Government Shutdown to Affect Some Programming at CES 2019 | Hacker News Reader

Government Shutdown to Affect Some Programming at CES 2019

ces.tech

71 pointstaspeotis37 comments

I manually scanned the speakers list[1] looking for US federal officials, including both political appointees and civil servants (and employees of the national laboratories, who aren't technically federal employees). I don't know if the list has been changed to omit the speakers who can't attend, but there are a few listed speakers who don't have any sessions listed in their bio pages.

Here's a list of them: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Wmuy9K_xvVQLum0Orq1x...

If I missed anyone or made any mistakes, please comment and I'll update my sheet. The furlough status of any individual position within the federal government is a very complicated beast, so take my assertions of furlough status with a grain of salt.

Also remember that aside from the speaker and their support staff, there are probably dozens of government personnel attending simply as attendees. If furloughed, those people can't attend and the federal government might not even be able to get refunds for registration fees.

In general, conferences represent an opportunity for US government personnel, including practitioners, regulators, and senior leaders, to interact with the communities and industries they oversee. Nobody is helped by barriers to these interactions, such as the furlough. They don't help the government modernize and they don't help the government craft effective regulation.

[1]: https://www.ces.tech/Conference/Speaker-Directory.aspx

Based on some other news articles[1], it appears Ajit Pai was supposed to speak at CES and is now no longer attending, which seems like a fairly significant person to drop given how important spectrum and approvals are to these manufacturers. (feelings about Pai's current policy prerogatives notwithstanding)

[1] https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/ces-2019-us-government...

Just for completeness sake, here's the complete list of pulled attendees mentioned in the article:

* Ajit Pai, FCC Commissioner

* Brendan Carr, FCC Commissioner

* Rebecca Slaughter, FTC Commissioner

* Unspecified others from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); Department of Homeland Security (DHS); the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Still speaking: Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation

FEMA is under DHS and EPA is under DOI so those make some sense. HHS did get an appropriations bill, but that only covered 60% of the Department. The other chunk of HHS is funded by the Agriculture and Interior appropriations. Certain activities of the FDA can be funded by user fees, but it doesn't seem like most of the FDA can be funded that way.[1]

[1]: https://www.hhs.gov/about/budget/fy-2019-hhs-contingency-sta...

A bit tangential but, It will be interesting to see what happens this time because, unlike in the past, congress passed the Defense portion of the budget for the full year so the military (and civilians that work for the Department of Defense) aren't effected by this shutdown.

My bet is that it makes it more likely that this could drag out much longer because Trump's base views it as a win - win. If the Democrats cave they get their wall. If they don't then all those departments that they want to eliminate are closed down while this drags on. Either way they are getting something they want so they have no reason to compromise.

Problem is that DHS is also pretty much unfunded, and that's a bunch of stuff Trump's base care about. Air traffic controllers, TSA agents, etc, etc are also working without pay, which is not a sustainable situation... people have already started "calling in sick" (with those remaining having to cover the extra hours) and if this lasts for a month or more, people WILL quit and find other jobs. Or go on strike... can't actually hire replacements when HR is on furlough and there's no money...

While that describe the reason why the Republicans might continue the shutdown, what are the reasons for the Democrats? I would guess that by blocking the wall they get favor with their voter blocks, and by getting the government to shutdown they hope that the republican voter block will revolt?

> what are the reasons for the Democrats?

They already offered wall funding in exchange for DACA[1]. I daresay they're less inclined to play ball now; even before you consider the more progressive lean it now has after the midterms.

[1] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/19/border-wall-democr...

Their view seems to be that that based on the things the president has said and done[0] the public will ultimately lay the blame / credit for the shutdown at his feet and that will hurt him politically.

From a strategic view a shutdown is bad for the economy and nothing hurts a president's chance of re-election like a down economy.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkL3fheL2MY

Is there a quantitative analysis somewhere of who is effected by government shutdown and by how much?

The department that does that is shut down.

It borders on impossible to quantify because you have the first order effects of government workers not being paid but then you also have a much larger number of contract workers and obligations that may or may not be able to continue depending on how the funding for their contract happens and the location the work is performed.

Beyond that you have all the second order effects like landlords and lenders not getting paid on time which starts to become a problem around 2-3 weeks in when the first pay day is missed.

Would people affected in the flow-on effects (such as landlords etc) be in any position to claim compensation due to the governments actions via a court? Or is there some form of legislation that protects the government from litigation in this sort of instance?

Generally if I lose my job in the private sector and am unable to pay my rent or mortgage, my landlord or lender isn't able to go after my employer even if the employer dismissed me unfairly.

But they're not laid off. 400,000 people are expected to work without getting paid on time. https://www.upi.com/amp/Top_News/US/2019/01/01/Federal-worke...

I don't believe that this is a fair or reasonable comparison to make in this scenario.

Can a landlord sue Yahoo if a laid off worker can't pay their rent? This is really no different.

I always forget that we elected all the leaders of Yahoo.

The stock holders elect the board, at least they did before they got bought.

These workers aren't laid-off... they're just not being paid. I don't know if a landlord can sue Yahoo if they just stop paying an employee causing them to not make rent. It doesn't sound absurd to me.

