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US Government Shutdown Ends
An anonymous reader writes "After more than two weeks of bickering that made the schoolyard appear civilized, Congress has finally passed a bill to reopen the U.S. Federal Government. 'The Senate passed the measure by a vote of 81 - 18, followed by approval in the House by a vote of 285 - 144. The bill now goes to the President, who will make remarks on Thursday regarding the reopening of the federal government. ... Earlier in the day, Speaker Boehner conceded that the House would not vote to stop the Senate-negotiated agreement. In a statement, the Speaker said that, after a fight with President Obama over his signature health care law, " . . . blocking the bipartisan agreement reached today by the members of the Senate will not be a tactic for us." The agreement will raise the debt limit until February 2014, fund the government through January 2014 and establish a joint House-Senate committee to make spending cut decisions.' CNN adds, 'Obama, for one, didn't seem in the mood Wednesday night for more of the same -- saying politicians in Washington have to "get out of the habit of governing by crisis." "Hopefully, next time, it will not be in the 11th hour," Obama told reporters, calling for both parties to work together on a budget, immigration reform and other issues. When asked as he left the podium whether he believed America would be going through all this political turmoil again in a few months, the President didn't waste words. "No."'"
it's interesting to hear that it falls short of your ideal. i haven't heard many people state that opinion.
Its backers accepted a lot of compromises in order to get it out of committee and onto the floor for a vote. A lot of people think the original was somewhere between "substantially better" and "much better".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Actually, from what I've read, it's true. More people dislike "Obamacare" than like it. On the other hand, the "Affordable Care Act" seems to have quite a bit of support--and this government shutdown has actually improved it's support especially among those who didn't know anything about it.
It was Rand Paul and not Ron Paul. I'm not sure if you just made a mistake or didn't know. Ron Paul is retired and never held a Senate seat. Rand Paul is his son.
Don't forget
6) Republicans have spent the last 20 years telling people that "government is the problem, not the solution" -- that is, that the government can't do anything to help them. If some dude now comes along and sets up a government health insurance program that actually does help people, the Republican Party gets badly discredited. Better to keep everything broken than to risk that!
(the fact that what the dude got passed is almost exactly what Republicans themselves were proposing in the 1990's only makes it worse -- those proposals were never meant to be taken seriously, they were only put out there as a way to stop HillaryCare, and were supposed to be forgotten immediately after that was accomplished)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
How are you surprised that he voted no?
He didn't vote to defund the government, he voted to end all government spending except for essential operations, including paying debt. HE voted true to his mindset and word. IF you canceled Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and reduced the military to a few special ops. teams, there would be more then enough money to stary paying off the debt and no need to default.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
The fight to limit spending is a fight for the economy
No, no, no, no, no! Government spending reduces when then the economy is booming. But attempting to reduce spending does not trigger a boom!. Correlation does not imply causation.
That's not to say that the level of debt in the economy isn't important. Understanding the role of debt is critical to understanding the dynamics of the economy. But you can't just focus on government debt, you have to look at *all* of the debt in the economy to understand what is really going on. Once the crisis hit in 2008, the private sector started reducing their debts. Spending from credit essentially stopped. Government spending since 2008 has helped to cushion the impact of that reduction in credit. See this graph to get a feel for the scale of the problem.
If anything the role of government is to save for the future during a boom, and pay from those savings during a slump. Or borrow during a slump and pay it back in the next boom, which amounts to the same thing. Of course before this crisis started the government wasn't saving at all, but forcing the government to save now will have a drastic impact on the welfare of the country. Look how well austerity programs have been working in the rest of the world.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
It's still vastly preferable to the US system.