Shut 'em Down!

Maybe this will illustrate how insane playing chicken with the debt limit is:

Why do you want to reduce the debt? To reduce the amount of money the American people owe.

Why do you want to reduce the amount the America people owe? Because borrowing more makes it harder to pay back what we already owe, threatening the economy many many years down the line because ultimately it could cause a default. Defaulting would irreparably damage the economy.

What is screwing around with the debt limit do? It's threatening default now to avoid borrowing more to avoid the completely avoidable ultimate conclusion of defaulting many many years down the line. It's insane.

The place to win the battle is over the budget, not over the CR, not over the debt limit.

I didnt follow you by the way, ive been waiting for this thread well before 2AM yesterday when i finally turned off the "The markets are okay!? Thats IMPOSSIBRU!" circus and went to bed.

Either way, you are an amazing source of other people posting links towards beneficial information on a variety of political subjects, so i guess i can thank you for that. Otherwise, ill sit here and gladly debunk you with the others.

and ill edit with a quote because i almost paged a good post with my petty liberal self loathing :(

Hmm, you do know that this isn't about the debt ceiling yet, right? That argument is in the upcoming months, this shutdown is the result of a budget stalemate.

The TP has already set their sights on the debt limit. It's 15 days away, and there is no coming back from it if we cross that line, unlike the shutdown. It's relevant.

No, it's a result of the treasury being empty. The reason we are having a debt limit discussion is because the vaults are empty because they didn't raise the limit last year. So now, the money has run out, and the government is forced to shut down.

They can pay out retroactively until we are so far behind that we default on debts.

This is EXACTLY about the debt ceiling and has NOTHING to do with the budget.

Well not exactly. And in fact, neither the budget nor the debt limit are the issue at this very moment.

The budget is past due, which is why the government has shut down, not because the government is out of cash. The government will be out of cash as of October 17th.

The reason the government is shut down is because we haven't passed a CR, a continuing resolution. The CR is an agreement to continue funding the government for a certain period of time because a budget has not yet been passed. The reason we'd pass a CR is to keep the government open while we form a budget.

We needed to pass either a budget or a CR as of September 30th because that's when the US fiscal year ended and the current budget expired. With the expiration of the budget the appropriations (basically programs we have to renew funding to every year) expired, so we can no longer legally run them.

At 10/17 the government will effectively no longer have any cash, which means we can no longer pay our bills regardless of the budget situation. We cannot pay for things that run even when we have no CR or budget, we cannot pay for anything because there is no more cash.

"We don't want Obamacare on the budget" sounds like a budget issue, not a debt ceiling issue. Of course they'll likely use that opportunity to push the envelope on the issue even more in an attempt to strong arm Obamacare out.

The debt ceiling fight is 2 weeks away and Boehner is trying to tie the two together, even making a preposterous list of demands he expects in return for not crippling the US economy. Fortunately everyone can see through him at this point and no one is buying his finger pointing. Opening the government should be his only concern, and he has had the ability to do so for 4 days now. Its as if he doesn't want to be Speaker anymore.

The budget disagreements are specifically a distraction and stalling method. It's about the debt ceiling. There is no debating funding the ACA, and they knew that from the start.

Its more accurate to say they don't want Obamacare to exist at all, in any form, and they are using the budget and the debt ceiling as a platform (or hostages, if you prefer) to eliminate it. Its a 100% impossibility, but the Tea Party doesn't care. And instead of actually talking about the negatives of the ACA, everyone is focused on the shutdown. Its amusing the Republicans are literally playing into Obama's hand at their own expense.

I don't know if I agree with that, because TPers were sent to congress specifically to repeal ACA in some cases. Mostly because they do believe it's damaging to the economy.

The want to reduce/remove entitlements (of which they view ACA as one of them) and they're willing to pull stunts to try and get that agenda across. It's just an insane stunt to pull.

I don't think they're so crazy that they're doing this purely for political spite/political points just to ensure the country defaults. They think what they're doing is important to the fiscal health of the nation. It's just crazy to do it the way they're doing it because they're threatening default to avoid default.

Considering many of them were run by organizations like citizens united, I question their motivation. Entitlements mean nothing to the people who funded their campaigns.

Not only are their methods borderline treason, I seriously question their motives.

No entity would be served by having the US default, because it would tank the economy. The end game for them is to shrink the government to reduce regulation and tax burden. It's all about the money.

In any event, liberal or conservative, GOP or DEM, everybody loses by flirting with default. There is categorically no winner in this fool's errand.

Even if the GOP wins by getting an Obamacare concession they set a sickening precedent.

I will say this, working for a large business there is quite a lot of disdain for Obamacare. For the company insurance, this upcoming year will see private insurance cost increases with even less coverage. With a large part of the middle class as constituents, we see mostly Republicans are playing towards that group of people.

