8 ms·

One thing to understand about the US is that it is actually a federation of states. Much of the day-to-day work happens at the state or local level, not at the

by lambda 9y ago

One thing to understand about the US is that it is actually a federation of states. Much of the day-to-day work happens at the state or local level, not at the federal level. Police, fire departments, emergency first responders mostly employed at that level, and when the federal government is involved, a lot of it is in doing some coordination between states, setting standards, funding for various programs, and so on. Even things like building interstate highways, which are funded by the federal government, are generally done by allocation to the state governments to actually construct them. However, the military is entirely part of the federal government, as are many other organizations. In the case of not having a budget, the government is required to shut down all functions that are not essential for safety and security. So things like the military, the TSA, and so on can continue to function, but office workers doing jobs like allocating the funding for highway construction are furloughed, put on temporary unpaid leave from their jobs. This is, of course, terrible for the efficient functioning of government; when the impasse is over, they will have to come back to their jobs and try to catch up. Oh, and in the time leading up to the shutdown, many of them would have been busy preparing for the shutdown, documenting which functions would be considered essential and thus able to continue during the shutdown; because the deadline was no surprise, and there had been many temporary funding bills leading up to this point, there was always a pretty high chance that this shutdown would happen. Of course, this inefficiency plays well into the politics of one of the parties, who hold a religious belief that private enterprise is always more efficient than government, and so playing games like this that increase its inefficiency help to sell their case and get government functions sold off to private enterprise, who just so happen, in so many cases, to be some of the largest donors to campaigns of this particular party.

