. If the taxpayer is on the hook for their salaries, they should be doing their jobs.
It means that I come to /. reading political rants rather than IT stories.
about half the the people directly affected are already back to work on Monday. most the people still not working are those jobs that affect the everyday american. parks and rec, science and technology, education. the military industrial complex has been protected. So.. ummm. my point.
The Killing will continue until moral improves.
The news is harder to have sex to when they start talking in that low drone and saying things like debt cieling 11 days away from the world exploding
In aspirational terms, the time the government is shut down is money in my tax-payer pocket.
In actual terms, the time the government is shut down is time that the people not working during it will be back-payed for it and -- at best -- my tax-payer pocket will be pilfered just as much. At worst, all the sensational bullshit of this event will be used to justify taking even *more* out of my tax-payer pocket.
So, really, the only way it impacts me is that either absolutely nothing changes or things get slightly financially worse, but they were headed that way anyway, so whatever.
Well, paid-vacation with the chance of not being able to pay your bills and maybe losing your apartment or home or car or other things which will seriously mess with their lives and well-being, if their full paychecks are delayed long enough. Just because they'll eventually get paid doesn't mean that they wouldn't be negatively impacted in the meantime, if they are in a position that forces them to live paycheck to paycheck.
Of course, I would fucking hope the average person has saved enough money to cover one month's worth of expenses just for an emergency.
...I've been affected by the way that the "leader of the free world" has once again demonstrated its disdain for democracy: if the right wing don't like something passed by representatives of the people, it seems they can just deny everything else. If I can't keep a few million of you in desperation, FUCK YOU I'M TAKING MY BALL HOME, &c.
I look forward to my country following this awful example.
Stocks and commodities have to be watched closely. The broad market; but especially silver and gold, which have had remarkably low volatility so far.
Otherwise, not a damned thing! I don't depend directly on any Federal thing. I feel sorry for the people that depend on park tourism around here, and all the poor people that *are* directly affected. I'm just happy not to be one of them.
They get paid later, time/money thing. Seriously, it is just more posturing like the other times.
Mainly what it means to me is an excellent illustration of how Federal government has gotten WAY too big.
Generally speaking, considering the way our Union was designed, except for foreign trade and defense the Federal government should be able to pretty much shut down for a year, and I would barely even notice.
The fact that it's NOT that way is the whole problem.
Gas prices are down 30 cents a gallon since the shutdown. I don't care if those lying motherfuckers ever come back.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
What you are seeing is the liberal's strategy for staying in power. Get as many people as possible dependent on the government. Then nobody dare oppose them or they will threaten to take away the government teat like what is happening right now. Obamacare is their attempt to get the majority of the population dependent on government for medical care. Imagine the power they will wield when they can threaten to shut down the government and take away your health care.
Seriously. There is no effect other than the huge waste of money when we pay all these people for not working.
Pointless, wasteful, that's the way we do things in America!
The only effect it has had on me so far is that I a lot angrier reading my facebook news feed. Misinformation and blaming from both sides. I guess it's a break from freaking baby pictures.
I spent a few weeks studying to take a test to obtain an Amateur Radio License. I paid my testing fees and took my test. I passed and ordered a radio. The government shutdown and I won't receive my license until they start back up. It isn't a huge deal just aggravating.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/0930/Government-shutdown-threat-sends-oil-prices-near-three-month-low
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Honestly, the most this whole mess has affected me, a college professor at a state university, is to fill my head with thoughts of taking my bare hands and strangle the life out of some of these yahoos in Washington. I know of many people who have been furloughed, as I am involved in federally funded research and have many colleagues who work under the umbrella of the federal gov't, some of whom have been furloughed, some of whom have not. My thoughts lately are about the looming debt ceiling "crisis" and how perhaps we are truly approaching the moment with the United States of America goes the way of every other superpower the world has ever seen... only we still have nukes and billions of guns. Sadly, if this happens, it will have come from within, not the result of a worthy enemy. And make no mistake about it: Pull away the curtain and this is all the doings of the ultra-rich who are pulling the strings. These people have nothing but pure disdain for the commoners and the poors and do not care that they are playing roulette, since all chambers are loaded and the gun is not pointing at them.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
..is what I feel from all this, considering the asshats who are stubbornly causing it are some of the few still getting paid.
All us contractors who are also furloughed will not be getting our pay when a budget is eventually passed. Same with all the cafeteria workeers, etc at those agencies. At some agencies, us contractors outnumber the government employees.
"Congress" did not vote to do that, any more than Congress passed a budget. The republican controlled house voted to do that, but they also passed a full budget, voted to re-open parks, etc. The Senate democrats and refused to consider any of those bills and the president said he'd veto it anyway
The president has said he won't so much as discuss anything until he gets exactly the bill he wants, with only his changes to Obamacare, so everything that's been voted on is only by the house republicans, it's not law. (Except paying military troops.)
My life has been 100% the same. If I didn't hear about it, I wouldn't have noticed a difference whatsoever.
If anything this shutdown has exposed one fact, most of government is "non-essential".
Fire all of the non-essential workers!
I work for the government half time and am a graduate student the other half. Of course I am furloughed, but on top of that, all the data for my research comes from NOAA which has shut down all its websites! Basically I am stuck doing diagnostics on data I happen to already have. Just loving my gov't right now....
It's the end of the government as we know it
And I feel fine
Like which orifice Miley Cyrus is sticking her foam finger up that day.
For the present it doesn't affect me at all. However, tomorrow I start a programming job as a California state ink pisser and it might affect me personally eventually since all states rely upon federal funds although the department I will be working for doesn't receive them.
I just sit watching the stories eating popcorn seeing another try to power grab at the government. It won't have a happy ending (that would be default in 10 days), so no matter how much noise and blame they spill everywhere, nor the government care about it (the 5 billons they spent the night before show how much they really care), nor the opposition, and while that circus happens still more will be invested in what affects me more, like snooping/infiltrating/sabotaging everyone/everything through internet.
And there is just no risk of default (unless they intend to reach it to do an even bigger power grab) because the legislators that don't agree yet will, or else some delicate information around him be disclosed, spying on everyone, even in legislators, have this kind of consequences.
I doubt the politicians will let it go on much longer. They'll soon start to worry that the common morons will figure out how little they actually need most of the government.
The president has said he won't so much as discuss anything until he gets exactly the bill he wants, with only his changes to Obamacare...
So what you're saying is, the entire shutdown is his decision and his responsibility. I hope everybody who voted for him remembers this when the 2014 elections come around.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
The shutdown has not yet affected me, save to the extent that we can get a heck of a lot more work done without the government contractors constantly throwing spears and interfering with forward movement for the sake of satisfying their own egos. The rest of my industry's getting hammered--NASA in particular--so I know how fortunate I am. Still, I can't help feeling that the shutdown as a whole is experiencing a great deal of hype, and I'm tremendously disappointed in the way which so many officials are doing their best to exaggerate and exacerbate the impacts ("shut down" Twitter feeds, websites, and parks being the three best examples).
As a contractor, unlike those civilians who have been promised (and when's the last time congress backpedaled on a promise?) back pay, every day that congress delays in funding the agency that I work for is money out of my pocket. I'm being forced to use what paid vacation time I'd saved thus far (meaning no holiday trips this year, for one thing) and, if I should run out and spend a week without pay, I have the dubious honor of being allowed to claim unemployment. On the plus side, though, I do have jury duty this coming week, and as that's not paid via the contract but through corporate's overhead, I might actually get paid for it--probably the first time anyone's ever treated jury selection like a job interview.
I should be 100% clear about exactly what Obama said and when.
Three days ago he said "I will not negotiate". When that polled very badly, it changed to I am willing to negotiate after they pass a "clean" bill - one with no changes other than the ones Obama asked for. In other words, "give me everything I want, then I'll take your phone call".
It's affected me about as much as the sequester did. Meaning, not at all. And I work for a heavily federally regulated and subsidized industry. My best friends wife works for the the VA and she was told that she was "Critical" and would have to work without pay until the budget was passed. She suggested she felt the flu coming on and suddenly she was getting a paycheck again.
This is all for show. The government quite literally prints money. They don't need a budget, they don't need dept. All of the money they bailed out the banks with was quite literally created out of thin air. We're once again being distracted from the real news. Enjoy the show.
I work as a land surveyor at a civil engineering firm. NGS is down, which means all the CORS are down, and OPUS is down, and the benchmark locator is down, and VERTCON is down. That's a noticable chunk of my "toolbox" so to speak. Fortunately FEMA is still up, so I can access FIRMettes.
Also, we're working on a project that recieves funding from USDA... the funding is allocated and in the bank already, but right now there's no one in the office to write the checks, so a small rural community has a torn-up road and several holes in the ground just sitting there.
the shutdown makes no difference in my life, other than having to listen to a bunch of unemployed gov employees. While I sympathize with them due to the stresses that unemployment can cause, I also believe that 1) If you have been a gov employee long enough, you know that this can happen and could have been prepared for it, and 2) BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! that's what you get for choosing to work for a bunch of inept morons who have no interest in your well-being nor a good firm grasp on reality. Seriously, if you are still under the delusion that the folks in DC really give a flying fuck about you, your family or your mortgage, well, enjoy the furlough. Everyone else, move to the private sector.
Since congress already voted to pay all furloughed workers for the days they missed, what is exactly the point of not having them come into work anymore?
Er... have you been reading the news haven't you? OK, I'll explain.
It's never been about saving money. The GOP wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but doesn't have the votes in the Senate to do it, much less override the veto that would inevitably provoke.
So plan B was to take funding for implementing ACA out of the budget. But they don't have the votes to do that either.
Now when you are arguing over the budget, you still have to keep things running; soldiers and air traffic controllers have to be paid. But the president doesn't have the constitutional power to spend money; he has to spend what Congress tells him to spend, neither more nor less (a lot of Americans don't seem to understand this). He has a lot of influence over the budget, but ultimately Congress has the power of the purse.
So what Congress does when it can't resolve its budget differences on time is pass something called a "continuing resolution". It pretty much says "continue on as you were under the last budget for so many days or until we hash this out." Congress is behind on its budget work so, it's time for a continuing resolution.
What the House Republicans tried to do was slip the budget stuff they didn't have the votes to pass into the continuing resolution. When the Senate stripped that stuff out and sent the CR back to the House, the Republican leadership refused to bring the CR to a vote until their demands were met. Those demands have been a moving target, running from a long laundry list of priorities (including stuff like the Keystone pipeline), to anything that will allow them to claim victory. Boehner has also floated a cut of a certain size to yet-to-be-named budget items as a condition, but this was precisely the gambit that was tried in 2011. Those cuts never materialized, triggering the sequestration cuts across the board this year, including defense. That's not very credible. So the only way the House Republicans come out of this with something that looks like a victory would be to get ACA de-funded, which is not going to happen.
The House Republicans are technically within their rights not to bring an continuing resolution to the floor, but they're using it to undermine the Constitution. They don't have the votes to get what they want, nor have they anything offer in exchange that will persuade anyone else to vote with them, so they're trying to *compel* the Senate to vote the way they want by shutting down the government.
Honestly, it feels like final years of the Roman Republic, when wealthy, ambitious men competed to carve power bases for themselves out of what had been offices of service to the Republic. Crassus Boehner, anyone?
Now they basically get a free paid vacation. If the taxpayer is on the hook for their salaries, they should be doing their jobs.
I agree with you. They should be back at their jobs, and being paid on payday as usual (you do know that essential employees aren't getting paid). But that's not going to happen until one side or another cracks under the political pressure. Already the US Chamber of Commerce is wading in with promises of primary support to Republicans who vote for a clean CR.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Those of us who are funded at least partly by NSF grants are potentially in trouble. For people who have money in their account from an active grant that will last a few months - all the better. For those whose paycheck depends on the next installment from a grant, tough luck. The worst affected will be folks who had payments and grant reviews in progress.
More info @ http://www.nsf.gov./ The most relevant portions:
Payments: No payments will be made during the shutdown.
Issuance of New Grants and Cooperative Agreements: No new grants or cooperative agreements will be awarded.
I need the military.
The rest of government appears to be do-gooder Marxist social programs parasitically piggybacked onto what were originally good ideas.
Let local communities do those now. Cut taxes, cut government, and get us back to Wild West America; it worked better.
Futurist Traditionalism
Attempting to do some basic research for a contract and I need access to geomagnetic data from NOAA and their websites are down. Now I have to wait to see if a fitting function based on historical data works on current real-time data.
I was talking on the phone and somebody broke in to the phone conversation. It was the NSA surveillance guy and he wanted to borrow some money to pay his rent.
It looks like biased mods are acting as censors again. Why was the PP rated down? Some mod didn't like his opinion? What else could explain it.
"Yeah. And I've never seen a functional representative democracy in which a majority vote can be overridden....
The United States was very explicitly NOT created as a Democracy. It's not designed to be a democracy. Many decades of pushing by Democrats has made it closer and closer to a democracy, but it is not one and hopefully never will be one. A Democracy is just formalized mob rule (the results of all arguments are exactly the same as with a mob: the majority gets its absolute will over the minority and whatever the majority wants is "right"). The United States was designed as a Republic with Democratic elections; The American government is designed to get all jammed-up whenever a majority tries to run rough-shod over a minority and part of this design is that a President must go to the house of the people to get the money he wants to spend. The American government is designed to only run smoothly when an overwhelming majority of the population agrees on something (Like WWII or building an interstate highway system). The Democrats put maximum strain into the system when they used a pure party-line action to force the takeover of 1/6th of the economy even though about half of the population did not want it. They Locked their opponents out of the rooms with physical locks so that, to this very day, we do not know what was said in the negotiations over the health INSURANCE take-over, and we do not even know the names and affiliations of the lobbyists, lawyers, staffers, and campaign contributors who were in the room. When Republicans have asked for even a list of names of negotiators, the Democrats have said "Sorry, we don't remember"
Barack Obama seems to think he is above the Constitution. He tried declaring the Senate in Recess and appointing people without confirmations (The courts ruled he violated the Constitution and invalidated his appointments, he is ignoring the courts on this and his behavior is now in another court) and Now he is claiming that he has no need to talk to or negotiate with congress for the money he wants to borrow and spend. He is quite simply WRONG. Obamabots who disagree and want to rage in favor of this tyrant, ought to try actually READING the Constitution first...
In 1787 as he was leaving the Constitutional Convention, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”
His Response? “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
It hasn't affected me personally, but it's hit a lot of my friends who either work for PSNS or are contractors at PSNS, Keyport, or Bangor. The place my wife works has a lot of military/DoD civilian/contractor customers.... so, it'll hit home for us sooner or later. (Thank $DIETY their busy season is over, else it could be even worse.)
83% of government is still functioning. The "shutdown" does not affect me because it is not a "shutdown." Some very public services have been shuttered by the Obama administration even though they have funding, just to create as much hardship as possible to whip up hate for Republicans, but even the few Democrats I know see through this (which is why Obama's numbers are plummeting despite the media's transparent attempts to deflect blame).