I have some reservations regarding ACA, namely the large influx of patients for the current supply of physicians. It will be interesting to see how that factors into the equation. Am I willing to force a default to stop it? Not so much.

To set the record straight, I don't mind paying out to Social Security, Medicaid/care, and other social programs in taxes. I certainly wish the programs were better run and that education of the problem is more important than fixing the problem after the fact. But overall, it's mostly our massive defense programs I think should be revamped.

No better way to show that government doesn't work than by actively kicking it in the *** 'til it falls over!

Sometimes you look to the past and are bewildered by a person's fore thought.


Unfortunately Ike in 2013 they are no longer negligible in number and it's the same as it ever was.

It's a price to pay to control healthcare costs. They're unchecked as it is and iirc the main component to our debt and deficit. The idea is those who can afford it pay upfront now, in exchange for fixing future costs.

FTR I'm all for amending or repealing the ACA. There just has to be a plan in place first. If there is a functioning alternative presented, I think we should consider it seriously.

But doing nothing is not an option. We need to control costs somehow, and the ACA is at least a first step in that direction.

I get that, and that's a noble cause. But if the supply of physicians doesn't drastically increase to meet the mass new demand, the time that patients spend with their doctors will be reduced to nothing. Instead of being with your doctor for 15 minutes, they'll only be able to help you for 3 minutes. "Take these diet pills and get the hell out, fatass."

We do have a shortage of PCPs that needs to be addressed. That's an incentives problem though. Specialists make more money.

If we can get almost everyone covered for HC that will shift some of the burden though. More preventative care means less less ER moochers. Getting preventative care/early care is less time consuming and less expensive than ER.

It's a process and we'll need to reorient along the way to make sure we're headed in the right direction.

Standardizing costs is a good way to combat this kind of drive-thru medical care. It'd be interesting to see the relative ratios of per patient care in other subsidized as well as single payer systems.

Using the picture of the person that warned against the use of the two party system, during a crisis caused by massive disconnect with the two party system/the invasion of a third party entity under one of the two parties during a disconnect. Brilliant liela :< brilliant..GG :<

Where did you read they are expected to show up and not get paid? I read the article, maybe I just missed it.

Last paragraph, they are still entitled to a paycheck, but they will not receive it until the government opens for business. It could be weeks of working without a paycheck coming in. Obama apparently signed an order that active duty military will still receive a paycheck even if the government is shut down.

This is not totally true and very one sided of you. Both sides are fighting for something. It is not just the republicans.

Yes I agree, they want to repeal the ACA. I won't deny that. I want them too also.

However there have been several compromises that the house has made in back and forth CR's. The first was to defund the ACA. THe senate turned it down.

The second was to remove the medical device tax and delay the individual mandate for one year and remove any extra subsides for the federal employees. The senate turned it down.

The third set of amendments delayed just the individual mandate by one year, and added language that would bar lawmakers, Congressional staffers, and administration staffers from receiving federal subsidies for health insurance under Obamacare. The senate turned it down. The house turned it down.

Like it or not this is an option they have to play with. Is it bulling yes, but at least the house has tried to make some concessions. Going from not funding to delaying for one year is a pretty big concession..... Reid and Senate though will not compromise on anything. If it has anything to do with the ACA they will vote no to a CR. To me they shut the government down.

I would agree that they are all to blame except the House has not had the opportunity to vote on the Senate version of the bill. Boehner refuses to put it to a vote, he is taking the decision out of his caucus' hands. Let the entire House speak, if they vote down the clean CR then maybe Boehner's seat gets a little cooler. But as long as he refuses to give the gov't a chance to be re-opened, he remains the posterboy of the shutdown. And if he turns the debt ceiling into another disaster he won't hold onto his job.

Wow, that does suck! I will admit that, if they are going to work, they should be paid... It even says after some research, that the government would have to reopen 3-4 days before their next scheduld pay date or it would be even longer....

While those aren't a great value as far as major medical care goes, it's actually very competitive in both price and features to what many employers are offering. I pay for a premium package for me and my wife, but the basic package my employer offers is more or less what you were quoted with the addition of an HSA. High deductibles are quickly becoming the norm for medical insurance because premiums are essentially unaffordable with a zero deductible, low copay system.[/quote]

I hate going back 5 pages, but have a job, and it always gets to the good part while I am at work ><.

I just have a hard time "Accepting the norm". I think we do that too often in America. I think we do need health care reform badly however I think this bill has done nothing but drive up the cost and has not done enough to ensure the care would be more accessible and affordable. It's a bad bill.

By the way is medicaid being done away with? I can't seem to locate info on it.