jmadsen 9y ago
"Of course, this inefficiency plays well into the politics of one of the parties, who hold a religious belief that private enterprise is always more efficient than government" Which is beyond ironic to anyone who's worked in the corporate world, but I guess that's for another thread. This idea they have that private enterprise naturally evolves toward the most efficient system is laughable.
- icelancer 9y ago
  >>Which is beyond ironic to anyone who's worked in the corporate world, but I guess that's for another thread. >>This idea they have that private enterprise naturally evolves toward the most efficient system is laughable. Work in private industry AND government and you might find the comparison a bit more apt, not that I'm a Republican.
  - Chriky 9y ago
    I've worked in both, I find bureaucracy is roughly proportional to the seriousness of the work. Serious work - Law, Healthcare, Finance etc are very bureaucratic regardless of whether it's the private or public sector. Public sector can sometimes seem worse because there's less money sloshing round and people demand it isn't wasted, which effects a lot of bean counting.
    - bonesss 9y ago
      There's also something to the notion that we want our regulatory bodies and government agencies to be slightly 'conservative', to avoid waste and avoid short-term folly. Our public institutions should live for generations, and have transparency and ethical demands placed upon them by the citizenry. We could collectively decide to eliminate a lot of red tape in government, no problem. It's just the effect of unchecked, unsupervised, unaccountable governments that make us want that red tape in the first place. Todays Justification Paperwork is yesterdays front-page scandal...
  - enraged_camel 9y ago
    I'm a business analyst and work with both private sector and government clients. From about a decade of analyzing how each type operates, I can tell you that the amount of bullshit that goes on in them is about the same level.
    - icelancer 9y ago
      Completely disagree. Government RFPs are an order of magnitude more absurd than private sector bureaucratic requests. It's not even close.
bsimpson 9y ago
As I recall from the last shutdown, Congress usually passes an apology bill to pay back-wages for the furloughed workers. In theory, it's unpaid time off, but in practice, they get made whole and it becomes a free (but potentially angsty) vacation.
- lambda 9y ago
  Ah, you're right. I didn't recall whether they had been paid for that. Either way, it's fairly inefficient; either they were paid for doing no work, or they were not paid and may leave for better jobs or morale destroyed due to that.
  - bonesss 9y ago
    Beyond the pay itself is also the financial anguish and unnecessary work the employees might have to go through if there is a missed car-payment or loan-payment or down-payment on a house... This creates meaningless productivity loss, with oodles of meaningless lost productivity required to make up for the original loss, to the glorious benefit of destroying morale and scaring away talent... 10/10 federal policy. #ShootFootNow #AskQuestionsLater
icelancer 9y ago
>>Of course, this inefficiency plays well into the politics of one of the parties, who hold a religious belief that private enterprise is always more efficient than government, and so playing games like this that increase its inefficiency help to sell their case and get government functions sold off to private enterprise, who just so happen, in so many cases, to be some of the largest donors to campaigns of this particular party. One party believes 92% of this and the other party believes 83% of this statement, for any non-American reading this.
- lambda 9y ago
  Yes, this particular religious belief is widespread in both parties, but definitely considerably more prominent in one. I believe there is a name for this belief, Mammonism comes to mind.
shadowbantruth 9y ago
You are either uninformed or have an agenda. The Democrats voted for shutdown over DACA.
alkonaut 9y ago
What I don't understand is this: why not just change the process so that unless there is any change in funding decided politically, funding always continues as-is?
- pjc50 9y ago
  The whole setup is stupid, due to a chain of constitutional oddities. There's no distinction between budget votes and other kinds of votes. Most other systems, Westminster-style or otherwise, have a process which results in either a budget being passed or a fresh election being held which should result in a majority capable of passing one. The US system has elevated a denial of service attack (filibuster) to the status of important democratic ritual. This doesn't help either. ("Funding continues as-is" may be rendered impossible by external factors, as in the Greek budget crisis.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_supply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_supply
  - kasey_junk 9y ago
    To be fair, the US system does have a special class of vote for budgetary issues that defangs the filibuster: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States_Congress) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_State...
    - mikeash 9y ago
      Yep, and the majority party decided to waste their chance on unpopular tax cuts rather than use it to keep the lights on.
      - ars 9y ago
        The tax cuts are actually very popular. And I don't think anyone expected the Democrats to actually shut down the government over illegal immigrants.
        mikeash 9y ago
walshemj 9y ago
If I was a salaried civil servant I would be leaving early every Friday until I had worked off my TOIL :-)
chisleu 9y ago
IMHO, states should be prepared for federal governments being "shutdown" or dissolved. What we call shutdowns are not real shut downs. Military doesn't go on leave. They still do their same job. Many key workers do their same jobs as well. Some workers end up staying home and then later are usually paid for the time they missed at work anyway. #FreeVacation It is a contrived emergency so the political parties can try to increase pressure to get pork through that they would not have otherwise in order to get the votes high enough to end the BS. IMHO, the federal government should be entirely dissolved and the states should have a more loose confederation like the EU has. Federal law and over spending have gone too far. By overspending, I mean how the DoD decided to spend billions that it was not given by Congress. I don't mean any liberal vs conservative notion of how government should spend. I know this is a pipe dream, but one way it could happen is through a "shutdown" that never stops.
- jernfrost 9y ago
  chisleu I've contemplated this as well. I don't really believe in big political unions. However there are major practical problems dissolving a union which needs to be addressed, which people who favor dissolving a union seldom address. It is very hard to have open borders between states if there is no federal authority. It is also hard for a state to run their own economic policy without their own currency and central bank. Already American states struggle with running different welfare policies. You see how red states e.g. a freeloading on blue state welfare programs, by dumping their poor people in blue states and enticing companies created in innovative states like Calefornia by luring them with low taxes. I personally think it would be nice if we could have a wide selection of countries and states following completely different policies. It is good with experimentation and trying new things. In practice however this is difficult, as somebody can just freeload on everybody elses work by creating a tax paradise.
Clanan 9y ago
FYI this is a great neutral explanation up until the last paragraph, which is politically charged. This attempts to imply the Republican party sought the shutdown. In fact, the shutdown was caused by the Democratic party not voting for the Continuing Resolution (pseudo-budget). 60 Senate votes are required, but the majority party (Republicans) only has 51. It's a big slimy ball of politics all-around. Also, more on point, many government entities have "carry-forward" funds which are available during a shutdown. In 2013 the Executive Branch (Democrat president) discouraged the use of these funds. The current admin is encouraging their use to ensure as little disruption as possible.
- kharms 9y ago
  *The majority party has 51 Senators but only mustered 47 votes from their own party, with another 5 coming from the minority.
- jernfrost 9y ago
  Clanan, to my knowledge this is ALL Trump and the republican's fault. Until 3 weeks ago they could have passed anything they wanted. It is just because they wasted time and Trump sabotaged everything the republicans came up with that so much time passed that they reached a stage where a 60 senate vote was needed. You can't blame this on democrats when republicans could have handled this exclusively themselves and had ample time to do so. This is simply a reflection of the chaos that is the Trump administration. It is ironic to think of how I told Trump voters before the election, that if you vote on that man you will get noting but grid lock politics, because he is not a uniter. He is not a man who seeks cooperation and common ground. I got laughed at for this, with Trump supporters telling me they didn't need democrats for anything because they controlled both houses. I guess it is my turn to laugh then. I great irony that they manage to get themselves into this mess. The democrats didn't even have to lift a finger.
  - Clanan 9y ago
    Citations are far more helpful than ranting. If you want a productive conversation, you should provide some. Democratic leaders have made the current budget/CR about DACA, which was not relevant to it. (Ironic because they're in favor of everything in the CR, but they voted against it anyway!) Here's House minority leader Pelosi promising to block any funding that does not include DACA [0]. Yes, the Trump admin could have avoided the shutdown by giving in to minority demands, but that doesn't mean they're at fault, logically. As for opinions, my political golden rule is "never trust a politician". We're veering far off-topic, though. Edit: as further evidence of the cause of the shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Schumer just caved. The shutdown was a political gamble for both sides; I'm assuming internal Democrat polling found that they were receiving the most blame. Continuing the disruption would be disastrous. (Obvious, considering they effectively blocked the CHIP children's health insurance.) [0] http://thehill.com/homenews/house/363778-pelosi-were-not-leaving-town-without-daca http://thehill.com/homenews/house/363778-pelosi-were-not-lea...
zeveb 9y ago
A great explanation, except for the last paragraph. I'd have upvoted it otherwise. Right now, it's the other party which has shut down government, because it does not want to pass a funding bill without addressing illegal aliens first.