Clinton was called "slick willie" because he was successful at deflecting blame. Obama, on the other hand, is as sticky as his velcro hairdo.
"Of course, I would fucking hope the average person has saved enough money to cover one month's worth of expenses just for an emergency."
ROFL. You seem to be seriously out of touch with "average". The AVERAGE person lives paycheck to paycheck and can't pay every bill every month, the AVERAGE person knows how far behind you have to be with company x before they shut off service.
I completely disagree w/ the PP, but it's not a troll or flamebait. It's an opinion. Don't mod it down just because you disagree w/ it.
I got a very nice job offer 3 weeks ago that involves government security clearances. The shutdown has brought this process to a crawl. I've been out of work for 2+ years, it would be nice to have income again.
Sucks, but no one that was not working should get retroactively paid for that time. And congress should be reminded who they work for, and be voted out for this nonsense.
You mean everything people in the commercial sector have to endure all the time?
I don't get to have my NASA.gov fix, I mean, I know it's not a finacial thing, but I still do with I could check out what there launching these days. Also I wish Weather.gov was fully up and running. I still yank down the files I really want and rely on for planning, but still, I can't just browse around the site anymore. Since everyone seems to be talking about where they place the blame: The two kids whining on the playground that the other person hit them. [Wo]man up and deal with it. Democrats, stop being such babies, and compromise a little/ Republicans stop treating it like a game that you need to get something out of, stick with your original plan, or just go with the democrats, no need to drag this on for the sake of hurting people. Independants, enjoy the ride, because baby, you might come out of this looking like a champ.
It makes me drink more and play more GTA V.
My wife wants to go all Ted Cruz on me and filibuster about how "grown men" shouldn't be playing "video games", but I just whipped out my gavel and told her that all I need for cloture is 50 plus 1 and I got the tie-breaker hanging right here.
I think I might be in trouble now. I heard my car alarm going off a few minutes ago, and I'm afraid to go look.
You are welcome on my lawn.
What I find fascinating is this: In most other democracies, if the government can't pass a budget, then the legislature is dissolved and an election is called. New people are elected and they try again. Seems crazy to me that there's no framework of this in the USA - If the government is at loggerheads it's time to let the people decide via an election.
I would certainly hope that, as several of you writing above have said, that they have to continue work but will be paid retroactively. It really would be taking the piss if they insist that others work unpaid but they continue to take an income when they are the ones who are causing the rest of you pain.
Myself: I am a Brit, so I just look across the pond and shake my head in puzzlement.
My wife and I started our 2-week vacation to all the nation parks on September 29th. We managed to get in Badlands NP and Mt. Rushmore. On October 1st, we were turned away from the gates of Yellowstone National Park -- we couldn't even drive through to the other side (2 hours) and were told we had to drive around (8+ hours). The rest of our destinations were at national parks around the west.
We drove back to Denver (our start point) and hopped a plane home. 1600 miles of driving over 4 days and we didn't even get to see the main attractions of our trip, spent over $400 in hotels, almost $150 in fuel, and another $200 changing our return flights.
Thank you, asshole government.
I am lucky enough to still be working. About half the people I work directly with were furloughed immediately. Very hard to get work done when I need their expertise and coordination. Kind of pointless to be there honestly. Yes I can catch up on some things, but most "real" work needs their assistance. Also, lost a roommate who was here for FAA class. He was sent back on that Tuesday. Gov paid for it all. Now he will not get his promotion for being certified. Also, he will have to fly back and Gov will pay for the class a second time. I lost that income as well as a roommate.
Mark
$2.99 when I left town a week and a half ago, $2.98 tonight.
Then again, I don't live in a town with a large number of government or government hourly-contract employees so we have seen almost zero effect. Oh, well, all the republicans around me who never actually go to the National Park day use areas down the road are complaining that they've hears stories about those places being closed, and what an abomination it is (though they regularly rail against the waste which includes maintaining such areas that they never even use).
When I worked for NASA it was sort of a big deal, but almost as much a game. Not for the question as to whether we would get our pay checks, but what our "excuse" was to tell the guards so we could go in and monitor our projects and keep flight hardware on schedule. Lost coat, extra house key we left in our desk, favorite mug - we used 'em all.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"Of course, I would fucking hope the average person has saved enough money to cover one month's worth of expenses just for an emergency." ROFL. You seem to be seriously out of touch with "average". The AVERAGE person lives paycheck to paycheck and can't pay every bill every month, the AVERAGE person knows how far behind you have to be with company x before they shut off service.
Well, then the AVERAGE person should cut back so they can live within their means, or get a better job.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Yes and no. The last time the government shut down furloughed workers were paid in arrears.
This last fiscal year, that just ended Sept 30, I was furloughed for 19 days due to budget cuts and sequestration. Those days will not be paid in any fashion whatsoever. Also I was not allowed to take any saved/earned vacation time that I will lose at the end of the calendar year if I can't manage to take them before Dec 30.
As it was, before the shutdown I was already trying to find time to take my earned vacation days, if the shutdown drags on for any serious amount of time I will not be able to take those days.
So there is a potential for me to lose another 5 days of pay.
When the Democrats ran the congress for 40-straight years by Gerrymandering? You probably LOVED it when the Democrats (empowered by Gerrymandered districts) used their control of the House to force Reagan to raise taxes and spend more on their pet social programs in exchange for the money he needed for the military rebuild he wanted to use to win the cold war. (ALL Presidents are required to go to congress to ask for the money they need...even when the other party only holds the House and only by using Gerrymandering... What's good for the goose is good for the gander)
I'd bet you were not so upset back then; in the mind of a leftist, the ends always justify the means
The EPA has furloughed 95% of their employees as Non-Essential. Be careful government. We may realize we actually don't need you after all. Shutdown may point to some great redo of government services. So far....it seems the only thing we have learned from this shutdown is: Not enough of the government has been shut down yet.
My wife's green card application is not being processed. We haven't seen direct consequences of that so far, but if the shutdown goes on long enough it could seriously affect us by forcing her to leave the country. I hope they manage to resolve this mess before that happens.
It adds a good dose of laughter to my life!
My colleagues and I work at a non-profit research institute affiliated with the State of Florida university system. We just do research. No students, no classes. It's all soft money and the vast majority of our funding, maybe 90%, comes as contracts and grants from Federal agencies. There are two huge problems that are hurting us right now. First, if the government cannot make the incremental payments to us on existing grants or contracts, then we don't get paid. That is happening right now. Not only are we not hiring, people are taking salary cuts or going to half time or worse. The payments from the government come at different times throughout the year and are different depending on the grant and the agency, so it is not a issue of the lights suddenly getting turned off. But the impact, however incremental, is very real and it is NOW. I have enough cash on hand from my largest existing grant to keep myself and my group going through December maybe. That brings up the second problem, which is the whole proposal process. Continuity in our research projects requires that we are always in "proposal mode." Grants and contracts are for limited amounts for limited duration. It can take a long time and a lot of effort to get funded since the level of competition is very high. (Competition is ok - I welcome being pushed to do my best.) Right now I have proposals and white papers and discussions with program managers that are all in limbo - and the clock is ticking. Even if they are approved, it will take many months, maybe half a year, to receive the first increment of funding. What's more, the tendency of program managers when they are uncertain about the funds available to their program is to be VERY conservative about making new commitments, regardless of proposal quality. They are also really p.o. 'ed about being furloughed and this makes them surly. In such circumstances, it is difficult to talk about research continuity.
There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about. -- John von Neumann
Dear America, I have paid my dues and more some. For us that are driven, you have come to the well too often. As a scientist and professor I must say it is time for this chapter of acclerated devolution to come to an end. I am ready to take my chances outside of the wall.
A friend of mine and the group of guys he works with on a nearby Army base got fired on Tuesday. They MIGHT all get hired back once the government turns on again. For now, they collect state unemployment and look for other work.
even President Obama is now on record admitting that about 90% of the workforce of the EPA, the Department of Education (which, as a Federal agency, has NEVER educated a child), and a number of other bloated federal agencies are not-essential. It turns out (not to MY surprise) that even Obama admits that NOAA hurricane trackers are essential but "Global Warming" experts are not, NASA planetary scientists and telescope operators are not essential but mission control in Houston is, etc.
Don't get me wrong... not everybody in every agency is expendable (I even like the idea of guys driving the mars rovers...) but there is a big difference between what the taxpayers NEED (and must be forced at gunpoint to fund) and all the stuff it's just "nice to have". This puts the lie to that bug-eyed, over-Botoxed, curruptocrat Nancy Pelosi (Democrat House majority leader) when she goes on TV and says taxes and spending need to go up even further because Obama has already cut all that can be cut and "the cupboard is BARE!" (OH, the HUMANIYT!!!!!!!)
Well, then the AVERAGE person should cut back so they can live within their means, or get a better job.
Of course. If anyone, ever, has problems making ends meet it is solely due to moral failings. Let us all judge them now and condemn them.
So far I'm not immediately impacted, but there is potential. I am sponsoring for my fiancee to come to the US so we can get married. At this point the offices that process passports and visas aren't impacted because they typically raise enough money in fees to support their operations. That stated myself and other sponsors have seen a slow down in the processing times.
The process to sponsor someone is long enough as it is. This only drags it out longer. How long would you go without your loved one?
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Oh wait, unless the politicians decide to have a pissing battle on capital hill. Then its just ... well nothing I guess.
Life - our healthcare sucks and is getting worse (with or without the govt. healthcare act)
Liberty - um, yeah I'm pretty sure we're loosing those, hello Dept. of Homeland Sec.
Pursuit of Happiness - not if they are being a roadblock between you and your loved ones.
Knowing the game and what quarter we currenty in will provide insight on the future required moves.
We are currently in the game of choosing sides. The deadline is the 18th or 17th. We have until then to divide the public into credit is income, and we spent too much already and we can't afford another entitlement. Because the public knows so little about the borrowing of money by the government (payments need to be made.. no problem just borrow more to make the payments until our entire income goes to makeing payments with no other payments being made. Someday that train will wreck. Oh, back on topic.. The game plan,
The other side's plan is shutting down the government. You public need to get educated and join our side or the conquences will be dire. This posturing will run until default at the earliest, maybe later. This is a race to place more canidates of party X or Y in the house and senate at the next election. Nobody can agree on anything until then.
I'll check for updates on the 19th. Wake me up then.
In the meantime, the play by play is a news reporters dream. 2 solid weeks of political drama.
The truth shall set you free!
Fiscal conservtives are trying to save money supposedly ...close the guvmint damn it because the deficit is too large...and yet they voted yesterday .. ...the centrist to the righties...(there are no elected lefties in the US except for may be the Vermont Senator) ...its like trying to drown a carp !
all of them
to pay and make us stay home...
Yup great fiscal conservatism.
The problem is not government it is idiots running the government.
Wouldn't some people argue that the ACA itself undermines the Constitution?
the average government employee is a freeloading scumbag who is to lazy or incompetent to work in the private sector.
First, don't pay your phone bill, that way creditors can't call. That's why it's best to have a land line and cell phone. Then, to get you back on feet, skip your car/insurance bills
rewriting history since 2109
It makes me SO happy.
[Getting back to the "Ask Slashdot" question...] When I left work last Tuesday after doing my "shutdown activities," I noticed that people largely fell into two categories: 1) those that have some money saved (they were the ones that left feeling not too worried and acting pretty relaxed) and 2) those that are living paycheck to paycheck (those were the ones that looked really stressed out and scared). Knowing that retroactive pay is in the offing makes this shutdown bearable in the short term. But that doesn't help the folks in the second group.
When they default and the market tanks it will be a great buying opportunity.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
But the boffo take-away from the current season of "Stupid Republican Stunts" is this: if an unhinged minority can hijack the legislative process and hold the full faith and credit of the US as a hostage to bypass regular order in achieving its goals, then America is no longer a functioning democracy.
If the Republican Party wins, then American democracy loses.
"In order to save the village we were forced to destroy it."
I mentor for a high school robotics team that competes in the international FIRST Robotics Competition, and a large fraction of the teams are sponsored in part by a NASA grant. NASA closed their grant proposal system because of the shutdown, so our team may not be able to do it this year. We're still seeking other sponsorship, but it's tight. We aren't exactly at a rich school...
It's weird to be screwed *directly* by republicans...I was getting used to indirect, roundabout screwings.
Someone "decided to wait until the last minute".
The Republicans passed theirs March 21st 2013, seven months ago. That's before Obama submitted his proposal.
Obama keeps submitting proposals so bad that not a single DEMOCRAT will vote for them. Think about that. Not one member of his own party will put their name on the crap Obama has been submitting since he took office. I dont recall if any of his five annual budget proposals got even one vote of support - I do recall that at least two or three years he couldn't get even one junior house member to sign on to his crap.
Those of us taxpayers who run businesses have been HAMMERED by the Obama administration with THOUSANDS of new rules and regulations while also having our taxes increased, and being continually insulted by the jackass-in-chief; we've had our energy prices driven up and the economy has been essentially flat-lined for his entire time in office (Yeah, the mega-corporations who are in bed with him are making huge profits, in-part by a lot of overseas activity and by out-sourcing production, but smaller firms are having a hard time). Now we are told to pay hugely inflated health insurance rates (about 300% in some cases) for our employees (with no booming economy to soften that blow) or else upset them by dumping them into the public exchanges (like kicking them in the teeth and shoving them into medicaid with the bums)
If you guys in academia who live off our backs were punished HALF as severely as those of us pulling the wagons you are riding in, you'd have turned on Obama (and dumb Republicans like McCain) years ago... instead you go-on using OUR tax dollars to propagandize OUR kids to worship your messiah, oppose everything we believe, and support all the foul political and economic theories Americans used to oppose. I'd happily support the permanent de-funding of all of modern Academia... you guys are turning out "graduates" now who are dumber than the average 1960's high school dropout, but you have raised all the tuitions to keep up with (and absorb) all the increases in student loans so that these youngsters with fresh new (and nearly useless) diplomas will be in debt for much of their work lives. I need REAL engineers who can DO things, not social engineers who can properly deploy condoms, say all the right things about {insert favored minority of the month}, detest all the evils of American history while making every imaginable excuse for the bad behaviors of our nation's enemies and then frosting this cake of insanity by trying to figure out how to make all our products free... (all stuff people have always been free to believe on their own time, but that now seems to have displaced serious knowledge and rational thought)
Funny, I thought after the Supreme Court decided that it was, in fact, constitutional, that reasonable people would accept their decision. Especially so since this is a rather conservative court right now. What reason do you have to doubt the court's decision?
Read back what that person wrote. Then read your reply. You're the one inserting morality into the discussion and the only person calling for absolutism. If it were an accountant talking to a single person, would you jump all over that accountant? How about a grandmother talking to her kid a couple years out of college?
