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The US system is so archaic at this point, the founding fathers never anticipated the federal government budget being this important to the country. Provisions

The US system is so archaic at this point, the founding fathers never anticipated the federal government budget being this important to the country. Provisions for dealing with something like a shutdown just aren’t in the constitution other than 2/3 supermajority requirements for veto override or impeachment, which is a recipe for gridlock. Many US states have much more sane budgeting systems and manage to run even under divided government without issue.

warrenm 8y ago
>a recipe for gridlock That was the whole point of how the government of the US was designed: it's supposed to be hard to "get things done" at the federal level
- javagram 8y ago
  Yea, because the feds were supposed to only handle post roads, the military, and free trade between the states and tariffs on international commerce. The modern welfare state, where millions of people are immediately hurt by the federal system grinding to a halt and stopping, would have been anathema to the framers. Nevertheless by popular vote such programs have been federalized and now we have a constitution that doesn’t support their smooth operation.
  - xtian 8y ago
    > The modern welfare state, where millions of people are immediately hurt by the federal system grinding to a halt and stopping, would have been anathema to the framers. So too would have been the dominance of corporate interests in the political system. But here we are.
    - scarmig 8y ago
      So too would women, blacks, Asians, and the poor having the right to vote be anathema to them. Why again do we really care about parsing exactly what the Founders would say about the modern world?
      - xtian 8y ago
        Same reason you’d want to understand the intent behind the design of a software system before you modify it. Afterwards, though, you still go ahead and modify it to meet new requirements. Anyway, extending the franchise doesn’t really have anything to do with the prominence of the federal government, whereas the increasing power of corporations does.
        sangnoir 8y ago
        The argument is that the modern software system has become so complex, worrying about what the intent of the original design is almost pointless. Say a single-user app that was originally written in assembly for PDP and has now evolved (or wrapped) into a multi-cluster, multi-zoned gRPC service - how important is the original intent when it was never designed for the current use case?
        xtian 8y ago
        If you want to do good engineering work on a complex system, it's imperative to understand and remain laser-focused on what the system as a whole is actually trying to accomplish. The original intent is never irrelevant in that context. In fact, it's the foundation for evaluating all the subsequent decisions that resulted in "a multi-cluster, multi-zoned gRPC service".
        scarmig 8y ago
        Sure, but why do we hold the Founders in a particularly high regard? Instead of, say, countless 20th and 21st century politicians, scholars, and technocrats who have a lot more influence on the government as it exists today, most of whom who don't have views nearly as revolting as the Founders. Who's likely to be able to bring a software system from 16.7.1 to 16.7.2? The team who built 16.7.1, or the team who wrote the pre-alpha version twenty years ago?
        xtian 8y ago
        In many cases (including, I would argue, the current American political system), the people who wrote 16.7.1 are merely technicians without any coherent vision for long term purposes or principles. Why do we still talk about the Unix philosophy?
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    As I recall, not even the military, at least not in any way like we're doing it now.
  - jdhn 8y ago
    I follow what's happening in the craft beer world, and some brewers are up in arms due to the fact that the government has to approve labels for all beers that are sold across state lines, or else they could potentially face career ending fines. How on earth did we get from a limited federal government to one that acts as a morality police for beer labels?
    - sagarm 8y ago
      That's pretty clearly interstate commerce. Not sure what approval is required, but presumably it at least covers accurate labeling of ABV.
      - jessaustin 8y ago
        Are craft brewers not capable of measuring ABV? Is the bureaucratic approval of a label any guarantee of a particular ABV for beer bottled using that approved label? Lots of ridiculous BS is contained within an overbroad interpretation of interstate commerce.
  - ConceptJunkie 8y ago
    So we should leave those things to the states as was originally intended. The courts should never have tolerated the Federal government being allowed to do things which are not specifically enumerated in the first place. That's where things started breaking down. The 17th Amendment just made things worse.
roywiggins 8y ago
There's nothing stopping Congress from amending the Antideficiency Act or just passing a law that would provide for an automatic fallback appropriation if there's no new budget. http://ultimatehistoryproject.com/anti-deficiency-act-history-behind-the-governement-shutdown.html http://ultimatehistoryproject.com/anti-deficiency-act-histor...
- javagram 8y ago
  Agreed, however as your link discusses there are important reasons the anti-deficiency act was passed. A permanent fallback appropriation would remove congress’ ability to reallocate or reapportion spending without a 2/3 majority vote in both houses to override the presidential veto, something that seems unlikely in the modern party system. Also military funding has to be reappropriated regularly under the constitution, a permanent military appropriation is unconstitutional. “To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;”