by lambda 9y ago

jmadsen 9y ago

"Of course, this inefficiency plays well into the politics of one of the parties, who hold a religious belief that private enterprise is always more efficient than government" Which is beyond ironic to anyone who's worked in the corporate world, but I guess that's for another thread. This idea they have that private enterprise naturally evolves toward the most efficient system is laughable.

icelancer 9y ago
>>Which is beyond ironic to anyone who's worked in the corporate world, but I guess that's for another thread. >>This idea they have that private enterprise naturally evolves toward the most efficient system is laughable. Work in private industry AND government and you might find the comparison a bit more apt, not that I'm a Republican.
- Chriky 9y ago
  I've worked in both, I find bureaucracy is roughly proportional to the seriousness of the work. Serious work - Law, Healthcare, Finance etc are very bureaucratic regardless of whether it's the private or public sector. Public sector can sometimes seem worse because there's less money sloshing round and people demand it isn't wasted, which effects a lot of bean counting.
  - bonesss 9y ago
    There's also something to the notion that we want our regulatory bodies and government agencies to be slightly 'conservative', to avoid waste and avoid short-term folly. Our public institutions should live for generations, and have transparency and ethical demands placed upon them by the citizenry. We could collectively decide to eliminate a lot of red tape in government, no problem. It's just the effect of unchecked, unsupervised, unaccountable governments that make us want that red tape in the first place. Todays Justification Paperwork is yesterdays front-page scandal...
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  I'm a business analyst and work with both private sector and government clients. From about a decade of analyzing how each type operates, I can tell you that the amount of bullshit that goes on in them is about the same level.
  - icelancer 9y ago
    Completely disagree. Government RFPs are an order of magnitude more absurd than private sector bureaucratic requests. It's not even close.

bsimpson 9y ago

As I recall from the last shutdown, Congress usually passes an apology bill to pay back-wages for the furloughed workers. In theory, it's unpaid time off, but in practice, they get made whole and it becomes a free (but potentially angsty) vacation.

lambda 9y ago
Ah, you're right. I didn't recall whether they had been paid for that. Either way, it's fairly inefficient; either they were paid for doing no work, or they were not paid and may leave for better jobs or morale destroyed due to that.
- bonesss 9y ago
  Beyond the pay itself is also the financial anguish and unnecessary work the employees might have to go through if there is a missed car-payment or loan-payment or down-payment on a house... This creates meaningless productivity loss, with oodles of meaningless lost productivity required to make up for the original loss, to the glorious benefit of destroying morale and scaring away talent... 10/10 federal policy. #ShootFootNow #AskQuestionsLater

icelancer 9y ago

>>Of course, this inefficiency plays well into the politics of one of the parties, who hold a religious belief that private enterprise is always more efficient than government, and so playing games like this that increase its inefficiency help to sell their case and get government functions sold off to private enterprise, who just so happen, in so many cases, to be some of the largest donors to campaigns of this particular party. One party believes 92% of this and the other party believes 83% of this statement, for any non-American reading this.

lambda 9y ago
Yes, this particular religious belief is widespread in both parties, but definitely considerably more prominent in one. I believe there is a name for this belief, Mammonism comes to mind.

shadowbantruth 9y ago

You are either uninformed or have an agenda. The Democrats voted for shutdown over DACA.

alkonaut 9y ago

What I don't understand is this: why not just change the process so that unless there is any change in funding decided politically, funding always continues as-is?