It's good advice mathematically. It doesn't apply to all situations, nor is it always able to be taken, just like most good advice -- but nor does it claim to. The simple math of personal budget doesn't carry any moral bias.
I know a guy who is a single Dad - newly so after spending cash on a divorce. He's on the beach awaiting this mess to be over and pretty stressed out. Yeah, he has SOME savings but it's not much and he's not exactly making huge dollars. His friends, including me, will help him out but if this goes on too long he's going to be in huge trouble! Let's not forget that all of the govt. contractors that aren't deemed essential are out too. Sure, the Govies get paid - guess who does NOT? Yup, the contractors. Companies that have large Govt. contracts are taking in NO cash right now and furloughing left and right. Make no mistake - this will impact the profit projections and stock market...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
We have until then to divide the public into credit is income, and we spent too much already and we can't afford another entitlement. Because the public knows so little about the borrowing of money by the government (payments need to be made.. no problem just borrow more to make the payments until our entire income goes to makeing payments with no other payments being made. Someday that train will wreck
And when Clinton left office, the government had a surplus. Rather than use that surplus to pay down the debt, which would have created more surplus, and a positive feedback cycle (up until the point when 9/11 slammed the brakes on the economy). But, rather than do the fiscally-responsible thing, Bush decided he wanted a tax cut to bump his approval rating, so that when the economy hit the wall, the lower tax rate compounded the problem... and rather than let those tax cuts expire, the Republicans would rather continue to kick the problem down the road a little further so that they don't face the political backlash of having *gasp* raised taxes.
Various memorials and parks are being forcibly closed — despite it costing more to enforce the closures, than to keep the facilities operating (which may be why the same facilities remained in operation throughout all previous government-shutdowns). One ranger is quoted by a news paper: "We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting."
Likewise, various government web-sites are displaying "we are closed" pages instead of the actual content. If, in fact, they had to be shut down due to lack of funds, the servers wouldn't be responding at all. That they do work (and promptly) means, their services are sabotaged by order of the Administration.
Obama may not be a very good Executive under normal circumstances, but he is certainly vicious... Or someone else in his close circle is...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You do know that the Democrats never passed a budget the entire time they controlled both houses. Right?
Defunding passed legislation because you don't like the legislation, and making changes to the funding levels are two entirely different things. The GOP can suck an egg if they don't like the ACA - it's LAW, and you don't get a second bite at the apple. If you don't like it, pass an ACA amendment act, on it's own. You know that will never happen, so the GOP basically want to screw the system until they get their way.
Boo hoo Boehner.
I'm not afraid of the shutdown at all. I'm more afraid they'll start it back up again. Although I feel sorry for those affected, they might have had a clue when they took "non-essential" positions for an employer $17 trillion in debt. Somewhere, sometime, that gravy train has to come to an end.
Posting anonymously for a reason. I'm a postdoc at a government lab, and have been deemed nonessential to the bare-bones activities on site (namely security and minimal equipment maintenance). My experiments are on hold. I can't submit my manuscripts. Since I'm technically a contractor, I don't even know if I'll get paid this month (retroactively or not).
I understand that there are people in this country who see what I do as nonessential. They ask, "why should I pay so Anonymous Coward can play around in a science lab?" The truth is that we are all beneficiaries of basic research that was done decades ago that paved the way for the technological progress we take for granted today. I am not claiming that my research is special or that it will lead to revolutionary breakthroughs, but there is a chance that it will help those who follow.
I have no desire to get into a partisan politic debate. I understand that those who vote Republican want to blame the President and the Senate, and those who vote Democrat want to blame the Speaker of the House and the Tea Party. I do want to point out that if tying demands to continuing resolutions or the debt ceiling becomes the norm, this country will become ungovernable very quickly.
Can basic science in this country continue without the federal government? I think not. There is little basic science funding from industry, particularly for research that has no immediate payoff. Should the shutdown drag on long enough, expect to see disruptions to academic research on top of what's happened already. If that happens, expect to see an exodus of world-class scientists leaving America for Europe, Asia and South America.
Once upon a time, the organs of the body got into a dispute about which was most important.
"Without me," said the eyes, "man couldn't see where his food is."
"Yes," the mouth declared, "but without me he couldn't ingest it."
The hands though this a silly notion. "What good's seeing or ingesting if you can't put it in your mouth?"
"But all your digestion is worthless if I don't pump blood," objected the heart.
"But everything has to obey what I say," said the brain. "So clearly, I'm the most important."
"That's not what the penis tells me," replied the legs.
And so the argument continued back and forth until one organ decided to makes its point. It didn't reason with the others, it merely decided on its own to shut down. It constricted and tightened, and allowed nothing by. Everything was stopped up. The the digestive track stopped working. The heart had no nutrients to pump. The legs and arms had no strength left. The brain suffered a horrible headache and the eyes couldn't see straight. At last they all surrendered and admitted this one organ was really in charge.
What organ, you ask? Why the sphincter. Which goes to show that to be in charge you needn't be the smartest, have the best sight, the longest reach, or good taste. The only thing you need to be in charge is to be an asshole.
Government has proven to be more and more expensive and has zero effectiveness at defending out liberty, counter productive to a healthy economy and rapidly showing signs of communism, they run out and clearly pick fights with double standards, play world cop, and stick the people with the check while the elite line their pockets, they have practiced deficit spending so long that it is highly unlikely we will as a nation find light at the end of the tunnel. Shutdown? I say, fine, don't come back, ain't been earning your keep anyway.
So you're basically saying if we can't borrow money from ourselves, to pay ourselves, we default. Hmmm. I think default happens when we can't pay interest on the debt owed to foreign creditors. Which is about 250 billion a year, currently.
"What does the shutdown mean to you, in practical terms?"
Nothing
You mean the tax cut that Barack Obama just made permanent? That one? I got some news. The tax cut happened in 2001. The tax rates have been in effect since then, or 12 years. More than a decade. Newt Gingrich was speaker of the house when we balanced the budget. Spending and taxes originate in the House, and no matter how much Barack Obama wants it to be true, they will never originate in the White House.
Ronald Reagan raised the debt celing 17 times without negotiation. GWB raised the debt celing 7 times without negotiation. There have only been 4 balanced budgets in the last 50 years and they were under Bill Clinton. Democrats have the votes in the house to pass a clean CR as there are 20 to 30 republicans who have said they are willing to vote for it. However, John Boehner won't bring it forward for a vote. Why??? He has had the past 6 months to negotiate a budget when the senate passed a budget and the president unveiled his. The only thing they have been doing in that time is voting to defund and/or repeal Obamacare. They have not even proposed a replacement. Seriously, all they have been trying to do for the entire year is to repeal a law that was the topic of the election, which they lost. This is not democracy. You can't hold the US economy hostage if your party does not win the election.
Actually they do have the votes to take ACA out of the continuing resolution, since there is no point in passing a budget right now (the Senate won't vote on a budget as long as the Democrats control it). The problem is the Senate won't pass such a continuing resolution. Of course, since the Senate can't initiate a spending bill (as the Constitutional provision on revenue bills is currently interpreted), they can't do anything about it.
And yes it does feel like the final days of the Roman Republic. Of course, I was thinking more along the lines of Julius Obama myself. After all, when the President unilaterally suspends portions of a law that he himself pushed for, it makes you wonder if there is any point to Congress anymore.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
It's my home page. Now the universe is gone. Just a blank white space.
The US Bureau of Industry and Security isn't taking any more registrations for cryptography. However, it's also illegal to distribute crypto programs (that aren't laughably weak) without registering them with the government. I came up with a nifty homeomorphic key exchange, but I can't use it in any of my products or even test it on my servers. It started as an investigation into addressing some problems in the current PKI system, namely how the Hong Kong Post Office can simply create a cert for Google.com without their permission; However, I'm not even allowed to post the source code online or describe it in any detail. So, I've just decided to keep it under my colorless hat for now.
My game needs a certificate system with public key crypto properties so that end users can validate mods and updates are signed by their trust chain. Right now I only have symmetric stream cipher in it. So, since the shutdown is preventing me from continuing with the asset signing system I turned my attention to the stream cipher used in authentication. PKI isn't used during logins -- only used during initial server account creation to exchange the pre-shared key. I added some massive key stretching to slow down brute force attacks if a DB of passwords gets compromised, and increased the speed by changing a couple of implementation details. The regulations say that if you register the source code of a cipher via URL, you don't have to email a copy to the BIS & NSA when the functionality of the source changes. I emailed them a copy anyway (for their convenience), and incorporated the changes into the server.
I've had to change the schedule of the feature roll out for the collaborative editing system, which cost me and others of the dev team a good chunk of time. That back & forth left me with some more time to think about the symmetric cipher. I realized that I can build a trap-door out of a hashing function so that the server can quickly verify a proof of work at the client's end, so I can vastly reduce the load of authentication & mitigate Denial of Service attacks. I can even increase the difficulty of the work to be done dynamically for failed authentication attempts simply by adding more required solution bits... Sort of like Bitcoin.
In some ways the government shutdown is affecting me, and in other ways it's just affecting itself. The government better start back up soon, or I just might invent a whole new branch of cat based crypto: Eccentric Hairball Encryption.
Let's see, Alice x-rays and frees a selection of small encrypted woodland creatures.
As proof of Bobcat's receipt of the key he leaves a present by the back door.
Mal can't discern the guts of the key since only Alice and her Bobcat can discern what bits will appear in the verification hairball... Hmm...
If they can afford to cut back, then their employer can afford to pay them less.
Welcome to capitalism, slave. Now get back to work!
I have before worked for an employer who said he could not pay me for a while, but I should keep working.
That happened a few times over a few years. Eventually I got my money back but it took a long time and there was a significant back pay that floated for a year.
So knowing that was a pattern, what did I do? I left to find other work.
Government is NO DIFFERENT. If you are going to obviously be screwed over every time the Government needs to figure out a yearly budget (hint: they can't) or bump against the debt ceiling (hint: very often), then you need to LEAVE.
You didn't say if you were enlisted or not but it seems like not. Most people take government jobs because they are easier but if you are not liking this new tradeoff you need to leave, which is what every worker in the private sector would generally do... the mistake is thinking that delayed pay and worse is something that only happens to government workers during a furlough, because in real life it happens to people quite often.
I hope more government workers figure this out, and fast - and that it takes the shine of government work for others also.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
.. while others do not.. Military budget, civilians common good from government.. carry this scenario out further and you get the situation in many third world countries all the time
the average government employee is a freeloading scumbag who is to lazy or incompetent to work in the private sector.
...and is teaching your children.
Oh, you mean Federal government? That'd be a soldier. Oh, you want to exclude the armed forces, too? And probably the DHS and FBI as well?
Getting down into the weeds, here... "The average member of the Secret Service is a freeloading scumbag who," etc., perhaps?
I haven't noticed one iota of a difference with the government shutdown.
Well, I take that back, the talking heads I see on TV in restaurants seem to be more consternated than normal.
If the shutdown is really that terrible for that many things, we should probably consider not routing so many systems through a single point of failure.
Like a federal one?
Presidential overreach is not a partisan issue. W did it well enough himself. It's just the natural progression that comes from the current legislation, from the Constitution down. Barring extremely unlikely citizen action, chances are the dynamics will continue as they are until demographics topple the current political balance. Then we'll have some years of single party dominance, the losing party will change their position dramatically to bring it all back into balance, and we'll be back in square one.
One thing we can all agree on is that the government (whoever is in power) is spending too much money. Invest when times are good, and cut back when times are bad. The economy is not doing well (for a while now) so we should be spending accordingly.
I'm not for/against Obamacare. What I am against is raising the debt ceiling. The government needs to start cutting its debt, not increasing it. For all the discussion about rich vs poor, no one is talking about tackling the fattest cat in town: the government.
My B-I-L just lost his very well paid job he's been working at for about 5 years. He has worked previously in similarly high paying jobs. His missus gets a good pay packet as well. They have 2 kids, one who is over 18 and not at college. They have zero savings, and a mortgage or 2, plus a loan or 2 or 3 for various big cars and big recreational toys.
We have 2 kids, house paid off, money in the bank and make about 1/3 of what they do. Maybe it's not trendy to call it a 'moral failing' that they have no cashola, but when you live as large as they do, it's a pretty obvious outcome. I'm sorry he's lost his job, and frankly I'm surprised they have so much debt piled up.
I see things a little differently than Forbes, which is hardly a bastion of journalistic impartiality.
About five years back, I had some real health troubles. I lost a lot of weight, like 25% of my body mass and dropping fast, and I was underweight be begin with. I had fatigue to the point where I couldn't hold my head up. I couldn't think clearly. It was pretty bad.
Of course I lost my job. That's a given. Get sick and you get fired. COBRA kicks in. But that was a real struggle to keep up the payments on. It's like 20 grand, and me with no income. And it only lasts for 18 months. After that they kick you to the curb.
I could have gone to the doctors. I almost did. But with that sort of weight loss. The other problems. Well, you think "Cancer".
If I'm diagnosed with cancer, that's the end of health care coverage for my family. My COBRA payment check will get lost in the mail and I'll be dropped. Losing my payment isn't legal. But that's the way it is. What do you expect when we only insure the healthy people? The sick ones lose their jobs, and through that their healthcare coverage.
There's no chance of reacquiring insurance. Nobody will insure me. And even if someone did, anything I'm diagnosed with becomes an EXCLUDED pre-existing condition.
So I didn't seek treatment. I looked at my wife, I looked at my kids, and I saw how this was going to end. Health care coverage dropped, medical bankruptcy, losing the house, losing the good school district, goodbye to the kid's college funds, but maybe with food banks and a lot of luck they wouldn't starve. I mean once health care coverage drops, the first time the kids get Strep Throat or Pneumonia it's like hundreds or thousands of dollars to get a prescription for $10 worth of Penicillin. (Yes, thousands. I had pneumonia last month. It took a chest X-ray to diagnose.) Financially, it's hopeless. And you can forget about vaccines!
I figured with cancer, well I didn't want my wife & kids bankrupting themselves trying to fix me. Better just to let me die a clean death. So I made my peace and prepared for the end.
I couldn't work. My wife found a job, to pay the bills and feed the kids.
On her healthcare coverage, I finally got to see a doctor. It wasn't cancer. It was curable. Easily treated. But because I had waited so long for treatment, well it's five years later and I'm still struggling to recover physically.
Obamacare changes everything. I'm no longer penalized for being diagnosed with a severe illness. No more excluded preexisting conditions. No more dropped or unobtainable healthcare coverage.
No more slavery, where we have to stay in abusive jobs, mistreated and heavily overworked, because if we changed jobs we'd lose our medical coverage and face certain medical bankruptcy.
You may be comfortable playing the American version of Russian Roulette, betting your life and your future that you won't come down really sick. I'm not. It sucks. I've seen too many lives destroyed by our medical system. To many of our friends and neighbors have gambled and lost everything. I won't bet my kids' future!