They can file for unemployment benefits. The concept of a furlough isn’t even unique to government the only unique part is the cause.

[deleted, for reasons of personal avoidance of social media pitfalls]

Yes, if you assume it ends up being relatively short. What happens if this goes on for months? Also contractors don't get back pay only the government workers so you can't say this is all just a matter of everyone trusting in the full faith and credit of the US Government.

What happens if this goes on for half a year? Before you say it won’t happen, those are the same words said in 2016.

800k middle class people not getting a paycheck is actually a pretty sizable hit to the economy. The average federal salary is a bit over $80k. Rounding down, that's about $3000 in the average federal paycheck. So you're looking at around $2.4 billion taken out of the economy over the past couple weeks (their second missed paycheck is coming up on Friday, so double that).

That isn't really what happens though. For the people who are still working, they get paid retroactively once they pass a budget. So they live on savings or borrow money for a while, which is no fun for them but is what actually happens, and then replace most of that money when they get the back-pay. The actual loss is what they lose in interest over that period of time, which is a small fraction of the total.

For the workers who are actually sent home and correspondingly never get paid, that means the government still has the money it would have had to pay them. So either it goes back to the taxpayer (in theory) or more likely they find some other way to spend it. Either way it goes back into the economy again.

So it's not about the money.

There are some other issues though. One is you lose whatever value the government employees were providing. Though this is mostly the broken window fallacy. If you give someone a month off, they may still do something productive with it -- work a temporary job, catch up on home repairs, take a vacation or attend a conference etc. Whether or how much this is less or more productive overall than their government work is a case by case determination, but it's not as if typical government work is renowned for its efficiency.

Another issue is that if it extends for too long, the furloughed employees will find other work permanently. That can be a problem if you only have to turn around and pay recruitment and training costs to replace them again. On the other hand, it may actually help to thin the herd -- it's a lot easier to reduce or eliminate inefficient programs after some or all of the people who normally lobby to keep their jobs are already gone.

One of the interesting third order effects is people learning not to work for the government or government contractors if they value being paid for work. I can easily imagine applicants for everything from TSA or contracted airport security positions to 18F or contracted software development positions saying, hm, lemme keep job hunting a bit more and find something in the private sector.

I'm here wondering what that loan market is for essential employees that can be confident in back pay.

Some banks like USAA offer 0% loans to military members in this situation (but I don’t know if that’s military only). The local credit union offered 0% loans to the non-military federal employees here the last time a shutdown impacted the military base. I don’t know if anyone offers something similar to other federal employees.

EDIT: Wow, couldn't type well on my phone this morning.

Anecdotally, a security guard at the casino where I work is unable to finish moving until his National Guard paycheck is cleared. That's hardly surprising, but the shutdown definitely has a wide berth in terms of collateral damage.

Because the landlord needs someone in the home, he may lose the opportunity. A damned shame.

I'd be surprised if that is being effected by this shut down. The Defense budget was passed and the Department of Defense isn't shut down this time. Also National Guard units are typically funded by the state and not the federal government.

I have no clue if he is active or not, and I'm only going off his venting session, but I do believe him and doubt he would fib.

~Immigration is a big thing affected by the shutdown. Visa processing delays is a big issue for many businesses and individuals relying on it. For example, there are OPT applications now sent by many. Such a mess.~

edit: incorrect info, see comments below

I don't think this is true. USCIS is mostly unaffected by this, because applications are fee-based: https://www.fragomen.com/insights/alerts/immigration-impact-...

You are correct. USCIS is not affected, E-verify is. That’s great news! Thank you for correcting me. Also this is pretty well summarizing what’s affected https://www.cbsnews.com/news/government-shutdown-what-closed...

E-Verify is affected but you just run your E-Verify requests when it's back up. While this is a longer outage than normal E-Verify goes down for other reasons more often than it should and you deal with those in the same way.

I had a US tourist visa processed on the 3rd of Jan. There were no delays, or mentions of potential delays, related to the government shutdown. (It was processed in Calgary)

This shutdown of govt has at least some benefit. The way of life that has manifested in the USA, at least for the last few decades, is that the masses/middle class is just too busy to be active citizens. They barely get to getting out and voting every two or four years let alone have the time to understand what’s going on within their govt. Meanwhile corporations and people in position of power (who have the masses working for them and hence have the time to do what they want) are able to devote resources (time or money or both) to influence the govt. the result is, for the large part, a govt of the (rich/ powerful) people for the the (rich/powerful) people. Finally, the final state of the system like this is always one of polarization because the only people who come out to vote (given it’s so hard to vote) are the ones that care radically about a point or a position. Ironically the politicians they will get will also be the ones that cater to these people who have deeply held strong beliefs. Net net you get something that is on either end of the spectrum and not something that is “centrist”. The only time this changes is that the troubles are soo bad that more people become active citizens and vote for a (usually when objectively looked a opposite but somewhat extreme) position. But this is temporary as the system will regress to the mean (polarization in this case) unless the fundamental shift of active citizenry takes place. And for that you need a radically different environment where people have time for it and the govt actually makes it easy to be a active citizen. Net net, this shutdown will hurt people enough to take a position - where this guy doesnt get a second term. (Again an extreme response to a extreme situation when you look at it objectively).

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