pjc50 9y ago
The whole setup is stupid, due to a chain of constitutional oddities. There's no distinction between budget votes and other kinds of votes. Most other systems, Westminster-style or otherwise, have a process which results in either a budget being passed or a fresh election being held which should result in a majority capable of passing one. The US system has elevated a denial of service attack (filibuster) to the status of important democratic ritual. This doesn't help either. ("Funding continues as-is" may be rendered impossible by external factors, as in the Greek budget crisis.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_supply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_supply
- kasey_junk 9y ago
  To be fair, the US system does have a special class of vote for budgetary issues that defangs the filibuster: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States_Congress) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_State...
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Yep, and the majority party decided to waste their chance on unpopular tax cuts rather than use it to keep the lights on.
    - ars 9y ago
      The tax cuts are actually very popular. And I don't think anyone expected the Democrats to actually shut down the government over illegal immigrants.
      - mikeash 9y ago

walshemj 9y ago

If I was a salaried civil servant I would be leaving early every Friday until I had worked off my TOIL :-)

chisleu 9y ago

IMHO, states should be prepared for federal governments being "shutdown" or dissolved. What we call shutdowns are not real shut downs. Military doesn't go on leave. They still do their same job. Many key workers do their same jobs as well. Some workers end up staying home and then later are usually paid for the time they missed at work anyway. #FreeVacation It is a contrived emergency so the political parties can try to increase pressure to get pork through that they would not have otherwise in order to get the votes high enough to end the BS. IMHO, the federal government should be entirely dissolved and the states should have a more loose confederation like the EU has. Federal law and over spending have gone too far. By overspending, I mean how the DoD decided to spend billions that it was not given by Congress. I don't mean any liberal vs conservative notion of how government should spend. I know this is a pipe dream, but one way it could happen is through a "shutdown" that never stops.

jernfrost 9y ago
chisleu I've contemplated this as well. I don't really believe in big political unions. However there are major practical problems dissolving a union which needs to be addressed, which people who favor dissolving a union seldom address. It is very hard to have open borders between states if there is no federal authority. It is also hard for a state to run their own economic policy without their own currency and central bank. Already American states struggle with running different welfare policies. You see how red states e.g. a freeloading on blue state welfare programs, by dumping their poor people in blue states and enticing companies created in innovative states like Calefornia by luring them with low taxes. I personally think it would be nice if we could have a wide selection of countries and states following completely different policies. It is good with experimentation and trying new things. In practice however this is difficult, as somebody can just freeload on everybody elses work by creating a tax paradise.

Clanan 9y ago

FYI this is a great neutral explanation up until the last paragraph, which is politically charged. This attempts to imply the Republican party sought the shutdown. In fact, the shutdown was caused by the Democratic party not voting for the Continuing Resolution (pseudo-budget). 60 Senate votes are required, but the majority party (Republicans) only has 51. It's a big slimy ball of politics all-around. Also, more on point, many government entities have "carry-forward" funds which are available during a shutdown. In 2013 the Executive Branch (Democrat president) discouraged the use of these funds. The current admin is encouraging their use to ensure as little disruption as possible.

kharms 9y ago
*The majority party has 51 Senators but only mustered 47 votes from their own party, with another 5 coming from the minority.
jernfrost 9y ago
Clanan, to my knowledge this is ALL Trump and the republican's fault. Until 3 weeks ago they could have passed anything they wanted. It is just because they wasted time and Trump sabotaged everything the republicans came up with that so much time passed that they reached a stage where a 60 senate vote was needed. You can't blame this on democrats when republicans could have handled this exclusively themselves and had ample time to do so. This is simply a reflection of the chaos that is the Trump administration. It is ironic to think of how I told Trump voters before the election, that if you vote on that man you will get noting but grid lock politics, because he is not a uniter. He is not a man who seeks cooperation and common ground. I got laughed at for this, with Trump supporters telling me they didn't need democrats for anything because they controlled both houses. I guess it is my turn to laugh then. I great irony that they manage to get themselves into this mess. The democrats didn't even have to lift a finger.
- Clanan 9y ago
  Citations are far more helpful than ranting. If you want a productive conversation, you should provide some. Democratic leaders have made the current budget/CR about DACA, which was not relevant to it. (Ironic because they're in favor of everything in the CR, but they voted against it anyway!) Here's House minority leader Pelosi promising to block any funding that does not include DACA [0]. Yes, the Trump admin could have avoided the shutdown by giving in to minority demands, but that doesn't mean they're at fault, logically. As for opinions, my political golden rule is "never trust a politician". We're veering far off-topic, though. Edit: as further evidence of the cause of the shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Schumer just caved. The shutdown was a political gamble for both sides; I'm assuming internal Democrat polling found that they were receiving the most blame. Continuing the disruption would be disastrous. (Obvious, considering they effectively blocked the CHIP children's health insurance.) [0] http://thehill.com/homenews/house/363778-pelosi-were-not-leaving-town-without-daca http://thehill.com/homenews/house/363778-pelosi-were-not-lea...

zeveb 9y ago

A great explanation, except for the last paragraph. I'd have upvoted it otherwise. Right now, it's the other party which has shut down government, because it does not want to pass a funding bill without addressing illegal aliens first.