You know, I just had an AIDs test done. I'm clean. I expected as much. (Sex life of a geek is not conducive to VD.) But until Obamacare, I couldn't risk taking an AIDs test. What if I had a false-positive?
So FUCK the damn Republicans! Shutdown the country. Default on the debt if we need to. But keep Obamacare!
and if they want to shut down the government then so be it, I trust they know what they're doing.
I am in the middle of a cattle watering project that is funded by a USDA grant. They would like us to get our cows out of the river and are willing to reimburse us for part of the costs. Benefits the public with clean water, benefits the total amount and quality of cattle production and allows us to afford it. Due to furlough we have a hugh hole in the field we can't fill in until it is inspected... where all the inspectors at.
These people are a tiny percentage of the republican party nee dixiecrats who are not democratically elected but elected by Gerrymandered districts where they face no competition and are only elected by the bat shit crazys in the primary and the rubber stamped by moderates in the general election who vote Republican becasue their father and grandfathers did but those forbearers would had the dixiecrat racist fucks as much as I do.
See, the trouble with your BS assertion is that it's so easy to google "7450 Affordable Care Act" and find all the articles disproving it...
Oh, and the PDF you're linking to says nothing about the cost for a family of 4. It's just talking about lower overall health spending. Are you an Astro turfer or do you just not research your sources?
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The federal government is in the dangerous territory of impressing on the average person a sense that the entire federal government is an extraneous waste of money. Putting 20% of their workers on paid leave and calling it a "shutdown" is I think disingenuous.
IMHO, I think they should expand the list of "non-essential employees" on a month by month basis until congress is pressured in to action. Then we'll have a vague idea of what aspects of the federal government are actually valued by the voting public, even if this methodology would unfairly discriminate against more long-term focused expenses such as scientific research and public health.
Of course, if you've read "The Road To Serfdom" you would be justified in your suspicion that they would lay off the most useful portions of the federal workforce preferentially in order to give the false impression that the remaining workforce must be REALLY important. Unfortunately, the process for getting to the real truth of the matter is not so simplistic and resembles something called a "democracy"(in it's ideal form), where a fixed pool of money is distributed experimentally based on merits(such as ROI & opportunity cost as an example).
Here is how it would work in theory:
-The Treasury Department is able to spend money according to revenues & not in excess. This would encourage bubbles in times of prosperity and aggravate recessions during depressed markets. In exchange for this necessary evil, the impact of the inflation tax would be minimized, & government spending would be restrained by the laws of physics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal#Mark-to-market_accounting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark-to-market_accounting#Effect_on_subprime_crisis_and_Emergency_Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_2008
-The impact of increasing or decreasing the distribution of funding to any specific government function would be evaluated based on rational qualitative criteria.
-Public officials would be selected based on ethical integrity and moral consistency, as defined primarily by the values of their constituents.
-To avoid the tyranny of the masses, influence over this process would be proportionally distributed based on two separate means of allocation:
1)For 50% of the voting rights, a simple head count would be used to distribute voting power on a regional basis. This voting power would provide even the least affluent stakeholders a say in their own destiny. Provided with a quality education, this informed, discontent, & informed electorate should be capable of preventing the formation of a plutocracy.
2)For the remaining 50% of voting rights, voting power would be distributed primarily according to financial investment. Government bondholders would be given an incentive to invest in this "Republic", feeling secure in the knowledge that their influence is adjusted for financial exposure to risk.
Although the above description follows the formula of satire, I think the reforms of congress described in 1) & 2) are at least interesting in theory. Unlike stocks, government bonds carry with them low liquidity. In theory, this inefficiency would be associated with increased incentives to make decisions based on long-term implications rather than the much shorter term quarterly earnings which drive the corporate raiders & vulture capitalism seen with stocks.
I'll punctuate my naïve libertarian pseudo-intellectualism with some (apparently misattributed?) quotes:
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dict
I thought it was "Ask Slashdot"... ?
If the shutdown is short, it's not a huge deal... but if it drags on, I wonder if her bank will defer her mortgage payments? Likely not...
Why is that likely not? Real banks do in fact do that all the time for people if you just call and explain the situation. Don't be an idiot and let the bank find out by surprise - talk to them early and ask for a deferment of some kind.
The son of a friend is a civilian helicopter mechanic attached to the base. He isn't "essential", so he's currently not working and not bringing in income.
You know what happens to people in real life when they are laid off, even if temporarily? They find another job.
Being a mechanic you'd think he could find some work pretty rapidly if he needed income badly. But possibly he has saved up, like everyone is supposed to (reserve is six months of income), and he's treating it as a break?
I don't feel sorry at all for either of your friends because by now you know what happens if you work for the government, it will shut down from time to time. My own wife works for the federal government too so it's not like I am not personally affected, but currently for her the tradeoff is worth keeping the job... but we are prepared for the shutdowns because we know at this point they will happen with some regularity. If you can't take it find a job in the private sector.
One other difference between the government and real life is that in real life the business usually just goes away, but you know the lumbering beast of the federal government will proceed, perhaps stumbling like now but it's not like the job will ever really go away. And that's why most of the people stay.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
by bringing massive amounts of money to bear on local elections. Sarah Palin is a great example of that. She had massive resources for a pretty unimportant political position.
As for the popular vote, he's referring to the fact that as a raw percentage Democrats won more vote. In a parliamentary system they would have a majority in the gov't and popularist legislation would be making it's way through the gov't process. That's pretty much why we have a Republic. It protects the interests of wealthy land owners...
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No, they'll just "quantitatively ease" the bonds out of existence and tax us all with inflation. How's that for helping the poor?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I give you the Iron Law of Wages:
"The Iron Law of Wages is a proposed law of economics that asserts that real wages always tend, in the long run, toward the minimum wage necessary to sustain the life of the worker."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Two ways:
1- Non-essential USCIS processing is halted. This means that although enforcement is still happening, all immigration cases pending on those enforcement cases as well as other immigration issues will take longer to process.. (and they are already VERY slow)
2- IRS information lines are closed, but the counter on the delinquency/back taxes/issues/etc still rolls. That means that it is difficult to find out what you need to do to remedy tax issues with the IRS since there is no way to get the information needed to actually take care of the issue.
Yeah, cause it isn't like HALF of the US lives on less then $35k a year.
This is merely a special case of the Zero Profit theorem: Competition tends to reduce economic profit to zero.
Economics has certainly earned its moniker of "the dismal science".
I'll take a paid vacation with a delay in my paycheck over being laid off any day, and that's what most people have to deal with.
Everybody needs to save up enough money to live on for 6-12 months. And if you're a government worker, you certainly can do that easily.
i have to listen to all these people with good jobs, bitch and whine about having a week or two off, with a paycheck waiting when they return, and cry because even though they all have good jobs, they apparently have never heard of savings accounts, can't pay their essential bills for a couple weeks from savings or just their usual checking account balance. don't want your job? i'll take it and work through the shutdown before getting even a first check. be thankful you have that job, don't EVER COMPLAIN about having a government job, even this time of year when congress plays.
Living within your means is not a moral question. You are either doing it, or you are not. If every month you come up short $10 or have to charge $10 to be paid back later, you are living beyond your means. Your means is whatever income you actually bring in, not what you hoped to bring in.
Obviously being furloughed, fired or laid-off is unplanned for and would likely cause anyone to live beyond their means. The problem becomes when people continue to live beyond their means with little to no plan of paying back their debts. That's where living beyond your means becomes irresponsible. We have many irresponsible people living both at home and abroad.
So yeah Sponge Bath, I don't think camperdave was implying immoral behavior, but rather irresponsible spending by adults that are failing to realize what they are actually bringing in as income.
...
This ruse is only working because people aren't aware of the subtleties of how governments are financed; particularly OURS. We're a country where just calling Obamacare the ACA increases favorability by 10% or more. And, pointing out what it actually does increases it by more than that.
Look at some of the uninformed, superficial arguments being regurgitated here "but Republicans presented 4 proposals and Obama refuses to negotiate!"
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Uhh.. living paycheck to paycheck is living within their means ..
I am surprised how many people still believe otherwise!!!
I was working happily for a large company with offices from WI to FL. I had to buy a new car due to being in the middle of a 4 car accident, got married, purchased a house after 7 months of looking which was just in time for the birth of my son. 1 month after my son was born, 2 moths after I had just bought a new house, which everyone of my superiors knew, I was laid off by the company that bought the one I worked for.
I then spent 7 months (hello start of the recession) looking for a new job in a state I had recently moved to with no contacts, no support and having just spend tends of thousands of dollars on medical bills, and a house to find myself with $0 a month in income and more and higher monthly payments than I had ever had previously.
Why don't you go fuck yourself?
Nonsense. The "average person" in the US makes more than enough money to save plenty every month. If they are living paycheck-to-paycheck, it's their own fault.
No, not "anyone, ever", just the AVERAGE person.
It's similar in the UK and Canada too - failing to pass the budget counts as a vote of no confidence in the government which triggers a general election. Having lived in the US for several years though I think the problem with their system of government is that it has not been updated in over 200 years. It started off as a brilliant, world-leading system for the late 18th century but it has so many checks and balances in it that updating it is all but impossible without an overwhelming consensus that is rarely achievable. The result is that they are left limping along with a 200+ year old governmental system that was designed when communication with the capital took days or weeks by horse.
what happens to the senators pay packets? can they be cut as well while this is happening?
The "shutdown" hasn't effected me one bit. I don't use any of the agencies that are shut down. When I worked (I retired a year ago) I worked for a computer company and the folks I worked with see no difference right now. Frankly, I wish they'd refund me some of the taxes ($20k/yr.) I paid for not their working. We should be saving money due to their not being paid. As far as I am concerned, they can shut down more stuff if it saves me money because I fund my own retirement and don't use hardly any government services. YMMV as they say.
I am currently with my fine arts gallery attending the (e)merge art fair in DC. While the shut down situation has seemed to lessen traffic around the city, and some visitors were able to attend because they received furloughs and are absent from their offices, the consensus among galleries and artists is that the psychological effects of the circumstance may have hampered sales significantly. Coming from another city with many pieces of artwork, and having paid an entry fee to participate in this annual event, sales are a primary motivator for us. To see the potential to break even on this event plausibly decreased by the shut down has been demoralizing for all of the participants. This feeling will also follow us back home to the gallery, where it will linger for weeks.
On a side note, why does it have to be anonymous coward? Sure, trolls, flamers, whatever. But so many /. posters seem to support online anonymity, and being that I may not want my post here to be associated with my employer, I do also support it in this case. Why the contradiction? Why the insult?
Actually, yes, through a quirk of the Constitution the clowns in D.C. are indeed getting paid.The 27th Amendment prohibits changes to Congressional salaries from taking effect until the next election. The original intent was to keep Congress from voting itself a raise, but according to some legal experts it means we can't stop paying them either.
Eh, if they don't raise the debt limit then the Treasury prioritizing payment of their salaries behind payment of other federal debts wouldn't technically be a change to Congressional salaries ... heck the Treasury might even choose to default only on payment of the Congressional salaries. As long as their salaries at the level established by the previous Congress are recognized as the actual level of debt incurred then any further dispositions the Treasury applies to that debt are technically compliant with the 27th Amendment.
Not that most Congress critters really give a shit whether they receive their nominal salary anymore since the majority of their compensation comes from outside sources.
Ok here is where I have an issue you stupid fuck. Wages haven't gone up in 30 years. Costs have. So go fuck yourself you terrorist.
Politics:
It is a "Poison pill" to fund a bill that had already been agreed to? I can understand budget battles and changing priorities, but this is just "nah we don't want to do that thing we agreed to anymore".
Gov't ain't softball and dirty tricks and intrigue should be expected. For once the Dems are acting like they have a pair and are playing hardball with the Repubs. That's why 'pubs are all bent out of shape.... Dems should have caved by now... but by god they are sticking to their guns. Its almost like they realized the 'pubs are in trouble or something.
Comedy:
I thought ACA had death panels, I didn't know they gave out poison pills. "Take two and call me in the morning," has a whole new meaning.
... I don't think camperdave was implying immoral behavior, but rather irresponsible spending by adults that are failing to realize what they are actually bringing in as income.
One could argue that irresponsible spending *is* immoral behaviour.
I could accept the "power of the purse" if gerrymandering didn't mean that Republicans redistrict so that they can cling to their house seats and corral democratic voters into concentrated enclaves. Certainly you can see that a healthy competition of ideas in more contested elections should yield better representatives... or do you prefer the current batch of loons elected to the House. (so long as they are your loon, right.)
Maybe them Democrats will figure out to save a bunch of money and push really hard to win state elections on reapportionment years. ... so that they can pull the same crap...... not sure how I feel about that.
That surplus had nothing to do with either Clinton or Gingrich (even though both like to take credit for it.) That surplus was entirely the result of excess tax revenue resulting from a bubbled economy. There never was a true surplus that could have lasted, as soon as the bubble popped it was going to become a deficit no matter what. The stupid thing is that both of them added more entitlements while we had that surplus under the foolish assumption that it would last forever. Well guess what, now we have an even bigger deficit than we had before. That deficit that we have today can be partially attributed to both Clinton and Gingrich.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
While we are at it lets remove unemployment insurance. Idiots who get laid off should have saved.
Lets also do away with all forms of insurance. Get into a car accident? its your own damn fault, you should have saved enough to cover any damage or medical expenses. Health insurance? Just exercise and eat right. No more mooching off of others' pooled premiums, thats akin to communism.
Oh, good. Another all or nothing, black and white argument. I love those.
Is there no one who could cut back on consumption and stockpile a month of savings? No one who is at the minimum and could not cut back? It has to be one or the other, or you both sound like window licking fools, so which is it?
Average is an ambiguous term. Typical is more like it.
The unemployment forms I fill out want to know if, and how much, I was paid, not how many hrs I worked.
I used to run a lab at a government R&D facility. In January, when the sequester hit, we were told by political appointees to make things "as painful as possible." My lab had played well for a delegation of congressmen who had come through the year before, so we were cut. I still had my salary, but my lab would be off-limits until the sequester was reversed. There are plenty of people who would be happy to twiddle their thumbs for a few years, but those aren't the kind of people who do high level science. Half my team quit the government by March. I quit too, got another job, moved my family, sold my house and learned a bitter lesson about government service.
There are games being played by everyone here. I was a fan of Obama, and had voted for him, but after sacrificing my career as a poltical setpiece, I wouldn't shake the guy's hand. Rationally, I don't see the benefit to what the Republicans are doing, but emotionally, I am 100% on board with the idea that the whole thing needs to be torn down. The whole thing is a mess.
Guess I have to go hungry for the next few weeks just so I can live within my means, can't cut anything else.... Guess I am down to just Ramen noodles and multivitamins for a while.... Sucks too cause that generic cereal wasn't that bad.....
Or I can get a better job, I hear crack dealers make good money nowadays since the other options are virtually nil......
Sorry, but if you think the average person doesn't have savings due to poor choices, you have been living under a rock for the past decade or so.
