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Comment by maratd | Hacker News Reader

> Serious question for US members of HN: how do you tolerate these shutdowns?

I realize this is being portrayed in the media as a total government shutdown, but that's really not the case.

The US has multiple levels of government. Federal, State, County, and Municipal.

State, County, and Municipal governments (which are the ones that really provide essential services), are operating normally.

For the Federal government, any self-sufficient or quasi-self-sufficient operations (like the USPTO, USPS, etc.) are unaffected. Any operations that already had their budgets passed are unaffected.

We're talking about a fraction of the total government here. There's more drama here than anything else.

Yes, there are people whose lives are affected, but they're a small fraction of the population. I believe there were estimates of 400k? Even if we bump that up to a million to be conservative, we're talking about 0.25% of the population.

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> For the Federal government, any self-sufficient or quasi-self-sufficient operations (like the USPTO, USPS, etc.) are unaffected. Any operations that already had their budgets passed are unaffected.

Wrong. The Federal Budget was done in steps. Only 25% of the government was under debate on Dec 2017, so only that 25% of the Federal Government was shutdown.

In 2014 (IIRC), there WAS a total government shutdown for a few days.

> We're talking about a fraction of the total government here. There's more drama here than anything else.

25% of the federal government is roughly 800,000 workers who have gotten a $0.0 paycheck yesterday, while most of them were forced to keep working.

Most noticably: Boarder Patrol Agents, TSA Agents, US Air Marshals, and Air Traffic Control agents. They ALL got $0.0 paychecks.

IRS is also affected: the entirety of the IRS got $0 paycheck yesterday.

The fact that airports keep working are because these TSA Agents + Air Traffic controllers have decided that keeping the airports open are more important than getting a paycheck. Salute them next time you see one and thank them for their sacrifice. Airports literally can't function without air-traffic control, and TSA have a thankless job.

The TSA have a thankless job for good reason: it is a useless, ineffective waste of money. Why would I be thankful to someone for harassing me?

> Only 25% of the government was under debate on Dec 2017, so only that 25% of the Federal Government was shutdown.

That's what I said.

> 25% of the federal government is roughly 800,000 workers who have gotten a $0.0 paycheck yesterday, while most of them were forced to keep working.

I calculated off of a million, so that's still below that.

> The fact that airports keep working are because these TSA Agents + Air Traffic controllers have decided that keeping the airports open are more important than getting a paycheck.

Pretty sure they're required to keep working by law?

> Salute them next time you see one and thank them for their sacrifice.

What? What sacrifice? They're going to get paid when this is over. They also took the job knowing something like this happens every other year. This is not new.

> What? What sacrifice? They're going to get paid when this is over.

A delay'd paycheck is certainly a sacrifice for a number of people. Not everyone has emergency funds saved up, and a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck.

> They also took the job knowing something like this happens every other year. This is not new.

This is one of the few times a shutdown has lasted long enough to actually cause a missed paycheck. The last cases where a shutdown caused a missed paycheck was 2014, and before that 1995.

Its certainly not "normal".

The USPTO is potentially affected. They are self funded, but rely on legislation to give them permission to use the funds. So if thenshitdown goes on for another 4-5 weeks, the PTO might have to shut down. Not because they don’t have the money, but they don’t have legal authority to use it.

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