warrenm 8y ago

>a recipe for gridlock That was the whole point of how the government of the US was designed: it's supposed to be hard to "get things done" at the federal level

javagram 8y ago
Yea, because the feds were supposed to only handle post roads, the military, and free trade between the states and tariffs on international commerce. The modern welfare state, where millions of people are immediately hurt by the federal system grinding to a halt and stopping, would have been anathema to the framers. Nevertheless by popular vote such programs have been federalized and now we have a constitution that doesn’t support their smooth operation.
- xtian 8y ago
  > The modern welfare state, where millions of people are immediately hurt by the federal system grinding to a halt and stopping, would have been anathema to the framers. So too would have been the dominance of corporate interests in the political system. But here we are.
  - scarmig 8y ago
    So too would women, blacks, Asians, and the poor having the right to vote be anathema to them. Why again do we really care about parsing exactly what the Founders would say about the modern world?
    - xtian 8y ago
      Same reason you’d want to understand the intent behind the design of a software system before you modify it. Afterwards, though, you still go ahead and modify it to meet new requirements. Anyway, extending the franchise doesn’t really have anything to do with the prominence of the federal government, whereas the increasing power of corporations does.
      - sangnoir 8y ago
        The argument is that the modern software system has become so complex, worrying about what the intent of the original design is almost pointless. Say a single-user app that was originally written in assembly for PDP and has now evolved (or wrapped) into a multi-cluster, multi-zoned gRPC service - how important is the original intent when it was never designed for the current use case?
        xtian 8y ago
        If you want to do good engineering work on a complex system, it's imperative to understand and remain laser-focused on what the system as a whole is actually trying to accomplish. The original intent is never irrelevant in that context. In fact, it's the foundation for evaluating all the subsequent decisions that resulted in "a multi-cluster, multi-zoned gRPC service".
      - scarmig 8y ago
        Sure, but why do we hold the Founders in a particularly high regard? Instead of, say, countless 20th and 21st century politicians, scholars, and technocrats who have a lot more influence on the government as it exists today, most of whom who don't have views nearly as revolting as the Founders. Who's likely to be able to bring a software system from 16.7.1 to 16.7.2? The team who built 16.7.1, or the team who wrote the pre-alpha version twenty years ago?
        xtian 8y ago
        In many cases (including, I would argue, the current American political system), the people who wrote 16.7.1 are merely technicians without any coherent vision for long term purposes or principles. Why do we still talk about the Unix philosophy?
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  As I recall, not even the military, at least not in any way like we're doing it now.
- jdhn 8y ago
  I follow what's happening in the craft beer world, and some brewers are up in arms due to the fact that the government has to approve labels for all beers that are sold across state lines, or else they could potentially face career ending fines. How on earth did we get from a limited federal government to one that acts as a morality police for beer labels?
  - sagarm 8y ago
    That's pretty clearly interstate commerce. Not sure what approval is required, but presumably it at least covers accurate labeling of ABV.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      Are craft brewers not capable of measuring ABV? Is the bureaucratic approval of a label any guarantee of a particular ABV for beer bottled using that approved label? Lots of ridiculous BS is contained within an overbroad interpretation of interstate commerce.
- ConceptJunkie 8y ago
  So we should leave those things to the states as was originally intended. The courts should never have tolerated the Federal government being allowed to do things which are not specifically enumerated in the first place. That's where things started breaking down. The 17th Amendment just made things worse.

roywiggins 8y ago

There's nothing stopping Congress from amending the Antideficiency Act or just passing a law that would provide for an automatic fallback appropriation if there's no new budget. http://ultimatehistoryproject.com/anti-deficiency-act-history-behind-the-governement-shutdown.html http://ultimatehistoryproject.com/anti-deficiency-act-histor...

javagram 8y ago
Agreed, however as your link discusses there are important reasons the anti-deficiency act was passed. A permanent fallback appropriation would remove congress’ ability to reallocate or reapportion spending without a 2/3 majority vote in both houses to override the presidential veto, something that seems unlikely in the modern party system. Also military funding has to be reappropriated regularly under the constitution, a permanent military appropriation is unconstitutional. “To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;”