Same for "typical". Anybody near the center of the income distribution or above, i.e., the great majority of Americans, has no reason to live month-to-month. If they do, it's because of poor financial planning.
It seems to me that Republicans overlook many aspects of the health care plan being enacted are design features created in response to Republican criticisms.
The system that is being enacted is not single payer, it doesn't end the business deductibility of health insurance for employees, it is not a socialistic giveaway, it isn't a state system like Canada or Britain. All of these "isn'ts" reflect decades of Republican and political conservative editorializing and theory spinning.
The fact is that health care expenses have been destroying American families for decades and this proposal is going to slow down the destruction of American families by medical bills.
What I would like to see is Republicans start paying attention to the two big individual American problems. Your average American is in debt most of his or her adult life and your average American is a petroleum slave obligated to burn typically 1 or 2 gallons of gasoline per day to get to work to make payments on his or her debt. There is plenty of room for changing the economic rules of the game away from debt and the commuter rat race.
In short, a Republican that works for the benefit of the common man exists. Health care has arrived. Time for Republicans to move on.
Why can't the government be shut down all the time? I love it. I'm happy all the time now. It's as if I'm taking huge doses of oxycodone or something. Anarchy is awesome! I never thought anything could make me so happy. It's like being in love. Up on cloud 9 all the time.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Funny - I thought Plessy v. Ferguson was settled Constitutional law. Oh, wait - later generations decided it was not? Wow - I guess Supreme Court Justices CAN be wrong, huh? Or are you one of those people who think the argument is settled once and for all?
Nah, let's just condemn you for making such a bullshit strawman. The discussion was about the AVERAGE person. If in a society the AVERAGE person cannot manage to live within their means, then that society is fucked. That's not a moral judgment but just a simple fact.
Ah man, now I want to see Boehner give an address on the steps of the Capitol holding a sawed-off shotgun...
I know this will sound terrible, but I felt a frisson of delight at that image. I don't know about Boehner; Any honest Congressman giving an address on the steps of the Capitol while holding a (fully intact) shotgun, saying something genuinely constructive... yes, that would make me very happy.
tempus fugit
You believe that the GOP represents an "unhinged minority"? I don't think that is true. Or rather, I think that there are many, maybe even the majority, who aren't well represented by either party. The current Democrat regime is all about deregulation, privatization, anti-labor and ceding wealth to Wall Street. By "Wall Street", I don't refer to the financial sector. Consumer finance, life insurance, small business banking, accountants and actuaries do productive work and contribute positively to the economy. Most of Wall Street isn't even Wall Street any longer, just a few massive investment banks, private equity partnerships, hedge funds and Carl Icahn-types. All of Obama's second term cabinet members are scions of very wealthy families, his ambassadorial appointments were chosen from financiers who were major campaign contributors, with zero diplomatic experience. It wasn't like this in 2008, but it is now. They call themselves Democrats, but they are more venal and corrupt, in terms of (selectively) favoring big business and other special interests than we've had in a long time.
The GOP has not offered an appealing alternative, though they would be wise to try.
One could just as easily say, "If the Democrat Party wins, then American democracy loses". Everyone loses if we have one-party rule.
tempus fugit
In Australia we have a section of our constitution which would prevent this kind of stunt. Basically any bills dealing with matters of financing the government can ONLY cover matters of financing the government. The house wouldn't be able to hold the government to ransom as bills adding some weird condition to continuing to operate the government wouldn't legally even get through the house.
The only way this financial situation would lead to a double dissolution would be if the government of the day was actually suicidal, in which case they could just call an election and save everyone the heartache of rejecting a bill twice.
You also forgot one important note. Since all seats are open the requirement to win a seat is different from a normal election and as such a double dissolution changes power in more places at once than a normal election. This helps ensure we don't end up with the same people causing the mess getting voted in again, though that has happened in the past.
...that any country can tolerate such a blatantly corrupt, undemocratic, and totally dysfunctional political system. I'm just glad I'm not an American.
Tell me again how living, paying bills, eating, paying a mortgage, from paycheck to paycheck isn't exactly the definition of living within their means? Isn't that kind of the definition, and people who aren't living within their means are accumulating debt rather than repaying it?
Also tell me again how someone suddenly cut off from their only source of income shouldn't expect their life to be jolted around. Anyone sitting on that amount of cash should really consider investing it somewhere.
Knowing the game and what quarter we currenty in will provide insight on the future required moves.
We are currently in the game of choosing sides. The deadline is the 18th or 17th. We have until then to divide the public into credit is income, and we spent too much already and we can't afford another entitlement. Because the public knows so little about the borrowing of money by the government (payments need to be made.. no problem just borrow more to make the payments until our entire income goes to makeing payments with no other payments being made. Someday that train will wreck. Oh, back on topic.. The game plan,
The other side's plan is shutting down the government. You public need to get educated and join our side or the conquences will be dire. This posturing will run until default at the earliest, maybe later. This is a race to place more canidates of party X or Y in the house and senate at the next election. Nobody can agree on anything until then.
I'll check for updates on the 19th. Wake me up then.
In the meantime, the play by play is a news reporters dream. 2 solid weeks of political drama.
I'll tell you guys (our American /. contributors) how the budget crunch is affecting me. My ears are hurting because of the legions of Americans arguing about who is right and who is wrong about Obamacare. It's a healthcare bill for god's sake, it has been voted on, Republicans ran on a platform of getting the law repealed and failed to get a majority. The people have spoken and the Teabaggers in particular should get over that fact. Obamacare is not the end of American civilization as we know it, however, failing to make reforms, failing to make cuts in entitlements and cutting down the gross overspending on the military that has been going on in the USA will be a big body-blow to American civilization if the USA defaults 15-20 years down the line. I wish you guys would just stop acting like 4 year olds in a sandbox and look up the word 'compromise' in the Oxford English dictionary.
> If the taxpayer is on the hook for their salaries, they should be doing their jobs.
Any employer, government or not, who wants you in work needs to pay as agreed and on time.
As a researcher in mathematics, I am fortunate to have a great position and supportive research environment. I still get a paycheck and my day-to-day life continues more-or-less the same, but there are a number of thoughtless consequences indirectly for me, mainly due to the National Science Foundation being currently unfunded. My NSF grant money was delivered some time ago to my grants office and I can spend money as usual for my postdocs and students, so it isn't affecting me there directly. Instead, we have the following consequences:
To my mind, these are a big disruption. For people in the lab sciences whose funding is disrupted, projects that have been ongoing or building up can be seriously affected. For people whose funding record will have a big role in their hiring, tenure, and promotion situation, this is a huge stress-inducing situation.
Blegh. This is a completely unnecessary disruption to thousands of scientists and researchers. Science research funding in the US has always been a pain, even when things go smoothly. Excellent researchers have left for Europe over the years due to frustrations with the NSF system, and things like this will exacerbate that problem.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grant system is even larger scale and is also totally on hold, with consequent disruptions. And with the life sciences, uncertainty in projects can be more problematic as it is often harder to put things on hold. I feel sorry for people whose funding needs to be renewed, is under consideration, or needs adjustment now as this is a huge hassle.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
Well, then the AVERAGE person should cut back so they can live within their means, or get a better job.
Simple as that is it? Fuck off.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Hmm, you'd think the banks would give them very cheap loans in the mean time, they do trust the government is going to pay eventually, don't they?
NASA's website shut down, so, I couldn't study well for my Astronomy test. Really, I could make it with some other websites, but NASA is always the most informative.
The teabaggers are right insofar as America does have to get rid of the structural deficit.
What is also clear is that there will be dead bodies of the poor in the streets if anyone lets them supervise the job. Because for some reason their political ideology is mostly built around the idea that there are two kinds of people in the world - people like us and those other people in our country that we hate and would exterminate if no one was looking.
There in a nutshell is the dilemma that America faces from the perspective of the UK.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
I'll go for the middle option and be a widow licking fool please.
We didn't even realize there had been a shutdown until several days later when I read about it in a few days old newspaper. Apparently the federal government doesn't provide any essential services.
What is interesting is there are 800,000 non-essential workers laid off. This tells us where the fat could be trimmed. Half those jobs? 3/4's? All of them? Time to trim.
All the feds I know (I'm not one) are optimistic about the backpay bill that passed the House will pass the Senate. When it does, it just means vacation for them, although none of them are living paycheck to paycheck, which would be an issue as they still won't get paid until Congress passes a budget. As to me personally, I think state beaches were a little more crowded, although it could be the really great weather we had this weekend. If its windy, its nice to go out to one of the little used national seashores to fly trick kites, but that's just a minor inconvenience.
I read an interesting test to see if you are part of the productive economy or not. Just ask if Anyone would pay you for your job if the government didn't require it. Example: Accountant: Yes. Tax Accountant: No. Defense Contractor: Yes ( a proper function of government without which you will soon be part of a different country) Secretary of Health: No
Am I affected? Not in the least. Although I do have to spare a sentence to ridicule spending money to take down web sites that would run perfectly well for weeks, if not years, had they just been left alone. But I work neither in a valid branch of government nor an invalid encroachment on freedoms and rights. I long ago passed the income level where I receive anything of value from the government and am now firmly part of the group paying for the group that is living off public handouts.
Far from hoping for a solution, or even being a disinterested observer, if it were up to me I would cut 90% of what the government does, put the displaced 10 million workers into productive jobs and get the country back on its feet.
PS There is absolutely not the slightest passing possibility that this will happen until after the hyperinflation and systemic collapse of the western world. With every passing trillion dollars the solution becomes more painful. But arithmetic will ultimately put an end to what we lack the political vision to fix (no so called "soft landing" for us). THEN people will have something real about which to complain.
Me: Been trying to get public knowledge radio frequency clasification data from the FCC website and cannot: website is down. I've had to infer from other sites the data I am looking for regarding the clasifications my employer requires for certain satellite communications. Net impact: Half a day's work.
My Girlfriend: She's a medical researcher and many of the sites which her university has subscriptions to for accessing acedemic literature are turned off. The affected branch of her research is on hold unitl they find other ways to source what they need. Net Impact: Massive - they might have to alter their study to work around this issue, but are investing substantial time to find alternate sources for the papers and articles they need.
My question: Is this just a giant PR stunt to rattle faith in government? I mean the web servers are on, so somebody is paying the electric bill. Seems to me they are just being dicks by deciding not to dish any of the content out.
It is a failing if, by and large, they haven't managed to set aside one month's income in savings.
I'm embarrassed about the reputation federal workers are getting from this shutdown.
Someone in my family works for the IRS. Her pay is not great to begin with and she is a single parent. I'd have thought that the revenue-generating function of the IRS meant they'd keep them working, but she's been furloughed along with the rest. Not sure how she's going to make it.
The shutdown isn't hurting very many people, but Mr. Obama and his 35++ czars that he appointed are going out of their way to interfere with our lives. The so called, shutdown is why agents are working for the first time to block entrance into national waters in Florida. I never had a problem in all of my 50+ years taking a boat out but now the Jungle Bunny Patrols are like SWAT teams searching out and stopping anyone from coming near the water. :(
What a sick people Democrats are.
We moved to the metro D.C. area last year (small town in Maryland, not far from Rockville or Bethesda). I took a private sector job doing I.T. support, and my wife eventually found a job as a govt. contractor.
The "shutdown" means her pay situation is uncertain. Her contractor promised they'd receive the next couple paychecks but no details after that. (She's caught in sort of a grey area too, because she's doing work for one of the places the Federal govt. has decided is actually doing "essential" work, yet her particular office/building isn't directly involved with the essential part of what they do. So we simply don't know if she'll be out of work or not, yet.)
If you want my opinion (and one i believe my wife shares)? The Federal govt. is massively bloated, inefficient and spending WAY too much money for too little in the way of useful results. As she says her own job illustrates every day -- the primary reason govt. has "over 800,000 contractors" they're furloughing right now is because they've hired useless, inept people as EMPLOYEES for so long, they need the contractors to do the work their regular staff isn't able or willing to do!
IMO, this is intentional because Federal govt. feels a need to keep the unemployment figures as low as possible, to give the illusion that our economy is on more solid footing than it really is. By hiring people who are otherwise unemployable (due to poor social skills, laziness, lack of education, plenty of formal education but no common sense, etc.) -- they keep people from becoming unemployment statistics and as a bonus, from increasing the numbers collecting from govt. assistance programs (another measuring stick of economic health).
There's a strong "entitlement culture" that's developed in the D.C. area as a result. The govt. workers become "lifers" who can't fathom life without a govt. issued paycheck (since frankly, they're not competitive as hires in the private sector), and by and large, their pay is pretty good. The twisted thing is, the entire market is priced around these govt. wages too. As a result, you find that when private sector businesses open a presence in the D.C. area, paying the same wages they pay elsewhere in the U.S., they're too low to maintain a decent lifestyle here. (Govt. workers typically receive "perks" that private sector businesses can't or won't match, such as compensation for the cost of using public transportation to get to/from the job every day.)
If they're still shut down April 15th, do I still have to...? Seriously, I haven't noticed a thing. I've always maintained 80% of what the federal government does, no sane person would want them to. What people WILL notice, come April 15th, is the fines for failure to hand over your soul to some insurance company. Once people start having to pay that, it'll all hit the fan and they'll have to eliminate that provision - effectively defunding Obamacare anyway. Smarter to get it out of the way now, before too much time and money are spent building the bureaucracy of a program that HAS to go away at some point, regardless.
Well, then the AVERAGE person should cut back so they can live within their means, or get a better job.
First of all, we should be thinking median income rather than average. On average, you and I and Bill Gates never have to work another day in our lives.
The median household income in the US is about $29,000. Suppose you're a family of four with that median income, and you live in a relatively cheap urban neighborhood. You're probably paying $1400/month (average in Mattapan, Boston's cheapest neighborhood) in rent and $1000/mo (average for US family of four). That leaves you a grand total of $16/month for things like clothing and transportation. So you economize. You live in the worst slum in the worst neighborhood and save $200/mo there. You cut down on your food purchases and save maybe another $200. You deduct utilities, clothing, transport, and the conclusion is that the "average" American is living pretty close to paycheck to paycheck.
Of course the average federal employee is doing considerably better, with a median salary of $74,000. But going with out pay for a month would be a major hardship for a lot of those workers who fall beneath the median line -- the janitors, groundskeepers and maintenance guys at the bottom of the pay scale. A lot of these guys are "non-essential", and if the shutdown goes for more than a few weeks they'll be hurting.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It kind of depends on who you mean by "poor." Young, middle-class low-net-worth folks would actually benefit from inflation (assuming their salary keeps up) because it would deflate their fixed-interest-rate debt (e.g. mortgages and student loans).
Genuinely poor folks get screwed of course, because their debt is variable-interest-rate revolving and their housing costs increase with inflation.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No, the tea partiers are wrong because they (hypocritically) claim to want to get rid of the deficit while being almost entirely willing to actually do what's necessary (namely, drastically cut Medicare, Social Security and the military while leaving important stuff like national parks, NASA and the CDC funded) to accomplish it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Obama-care is nothing but a big handout to the insurance companies that does nothing to lower the high cost of health care. That being said, it is currently the law and republicans acting like terrorists by holding the country hostage is not the solution. We need to look at the motives of the republicans. Remember, politicians NEVER have your best interests at heart. Only the special interests that pay them bribe money, oh excuse me "campaign contributions", have their attention. So who profits by having the government shut down? It is certainly not the American people.
It's time that people woke up and smelled the corruption. Vote the bums out. More than a month till your next election? RECALL the assholes. Vote some new blood in that is not so deeply entrenched into the system that they will actually listen to you for a few months.
What does the shutdown mean to you, in practical terms, whether the effects are good, bad, or indifferent?
I don't work for the government, yet the republicans are affecting my business directly. I work in the food industry and without USDA operating I'm effectively shut down as well. I haven't been laid off yet, but it will come if things don't get resolved soon.
real wages always tend, in the long run, toward the minimum wage necessary to sustain the life of the worker
Though what constitutes "sustaining life" has significantly increased over time. When the "law" was first proposed, it really meant the wage necessary to prevent starvation and/or death from exposure. Our definition of poverty is much more generous today, and I fully expect it will continue to rise. In the west it may take a short-term hit as wealth levels equalize across the globe, however.
It's also worth pointing out that the Iron Law of Wages is not really accepted by modern economists as even a strong tendency, much less an iron law.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Actually they do have the votes to take ACA out of the continuing resolution,... the problem is the Senate won't pass such a continuing resolution.
Then why won't Boner bring the CR to the floor that the Senate passed back to him? If the House passed it and the Senate didn't, it'd be a GOP win all the way.
"Of course, I would fucking hope the average person has saved enough money to cover one month's worth of expenses just for an emergency." ROFL. You seem to be seriously out of touch with "average". The AVERAGE person lives paycheck to paycheck and can't pay every bill every month, the AVERAGE person knows how far behind you have to be with company x before they shut off service.
Well, then the AVERAGE person should cut back so they can live within their means, or get a better job.
...but, but you're being mean. The government doesn't do that so why should I?
I assume you meant unwilling?
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
And tire rotation...
=)
Sorry, but if you look at the differences in inflation adjusted spending and tax revenues for the last 30 years or so it's pretty obvious that while federal revenue has grown over time, federal spending has just grown much faster. It's pretty hard to make an argument that any sort of tax cut is the reason for spending having gone up so much.
Revenue generally tracks the economy, while spending just goes up and up. That's the problem causing huge deficits. The government will have to get spending under control (which flattened a little in the last "shutdown"s in 94-95) in order to stop adding to the debt constantly. It won't even take much, just a reduction in the increase in spending would balance the budget over the long run.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
I work at a small biotech. The govt shutdown is becoming a problem for us, and I suspect that all similar firms will be feeling our pain also. I am a foreigner (or alien as Americans call us for some reason), along with most of the management of our company. We selected the US over European and Asian options for a base for a number of reasons, which are now partly eroded from this crisis. During the shutdown, the FDA, which is crucial for us, is mostly furloughed, pushing product clearances and therefore revenue further away from us, while our cash burn remains the same. Also, key employees coming from overseas are now on the payroll, unable to come over until immigration goes back to work. Our company, like countless other tech companies rely on regulatory bodies to function efficiently and to import talent when needed. Cut off supply to both of these, even for a few weeks and the US suddenly feels like not such a great place to do business, especially for innovative small companies that help to drive the US tech sector, these blocks can be fatal. This is compounded by the general feeling that this may happen in the future and the looming debt ceiling. So far mostly fact, here's the opinion: This crisis projects to the world the message that the USA is a dangerous place for innovation. You may not be able to bring in the talent you need, you may have to throw away piles of cash while waiting for the regulators to go back to work. And you can't even visit a national park while you wait. This week we started the process of moving many of the business assets to Europe, with a view to setting up over there as our base. Not just because of the govt shut-down, but it did play a part of the decision. So yes, we're taking most of our talent and $x millions investments (which we brought into the US and have been spending here) and going where we can do business. This will hurt downstream US contractors. And we're just one company, I'm certain that many others are now actively considering their options. The press in the US rightly reports the immediate effect on workers, but the longer term damage to the innovation sector and US reputation isn't even mentioned, but may ultimately have a greater negative effect on the long-term economy. It would be wise for the US, after overcoming this crisis, to invest some time in implementing changes to prevent this in the future. I'm no constitutional expert, but the fact that almost every other country on the planet manages to avoid such shutdowns, suggests that there is plenty of material and experience to draw from.
I work for a BPO that does a bit of government contracting and because of the shutdown I can't get a security clearance. Which means I actually do less work and don't have to drive to the crappier office across town.
Cause there are many laws, including one to restore right to keep and bear arms. That are not implemented because they've been defunded.
Happens all the time. Oh guess what, this process is part of the LAW. So it's all according to the LAW>
You will buy insurance, or be fined - up to thousands. You're going to be taxed 28% if you have good insurance. We passed this through a procedural hack where we create a law, pass it, then change it entirely and send back to the House. Then reconcile the bill. So that we don't need as many votes to pass it. And we did this essentially with a 50+1 majority.
Oh crap, it was so bad, we lost the House (commons), which controls the purse. They're using a procedural act to defund the legislation. Heck, they're not even trying to eradicate the whole thing. Just a few elements. And delay some things. (What's the big deal about delay, many elements don't go into effect until 2016 (after the President leaves office).
So nice to pass legislation that won't cause problems until you're OUT OF OFFICE.
My wife does not work for the federal government, she is manager of a county wide organization. Her office, however is maintained by the department of Agriculture so neither she nor any of her non federal co-workers can work, or get paid since getting paid depends on using federal computers that are now off limits. The shutdown has MUCH wider effects than many, especially in the press, seem to understand. The ripple effects through the economy as all those people stay home, don't eat in restaurants, limit their shopping to necessities, etc. probably multiply that by 2 again. The morons in the extreme wing of the Republican party have instantly added another 2-3 million to the unemployment rolls, even if it is (nominally) temporary. In a reasonable world they'd be voted out, with gerrymandered districts and billionaire backers they will comfortably cruise to re-election even if their constituents hate them.
Because it does not have the support of the majority of the Republicans in the House. The CR which the Senate passed includes funding for the ACA. I did not say that the Democrats did not have the votes to pass a CR with funding for the ACA. I said that the Republicans had the votes to take funding for ACA out of the budget. That means they currently have the votes to prevent the passage of any CR that allows the implementation of the ACA to be funded. They have even passed several bills to fund portions of the government that are non-controversial (National Park Service, NIH, Veterans Affairs) but the Senate has refused to vote on those because it is more important to the Democrats to fund the ACA than that these other portions of the government keep functioning.
One of the things which John Boehner promised in order to get the votes to be re-elected Speaker of the House was that he would not bring up for a vote any legislation that did not have the support of the majority of Republican representatives in the House. The CR passed by the Senate does not have the support of the majority of Republicans in the House. The fact of the matter is that what is going on right now is going on exactly as the framers of the Constitution intended.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
>Honestly, the most this whole mess has affected me, a college professor at a state university, is to fill my head with thoughts of taking my bare hands and strangle the life out of some of these yahoos in Washington...These people have nothing but pure disdain for the commoners and the poors and do not care that they are playing roulette, since all chambers are loaded and the gun is not pointing at them.
Ummm, what? What about you? Do you feel entitled to the money for your "research"? Have you ever tried to create your own business, and get off the Federal teat, which is funded by taxpayers ("the commoners")?
So during this time of Federal Shutdown (which has occurred 15 times since 1976 while DEMOCRATS were in charge of the House), please take this time
(1) to BE THANKFUL for the taxpayers that they have funded you THIS FAR (I haven't heard you say "Thank you" yet, and you don't seem humble or grateful at all for what you have received.)
(2) to seek ALTERNATIVE funding for your research (crowdsource/wait tables/street music/strip club/monetize your past research)
(3) to ENCOURAGE YOUR STUDENTS to go into the private sector, so that they will be taxpayers to fund research in the future; currently, we don't have enough in the private sector. (Do you teach students at all, or just perform research?)
Please do reveal in your reply
(1) how much total money you have received from the Federal government in your career
(2) how much money your lab currently gets
(3) how lab money budget is distributed (percentage-wise) across equipment, overhead, lawyer fee's, associated researchers, assistant researchers, graduate students, and undergraduate students.
I repeatedly see a misconception being repeatedly. How can a minority party hold the whole government hostage. I believe that most foreignors are unfamiliar with the structure of the U.S. government. We do NOT have a parlimentary style government. Much of the world has a parliment where the controlling party (or coalition) appoints the President/Premier, etc. Thus corresponding to the majority party.
The U.S. is rather different. We have the President, Senate and House of Representitives. And these loosely correspond to Prime Minister, House of Lords and House of Commons. However, in the U.S. the President does not have to come from the majority party. And at present, the House of Representatives (which most closely corresponds to the House of Commons) is held by the Republicans. This means that in the U.S., the Republicans are the closest to the majority party.
The President is a Democrat, and the Senate is essentially Democrat controlled.
President = Democrat
Senate = 55 Democrats/45 Republicans
House = 232 Republicans / 200 Democrats
In the House, the Republicans are the MAJORITY party. And if you base majority traditionally on who controls the "common house" of a government. The Republicans ARE the majority party. In the U.S., sole budgetary discretion lies with the House of Representatives. (Though some parlimentary tricks exist to side-step this, and in fact, that was how it was first passed.)
In fact, guess what the original name of Obamacare was? "Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009", that is the bill that was passed. Then changed into Obamacare via a parlimentary trick.
At the time, the Democrats controlled the House 257 members to Republicans 178, a 79 member advantage. Following the passing of Obamacare, which upset a very large chunk of the American populace, the Democrats lost control of the House. The following term the balance of control was 193 Democrats to 242 Republicans, a 49 member advantage in favor of the Republicans.
Note, this was a shift of 129 seats in a body of 435. Literally 1/3 of the seats switched from Democrats to Republicans over the issue of the passage of Obamacare. That's a pretty huge, 30% shift. That's essentially a mandate. So the Republicans are now doing EXACTLY what they were elected to do.
Something to keep in mind. Is that one of the major issues with Obamacare was that it was passed when the Democrats had control of both houses and the presidency. The result is, that they did not compromise, they railroaded it through. And even then they had to use a parlimentary trick to get it passed.
So is it any wonder that it is causing problems today. Especially, as the Democrats have refused to cut spending and engage in any activity to work toward balancing the budget. Thus endangering the entire global economy.
How would you feel if the Democrats declared that the 2nd amendment is repealed, all workers must be unionized, and income in excess of $250k will be taxed at 95%, or else they'll force the country to default and plunge the world into a depression? Would you think the Republicans should agree to that deal? Would you say "the ball's in their court"?
If an election was held with these issues and the party in favour of these issues got elected on that platform, then in a democracy the deal should be agreed to.
Apparently the Tea Party is giving interviews saying that the USA is a Republic, and not a Democracy. http://www.scwteaparty.com/ConstRepublic.html
Maybe the rest of the world should ask the UN for a resolution and a mandate to invade the USA and restore democracy, because of the grave security threats the current regime poses to the whole world. ;)
Great. Problem's solved. The deficit has significantly decreased in the past two years. Hell, it's down 35% since last year. Yay. Problem solved.
--AC
Unless interest rates spike, then the U.S. will have a hard time covering that debt and that will cause the deficit to spike.
Whoops! Yes, I meant "unwilling." Thanks!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I can't get my goddamn home purchase closed because nobody's home at the USDA. Then again, looking at the hundreds of thousands of employees out of work, I feel like my problems are minimal. Nothing good can come of this.
It's earned the "dismal" part, but I'm not so sure about the "science."
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
More reasonably, it means that the average person isn't paid enough.
Of course you obviously have enough otherwise you wouldn't be complaining, so you're just another case of "I got mine sucks to be you."
And before you spout off with your "hard earned money" diatribe, consider that if you have enough money to take a month without pay there are plenty of people out there who will take your job and do it for less.
So, go ahead, boast. Let's here it.
My Husband is a contractor with the US Navy. He is retired Navy after 20 years of service to his country. He was laid off last week due to the government shut down. Thank you very much Boehner. Unlike a DoD employee, my Husband will not be rehired, and he will not receive any back pay. We are simply ''downsized". I am disabled, but I am investigating retraining options.
Fact:
The SURPLUS was this:
We spent $100 on program X last year - that we borrowed some amount to support. We have a budgeted increase of 10% for next year - that required borrowing. In that next year, we only spent $105. Therefore, we have a surplus of $5.
No, we don't. We still spent money we didn't have, all we did was not spend money we never had in the first place.
The surplus only existed on paper. We were still running the country at a deficit.
Obama continues this bold faced lie. When he doesn't spend 100 million on something, he declares we saved 100 million.
If you don't understand government accounting "encumbrance accounting" then please don't display your lack of knowledge by making such absurd claims. What you're saying is that today, you didn't borrow $50,000 to buy a new car you couldn't afford, so you saved $50,000. No, you did not.
Murphy was an optimist
Having zero margin for error because you unrealistically expected nothing to go wrong ever means that you are guaranteed to be in the "accumulating debt" category sooner or later. So no, living paycheck-to-paycheck is not living within your means, in the same way that water in a cup filled to the brim is no longer "within" the cup when the cup gets bumped and sloshes it over the edge.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No it's not, because (a) their "means" includes not only the flush times, but the lean times as well, and (b) "within" does not mean "on the edge".
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It makes perfect sense that the President can't spend more than Congress budgets, but how is he prohibited from spending less?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Yes, I was referring tot he genuinely poor, whose minimum wage or near-minimum wage salaries do not keep up with inflation. They also are more sensitive to increases in things like food, energy, and housing prices. A yuppie can get a crappier car or a smaller apartment . A yuppie can buy store brands. A poor person - if they have a car - already have the crappiest car they can get away with using. A poor person already is living in a crap apartment (or public housing). A poor person is probably on food stamps and is already economizing on food.
Now, I'm not a Ron Paul anti-fed type, mind you. Inflation can be good - for instance, sometimes salaries "need" to go down, but they don't because people don't take kindly to that. Inflation is a way to reduce salaries without superficially reducing them. But doing this to minimum wage people kind of subverts the point of minimum wage in the first place - it probably should be tied to inflation. Inflation can also be good because it means we aren't having deflation. Deflation is a serious problem.... why would I spend any of my money when it is going to be worth more tomorrow? That said, printing money should be limited to controlling inflation/deflation, not for getting out of debt.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
So, this points out how bad the Polling methodologies can be yes, but it still does not answer the true opinion of the people - for example, when they were told of the 'ACA' were they at the same time told fully of the implementation details of the law, such as how there is a mandate forcing them to buy insurance or pay a penalty? Or were they simply told 'the Affordable Care Act' without damning details? All this reveals, to anyone who thinks, is how much Polls are perverted by the various political partisans
I am A non government employee at a VA hospital and support traumatic brain injury research on Veterans I've already been sequestered for 8 hours per week since March, 2013. Well guess what? I'm getting furloughed again, and since it's only a total of 20 hours per week, and I am still paid through another source for the other 20 hours I work, I am effectively at half time and get no UI or compensation. And now the TBI patients don't get the treatment they were getting.
No effect whatsoever. Fun to watch though, so that's entertaining.
If they are making an average salary (ie, median), then yeah, once they get their spending under control, they will be fine.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
nasa-tv is down.I'm sure the downlinks from the ISS are operational, they just blanked the ustream.
Other than that, it has not affected me. (My country is even worse when it comes to budgeting)
So... blame it on Bush, again? What relevance does that have? Even if he personally tanked the economy, is this to be an excuse for the entire failure of the various Congresses and the President over the last 5 years?
There was no surplus. The social security contributions were counted in the general fund, which is either correct (which means the "trust fund" is a lie) or incorrect (which means we did not have a surplus and Clinton lied... again).
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I wish the sick republ-ie-con shut down stunt would have furloughed the entire fascist government death machine industry, but all it did was shut down NASA. Of course, the Affordable Care Act is completely self funded and completely unaffected by the shutdown, which just once again demonstrates the vicious stupidity and treason of the rabid teabagger terrorist attack dogs that are trying to destroy America.
As such, my needs and concerns are perhaps somewhat less immediate than someone who, say, doesn't have enough money to eat. However, this does affect me in the long run, since a lot of important agencies are functioning at a vastly reduced capacity:
* With the EPA not running, it's more likely that carcinogens and other dangerous pollutants will enter the air and ground water, which in the long run increase my chances of getting sick, including with life-threatening conditions such as many types of cancer.
* With the NIH currently unfunded, should I happen to come down with cancer or some other disease at a later time, research that might save my life might not be as far along.
* With the CDC currently unfunded, I have a greater chance of catching an infectious disease due to a lack of monitoring and control that might otherwise catch things before they become a problem.
* With the FDA unfunded, companies will be more likely to slip by with selling contaminated food, again increasing the risk of illness.
* With people not receiving food assistance, some people who can't afford to eat might become desperate and resort to crime. This could increase my chances of being a victim of mugging or robbery.
* My tax dollars for the duration of the shutdown are wasted, because it's unfair to *force* these federal employees to take time off without pay when, like the members of the house of representatives who are the cause of this shutdown, have mouths to feed and bills to pay.
Of course, the chances of being personally affected by any of these things are fairly low, provided the duration of the government shutdown is limited. If I *am* affected by these things, the chances of being able to *definitively* say it was due to the government shutdown are basically nil. On the other hand, these things do have a real effect on people, even people who believe themselves to be entirely self-made and independent. The trouble with these things is that in the short term they're easy to ignore, which people who believe that Government Is A Homogeneous Evil Fluid And There's No Such Thing As Good Government Only Bad Government seem to conflate with it being bad or unnecessary.
I am a member of the Army Reserve. Since the shutdown we are not conducting our usual once a month drill. While this does not personally cause me financial distress, many of the Soldiers in my unit are like your average American living pay check to pay check. It definitely hurts them and their families when a (normally) reliable part of their income is suddenly taken away. Some of those same Soldiers have outstanding pay owed to them that they currently cannot get resolved because civilian workers who handle pay issues are furloughed. The Reserve Components (including the National Guard) make up 2/3 of the nation's military manpower. So while Congress pats itself on the back for managing to fund active duty service members' salaries and continue to play their political game, the rest of us suffer. We have been asked to fight and bleed just as much as our Active Component counterparts, yet like so many other Americans feeling the ripple effects of this pointless shutdown, we have been forgotten.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. -- Mussolini
If you are living paycheck to paycheck, you are living in both flush and lean times. Paycheck to paycheck does not mean on the edge... Seriously....
The fact of the matter is that what is going on right now is going on exactly as the framers of the Constitution intended.
Yeah, right. You know the intent of the framers; just like everyone else thinks they know. I don't believe the framers intended for this majority of the majority nonsense.
Thank you for asking.
Trillions of dollars in debt, with an aging out of work population, near retirement age.
The US doesn't need to borrow money.
I have been planning on retirement for a longtime, but have my plans derailed by underemployment.
Now making 7k instead of 70k. working 90 hours instead of 40.
Without healthcare.
I have been planning a new budget for myself to live on the retirement assets I now have.
And they don't include borrowing money, or buying anything that has to be licensed or taxed.
nomadic, gypsy, solar, boondocking, tiny house, here are your google search starters
cut expenses, balance your budget, do things that have payback.
the government regulates the economy, jobs paid for by borrowed money are expenses.
The framers of the Constitution intended that if one group of people (in this case the leaders of the Democratic Party) managed to force a change to the government with strong opposition from a large percentage of the populace, the House of Representatives would be able to stop the change from going into effect by denying funding to implement the change.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Still had to pay out 25% of my paycheck today. Not sure why... The government is shut down!!!
Are you serious? Do you realize that not everyone will receive back pay during this time?
You honestly see this as a vacation? Tell you what... Why don't you take all of your paychecks during this time period and send them to a charity. Because for non-essential personnel that's pretty much what's happened to them in the past and what will probably happen to them when this is over. Oh, and those same people you see as having a vacation were already not being paid for a few days a week before this whole thing started because of the budget issues.
But the majority of the ones I see apparently don't care about those affected. As a Disabled American Veteran I am appalled that I gave my time and efforts for people like that.
Yes I'm affected by this, I will survive because I have a good job but I'll be loosing 1/3rd of my monthly income if this continues to the end of the month. Think about all of the disabled Veterans who will be struggling to survive because they rely on that income. The same Veterans that gave of themselves so that you can complain on this forum.
The framers of the Constitution intended that if one group of people (in this case the leaders of the Democratic Party) managed to force a change to the government with strong opposition from a large percentage of the populace, the House of Representatives would be able to stop the change from going into effect by denying funding to implement the change.
Even if you assertion (regarding the Framers) were true, the "strong opposition from a large percentage of the populace" is unfounded.
I am not sure what you mean by saying that the strong opposition is unfounded. Are you saying the opposition is not from a large portion of the population? Or are you saying that their opposition to this expansion of government power into people's personal lives is unfounded? If the first, you are wrong and merely need to look at various polls taken on the subject, those who oppose the ACA outnumber those who support it in every poll I have seen. If the latter, I am sorry you have such a low opinion of your own decision making ability.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
This is what happens when it is believed that all the freedom loving thinking needed for safeguarding democracy was done when the constitution was written and no further thought is required.
The separation of powers is a great idea but at the moment it is being used against democracy. It is being used against a measure already thouroughly debated and voted and examined in law and accepted by a majority of voters.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance not reliance on a very old handbook.
Good luck: http://www.terrywahls.com/
"For four years, secondary progressive multiple sclerosis confined Dr. Terry Wahls to a tilt-recline wheelchair. But by using Functional Medicine to create the Wahls Protocolâ, Dr. Wahls has transformed her health and body: now she walks easily without a cane and commutes by bicycle. Dr. Wahls uses these diets and protocols in her primary care and traumatic brain injury clinics and is leading a clinical trial to test her protocols on others."
See also Dr. Joel Fuhrman's writings on "Nutritarianism" and similar.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/success/SuccessStory.aspx?id=260
"I heard about Dr. Fuhrman and made an appointment. He told me on my first visit that MS is not a problem and we could handle this (my wife broke down in tears). Dr. Fuhrman explained everything, gave me a diet to follow and I was on my way. I have only had one follow up visit with him because I have steadily improved (no more numbness when I bend my neck, no more touching cold things on my legs and feeling like they are hot). I have absolutely no symptoms.
Since then, I have sent many people to Dr Fuhrman, some with MS, some with Lupus and they all are doing better. I regularly buy his books by the case and give them out. I tell every one who will listen about my story. I firmly believe that there are no coincidences in this world, everything has a purpose including my diagnosis. I am grateful for the opportunity to be helping Dr Fuhrman with his life purpose by sharing my story. Thank You!"
Anyway, hope some indirect good might come out of this shutdown for your family if this information helps.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Sure, I'd prefer an absolute reduction in spending, because we're funding lots of things I'd personally prefer to do away with at the federal level (Large portions of the NSA, the drug war and associated prison federal costs, big chunks of the military's overseas bases, corporate welfare, including the ACA, I can think of plenty...), but too many people don't realize how much we've increased spending in constant dollars at the federal level over the years.
But at least slowing down that spending increase would be a start...
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Actually income protection insurance covers that. It's just plain strange that Americans seem so hell bent on their own destruction that they don't have basic workers rights or universal medical insurance, let alone workers compensation or payouts if laid off without cause. Furloughs are also illegal here.
I have zero margin for error and I realistically expect that even if something major were to go wrong that I'll be just fine.
And don't forget to not get sick or injured, since that's pretty much a one way trip to bankruptcy if you don't make $100k a year. I know people who make well over that, and they STILL struggle with money due to past hospital expenses.
Is there then a category below "genuinely"? Because I'm too poor to have debt.
My social security check just covers the rent on a place of ~180 sq.ft.; I get a much smaller check from SSI and a very small amount from the state - both of these last to bring me up to some level of mandated minimum, as I understand it, for a total which works out around 75% of poverty level.
I'm "good" until any of the checks stop. If Medicare goes, I die, given the events of the past year and their continuing consequences. It keeps things simple enough, even if I'm not genuine.
Don't misunderstand - I'm grateful to have as much as I have; folks such as Frosty Piss have my sympathy. Retroactive pay is good, but the possibility of losing most everything before it kicks in doesn't make things easy. And for those without even that?
The worst part of this whole mess, apart from people's losses, is that by the time elections roll around, folks won't remember, and if they do, they'll likely remember it wrongly anyway.
No, you're just too smart to have debt. A lot of similarly poor but less smart people turn to payday lending/loan sharks and spend their lives running from collection agencies. There's always somebody willing to lend no matter how poor you are, as long as the rates are usurious enough.
Are you in subsidized housing? Are you getting food stamps? If not, it kind of sounds like you should look into them...
Nah, people will believe what they want to believe (i.e., what the talking heads tell them), just like they do right now.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"Income protection insurance" covers your furnace breaking? Or an accident (automobile or otherwise) for which you are at fault? Or getting arrested (whether you deserve it or not) and needing to bail yourself out? Or any number of other things which aren't covered by insurance that a person with a reasonable emergency fund could take in stride, but which would completely screw over someone living on the edge?
We have that. The problem is that the maximum it pays is minimum wage, and you're only eligible if you're a full-time employee (not a contractor).
If you actually have insurance for everything, don't you realize how inefficient that is compared to self-insuring with an emergency fund?
And what about the flip side: where there's an opportunity that requires extra money in order to take advantage of? Say, an incredible deal on some investment, or you win a vacation (but you still have to pay for food while you're there), or something like that? Wouldn't you have to refuse because you don't have the extra money?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Erm Home insurance covers furnace breaking, car insurance covers writing off your car even when you're at fault, income protection covers getting arrested (yes it does).
Yes I realise it. I did the basic maths. You see insurance for everything happens to also cover things that no sufficient self-insured emergency fund can cover. I've heard the self insurance arguments before, yeah house insurance to cover an appliance is nonsense, but self-insuring against your house burning down is effectively not possible in our world. Same goes for cars. My car is worth $1000. I don't care if I write it off. Yet I happen to know someone who wrote off a piece of shit as well wiping out around a corner and drove it straight into a telecom exchange. His insurance covered the $100k bill as well as his $3k car.
You think people should save money and self insure.
I think people should have full comprehensive insurance and invest every remaining cent into their future (that does not mean store it in a bank).
No it doesn't; home insurance covers when some external event damages your furnace, but I'm talking about when it breaks by itself because it's worn out.
But what about some other kind of general liability? Do you really have insurance that covers every kind of accident you could possibly cause?
So you seem to agree with me, but you're not making sense otherwise. If you agree that you should pay to replace your own appliance, how do you do so if you have zero savings? Say your income (after taxes and retirement account funding) is $3000/month and your spending is $3000/month (which is what "living paycheck to paycheck" means!). Then something petty and stupid, like your microwave breaks and you need to spend $50 to get a new one. Well congratulations, that $50 put you in the hole. Now you need to buy it on credit, but the credit payment isn't in your budget either, so interest accrues. This process accelerates until you're bankrupt. And all because you couldn't be bothered to set aside literally a couple bucks a month.
What living paycheck to paycheck means is that you have zero flexibility to absorb that kind of minor unexpected expense. Do you really not see how insane that is?!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The less the fed gov is open the better off everyone else is in the long run.
I am not sure what you mean by saying that the strong opposition is unfounded. Are you saying the opposition is not from a large portion of the population? Or are you saying that their opposition to this expansion of government power into people's personal lives is unfounded? If the first, you are wrong and merely need to look at various polls taken on the subject, those who oppose the ACA outnumber those who support it in every poll I have seen. If the latter, I am sorry you have such a low opinion of your own decision making ability.
The former. Yes, polls that use the "Obamacare" term show low support - especially when those polls are from rightwing shills like The Heritage Foundation or Fox News. Check out polls that actually ask about the details of ACA - you will see support far outnumbers oppostition.
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Even polls that use the term Affordable Care Act show higher opposition than support, even when done by arms of the Democratic Party such as Public Policy Polling. Yes, there is support for elements of the ACA, but people disapprove of the way it was passed, and of the way those elements were put together in it. The Affordable Care Act was passed in a manner which has reduced the legitimacy of the U.S. government (I was going to write "perceived legitimacy" but I realized that a government that is perceived as illegitimate by the people it governs IS illegitimate). The way that the current Administration has handled the government shutdown causes me to not just dislike the ACA, but to fear it.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The way that the current Administration has handled the government shutdown causes me to not just dislike the ACA, but to fear it.
The government shutdown has nothing to do with the ACA, except in the minds of Republicans who are holding the government hostage.
Do you really want your health care managed by a government that shuts down parks out of spite?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I prefer "Probus Boehner" myself.
Do you really want your health care managed by a government that shuts down parks out of spite?
Do you really want a House that shuts down the government out of spite?
Not smart, poor. Unless you count smart as not getting in deeper straits than I am already in. Given some of the people I've met over the years, I can feature some of them hitting the check cashing places, but I know no one the past twenty years at my lowly rung of the demographic ladder who does so.
No, no helpful housing; an application is in, but with a felony on record it's iffy. Very iffy, as in usually not bloody likely. Yes, I get food stamps, only way I can make it. I'm still not fit enough to walk to any of the meal sites nor stand long enough at a bus stop, which puts a crimp on things even now.
I have no idea of what your comment on belief was about or in reference to regarding something I said. The last time I spent even a few minutes listening to a 'talking head' I found him to be just as shallow and un-insightful, just as dedicated to (or making money from) one of the usual transparent agendas as he and his ilk have tended to be, especially more so since the Reagan years when there seemed to me to be a shift towards greater polarization of what passes for political "discussion".
If it was a general reference to "the big lie" kind of thing, then sure, that's life in the information age where winnowing useful data, fact, and insight is often a non-trivial act.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. The fact that you realize you can't afford to have debt separates you from many (most?) people, including those at the same income level.
Oops! I quoted the wrong part of your message; that was supposed to have been in reply to "The worst part of this whole mess, apart from people's losses, is that by the time elections roll around, folks won't remember, and if they do, they'll likely remember it wrongly anyway."
The point I completely failed to make was that folks don't pay attention to what's actually going on either now or later; they just parrot what [Fox News|CNN] says without thinking about it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
By established constitutional case law. A president doesn't have a line item veto, either formal (striking something down with a signature) or informal (pretending it isn't there).
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Let me be clear: the constitution is not the end all be all of protecting freedom. Please do not assume motivations on my part. It remains true that gridlock mostly serves to protect freedom, and that the constitution as written helped make it possible. There is nothing inherently pro-freedom about democracy (although it's better than monarchy). The two are not synonymous. Having been passed by a pure party line vote (actually, opposition was a little bipartisan), using procedural tricks, it has very little legitimacy compared to things such as the Iraq war. Play political hardball to get something passed, and it's going to be subject to every sort of political trick people can dream up to get rid of it when the opposition gains power. As, in fact, they did in the immediate following election.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
Ah, gotcha, both bits, and thank you. I'm a little slow today. Well, not just today.
It's a funny thing; I find as I get older that it's more apparent the need to attend various viewpoints, even when they're unsupported opinion so as to see what un-thinking folks are, um, not thinking, but that the energy and fortitude to do so is not always easy to come by. Crap, it's trade-offs all the way down.
If I ever get anything figured out, I am not going to write a book. People who already know stuff won't need to read it and those who might could use it wouldn't believe me. I'd likely be wrong anyway, but at least have a chance to make a few bucks somewhere in there.
I know a local couple, nice, good people the both of them, own a high-end yet down-to-home cigar and regular bar; bought the business, later bought the building, expanded the bar, live music several nights, and a good and mixed clientèle, no false airs. He does real estate survey and appraisal and is quite good at it. His wife does the bulk of the bar management.
Guy is a stone un-examined, un-examining Republican somewhere in the vein of a Goldwater-McCain ore. Yet he gets the bulk of his political information from Fox. We've made several tries over the years to talk politics and gotten nowhere fast, to the point that a few times things have gotten stiff and stilted for a space. So we're left with commonalities in discussing local business and local politics in a collegial [yeah, the spell checker doesn't like it either] way - which is quite OK, whether we agree or not. I'm not judging here, don't want to anyway; it's that sometimes finding the mutual limits to discourse can have minefields. That, and seeing a good mind in there, it seems... wasteful. And if it makes sense, I'd rather hang around people who disagree for well-founded reasons than those who agree for unsupportable ones.
Umm, cite? Outside of the military, there have been many calls for cuts in Mandatory spending. They ask for it every time and the Dems are never willing to put it on the table. Hell, Boehner just asked for Mandatory cuts just recently in response to White House demands for a "clean" CR.
We spent $2.9 trillion (out of $2.5 trillion in revenue) on "mandatory" and defense in 2012. In other words, we were already $400 billion in the red before we even spent a penny on national parks or NASA or roads or any of the other stuff people actually want the government to do. In 2012, all that stuff cost only $615 billion, which is small peanuts compared to the "mandatory" junk. Clearly, all this whining about cutting out little chunks of programs, like the Tea Partiers are doing, is pretty much worthless.
More to the point, they're certainly not talking about cutting "mandatory"+defense by 36%, which is what it actually would have taken in order to balance the budget in 2012. Even Paul Ryan's plan would have an ~$850 billion deficit in 2013 and a ~$525 billion deficit in 2014!
(2012 revenue total came from here; the rest came from here)
Not to mention, of course, I could also cite stuff like this and this....
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Umm, I think you're confused. The Democrats are the one pushing for the Discretionary small change. The Tea Party (and the Republicans in general) want grander reforms to Mandatory spending (part of the reason they target Obamacare). However, the only cuts the Democrats are willing to put on the table are discretionary (that's why Obama's sequestration plan dodged mandatory cuts entirely).
Yes general wear out is covered by some policies. Just like the definition of motor burn-out is very wide and can be applied to a 50 year old fridge if you want. It all depends on your insurance.
Yes I have car insurance that covers every type of external liability. Actually for medical and personal liability it's compulsory in my country. It covers everything except 3rd party property, and 3rd party property is the minimum coverage on the non-compulsory insurance. The insurance even covers some illegal circumstances (speeding, drink driving etc).
You seem to have a disconnect between the entire discussion. If I needed an extra $50 I would likely skip a trip to the movies or something similar. Most families that live paycheck to paycheck to do comfortably and temporal discomfort is something that is quite easily absorbed. That's the kind of average families we're talking about. Hell the reason they live paycheck to paycheck is due to uncontrolled loose spending. Losing a microwave or a fridge is a small issue. Losing a months paycheck on the other hand is incredibly disruptive without some coverage, ... which brings me back to income protection insurance.
Here in the US we call that kind of thing a "maintenance agreement" which is usually separate from "insurance" and typically expensive enough that a substantial fraction of people (especially the smarter ones who have savings) don't bother to get it.
When I asked "but what about some other kind of general liability?" I was talking about non-driving-related liability. Like -- I don't know -- if you were walking around somewhere (like a shop or a friend's house) and tripped and broke something expensive. Obviously, your car insurance wouldn't cover that.
The general point I was trying to make is that surely there's some circumstance in the infinite universe of possibilities where something could happen to you that would cost you money to fix, but would not be covered by any of the various insurances you have. And that that's what you'd need an emergency fund for.
No, it's not -- in fact, maybe that's the whole problem here. In the US, "living paycheck to paycheck" means that by the time you get done paying rent, utilities, commuting costs (gas or bus fare, etc.) and the bare minimum groceries you are done and have no money left over. Having $50 to spend on the movies means that you are not "living paycheck to paycheck" but rather that you have $50 left over as discretionary funds, which you choose to spend on the movies.* "Living paycheck to paycheck" means, by definition that you cannot easily absorb any unexpected expense. For the kind of households I'm talking about, getting a flat tire means they have to choose between having the lights on or eating (or paying on credit and starting a downward spiral to bankruptcy and homelessness).
(* Technically, it can also mean you do have $50 to spend on the movies -- or cable TV, or eating out, or whatever -- but consider it a mandatory expense in the same priority as rent because you're an idiot. I mention this because it's way more common than you might think.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Well this comes back to volcano insurance right. I don't have that either. On the same note you don't often find people who can't afford something really expensive walking through really expensive stores and breaking things.
As for living paycheck to paycheck your idea may be right but it is definitely not the topic of discussion here. In the rest of the thread the average american lives comfortably but still does paycheck to paycheck, i.e. they are quite bad at saving and don't typically keep the kinds of thousands of dollars laying around that will allow them to laugh off a month of lost work. Mandatory expenses as you rightfully say is the lower-middle class way of saying "preserving my lifestyle".
In any case these people would get quite screwed around with a sudden loss of sizeable income unless they have some kind of insurance.
I put myself into this category. $5000 in the bank to me sounds like $5000 that should be in the stock market or reducing my homeloan interest or dedicating to pay off the car earlier.
First of all, this entire time I've been including things like investments and extra debt repayments as "savings" (they may not be as easy to get to as cash in the bank, but it's still possible to use them as emergency funds). If you make $4000/month, spend $2000 and put the other $2000 in stocks, that's what I call having a 50% savings rate (and living way, way below your means -- if you keep that kind of thing up, you can retire at 30 like the mrmoneymustache.com guy).
Second, I think you've got some overly-optimistic ideas about how the "average American" lives. They not only don't keep cash in the bank, they don't have any investments either. They don't even have any retirement savings (other than Social Security)! In total, the median saved for retirement by all US households is $3,000. The "average American" really is living paycheck-to-paycheck according to my definition, not yours, and gets entirely screwed by his own stupidity when the slightest thing goes wrong.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
And you're going to do that when there's six unemployed people for every job opening? Know how employers are reluctant to hire candidates that are "overqualified" for the position? How about hiring a worker that could be called back to his old job any day now?
Yeah, the one he just extended. But Obama's fail does jack and shit, respectively, to change the fact that Clinton left the government with a surplus that was gutted by Bush's tax cuts, and Jack left town.
But budgets originate with the President, not the House. Jack says "sorry, you lose, teabaggers".
Sorry, buddy. Revenues increased during most of Bush's presidency. It was increased spending that ended the surplus, whether as a result of 9/11 spending, or the spending party when Dem's took congress and the Senate at the end of 2006.
And on budget origination, your reading comprehension leaves a little to be desired. If the President is going to propose a budget, maybe he should propose one that at least gets votes from his own party. I'd even settle for it if he'd make his proposal on time as specified by law, but he can't even seem to do that. President incompetence talks a good game, hut his execution leaves much to be desired.
I see we've reached the part of the conversation when your storyline runs into the wall of reality, and you start throwing out word salads.
Sure, if you ignore those useless tax cuts for the rich adding trillions to the national debt. Funny math you guys have there on Planet Rand.
Eliminate Bush's wars and Bush's tax cuts and we might still have a surplus. We definitely wouldn't have doubled the national debt.
Or the Flying Spaghetti monster attacking New York, as long as we're pulling events that didn't happen out of our asses.
And now we've reached the part of the conversation where your eyes start moving in opposite directions. The Senate, where the majority of the Senators are from 'Obama's own party', have passed a budget. It's the House - not controlled by the Dems - that has been voting down any budget that doesn't defund Obomneycare.
Way to go!
This is one thing:
"Anybody near the center of the income distribution or above"
This is quite another:
" i.e., the great majority of Americans"
The problem is you are using the term "income distribution" and it is a term financial analysts use very loosely, specifically, how it is calculated and presented isn't a concrete and defined thing. Unfortunately, census.gov is down so I can't see if there is data there I can use to get a REAL set of stats on "income distribution." But I will do my best to unfuzz the conversation and get to some actual numbers.
Let's start with the table of household incomes from 2011 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States.
Checking this, we see aprox 50% of the income earning households are making <$5000-$45,000. Most of those (33% of total US population) earn between $10k-$40. Most of those earn between $10k-$25k. So the most typical income in the US between $10-$14 at 5.89% but the gap is within 0.21% in the $10k-$25k range so it is fair to call that whole range typical (more Americans fall in this income range than any other) and the median of that range is $17,000 for a household. In other words $17,000 is the most typical average income for American households even though the majority of the population with income make more than this (it's estimated that 40% of american's don't file taxes and the typical cause is having little or no income to report so MOST american's actually make less than $10k but we are using the chart for now).
So lets see how far that goes trying to maintain a minimal US standard of living. That's $1416/month gross if we ballpark 30% for mandatory withholding it is $944/mo. If you hunt you can find a tiny and crappy hole for $600 in many places and you will by necessity be living in one of those places. That leaves you $344 for utilities, phone+internet (both ARE essentials in the modern age even if you will have to go minimal), food, healthcare, car+gas, car insurance, and entertainment (yes a certain amount of entertainment and social interaction is essential for a human being to be happy) for you and your family (this is household income not individual). Where is the margin for savings? There isn't much of anything there to plan. Utilities alone is going to eat $200. That leaves $144. Even just going to work and back you are going to need $80 for gas that is unavoidable. That leaves $66 for all the rest. You have a pay as you go phone and use it as little as possible. You use the cheap unadvertised internet for $15. Now $51 - phone usage. Insurance? You don't have it. Healthcare? Emergency room and you don't pay the bills because you can't afford them. Food? Food Stamps, because the typical american household makes so little they qualify and they should they NEED them in order to eat. You are down to MAYBE $51 after "welfare" and it's doubtful you are putting it in a savings account, $51 just doesn't go far and that is all you have for phone, incidentals, and entertainment. There is no way that's going in a savings account.
If you are at the top end of typical at $25k you've got another $333 a month but then you don't qualify for the food stamps. Someone here is probably going to spend the difference on some of the stuff that was simply not paid by $17k guy. They certainly aren't likely to accumulate savings. Car trouble alone will eat more than they can save. And lets face it, they have next to nothing for entertainment, they are probably going to spend a chunk on cable to waste the time away.
I chose my words carefully, and yes, the two statements are equivalent.
At $1416/month, withholding (and tax) is about $61/month. On the other hand, you don't qualify for food stamps because at that income level, you aren't poor.
What your attempt at a budget actually tells me is that you're rich (if you have 30% withholding, you have to be) and don't know how to budget yourself because your budget is way off.
It starts with your silly assumption that the only way to get housing is to go out and rent a $600 apartment by yourself. Your Internet and utilities estimates are also way off.
According to a calculator I just ran it's about $75/week or $300 a month.
http://www.paycheckcity.com/calculator/salary/
Weekly Gross Pay $354.00
Federal Withholding $38.17
Social Security $21.94
Medicare $5.13
New Mexico $9.90
WC $0.15
"On the other hand, you don't qualify for food stamps because at that income level, you aren't poor."
Actually you do, because housing and utility cost are considered and if you don't think that is poor you are out of your mind.
"It starts with your silly assumption that the only way to get housing is to go out and rent a $600 apartment by yourself."
I suppose you could try to pack your wife and kid into a room for rent/roommate situation somewhere but you still aren't going to shave more than $100 off doing it.
I live on less than $1000/month and I'm not even trying to save money; if I did, I could shave off a couple of hundred dollars off that. No, that's not "poor".
If you make $1461/month, you shouldn't get married to a stay-at-home wife, and you certainly shouldn't have kids until your income increases. If you do anyway, it's your own fault.
And if you're a single guy, you can easily get a roommate and cut rent and utility bills nearly in half and save even more.
You said "30% withholding". "Withholding" is what the IRS does for federal taxes. Federal taxes are around $723 on that income for a single person; divide by 12 to get the monthly withholding, it's not rocket science. I don't know why PayrollCity gets $34.33 per week, but it's wrong. Social Security and Medicare do add another $100/month, of course.
For the record. Here it is the evening just before the debt limit is crashed.
"Weeks of bitter political fighting gave way to a frenzied night in Washington as Congress passed the bill that would prevent the country from crashing into the debt ceiling."
Just as predectid, no deal before the last minutes. We get to repeat this in January or Febuary. Oh joy.
The truth shall set you free!
For sixteen days, my life, liberty and property were safe ONLY BECAUSE my immutable characteristics prohibit me from any public assistance.