Government Shuts Down as Congress Misses Deadline | Hacker News Reader

Government Shuts Down as Congress Misses Deadline

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81 pointsISL43 comments

From the perspective of someone who live in a Westminster-style democracy this is made especially bizarre by virtue of the fact that failing to be able to pass a budget bill results in new elections[1]. If you're going to block the budget, you'd better be damned confident that voters agree with you.

[1] I suppose technically it results in the head of state inviting other political partites to form a government, and then calling elections when they can't.

We had two similar "partial shutdowns" of the US Gov't in the 1990's. Democratic President refusing to cut healthcare-related spending vs. Republican-controlled Congress holding the debt ceiling hostage. Sound familiar? Same game, different players.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governmen...

In the 90s Congress failed to pass a budget. Holding the debt ceiling hostage was never seen or tried as a legitimate political tactic before the last few years.

Nope. In the former speaker's own words...

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/19/opinion/gingrich-obama-congres...

I imagine a Koch brother handing the other a single $1 over a bet they could shutdown the government like in Trading Places.

Maybe the loser has to donate an extra million dollars or so to the winner's favorite charity?

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/09/02/koch-brothers-give-m...

Wouldn't it be nice if the federal government were small enough that it contained no personnel who were "non-essential" ?

Actually, no. That wouldn't be nice at all. Large government solves the collective action problem and is necessary to have a modern, functioning civilization. I'll take a welfare state over your Randian hellpit any day.

It's impossible to have only "essential" staff as you will always need "non-essential" staff to support their work. For example, NASA TV employees are "non-essential" [1] but without the TV station it may mean lots of kids are not inspired by NASA any more. Also, Labor statisticians are "non-essential" but would you rather the Department of Labor make decision on gut feelings instead?

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/27/us/who-goes-to...

I'd rather not have a Department of Labor.

Some of the non-essential staff that are being suspended include those who process passports. Surely the oversight of documentation stating that you are a citizen of a country should be a government function? Privately-controlled citizenship data would be particularly ripe for corruption.

Well theoretically, your birth or naturalization certificate is proof of citizenship, not a passport. And travel can theoretically be done without any sort of passport too. Historically passports are a very recent thing in the history of travel.

Also I'd imagine passport & citizenship documentation is a very small part of the government.

> Historically passports are a very recent thing in the history of travel.

Because border control per se is a rather modern thing.

Your birth certificate isn't proof of citizenship. You can have your citizenship revoked, or you can be born to traveling parents in a country that doesn't automatically recognise such births as citizens.

I wouldn't really say that passports are a very recent thing in the history of travel, since passports predate mass travel. The expansion of rail in 19th century Europe made enforcing passport requirements much more difficult. But even before passports, people would travel with letters of recommendation or other such papers to indicate who they were. While the document called a 'passport' has only been with us for a couple of centuries, the concept has been around for ages.

And while you can theoretically travel without a passport, don't expect an expedient process on arrival. Lack of a passport is not a trivial thing.

NASA is almost completely shutting down. They are all essential. Essential and non-essential are simply legal terms that define who gets a paycheck during such fiascoes. We have huge datacenters that are mostly (there's going to be one guy who runs through checking for any emergencies such as water leaks etc) unmanned now and there is no climate science being done. They are essential but are being furloughed anyway.

'Essential', in many cases, mainly means emergency personnel who keep the facilities safe. Important work has stopped.

You can classify tasks on two scales - important vs trivial; and urgent vs postponable. This legal definition is about the second one; valuable tasks that aren't urgent are "non-essential", but a guard at the entrance of some useless warehouse is "essential".

One sad aspect of this is that it won't have any effect on the income of the involved politicians.

If they were on suspension too, how would they get together to eventually agree a fix? I agree about the incentives being wrong, and I think the whole thing is ridiculous, but unfortunately, they're exactly the ones who have to keep working until it's over.

Doesn't have to be all or nothing. But they are responsible for this mess, so cut their income by 50% or even just 25% for the time. Or reducing their income by X% each day where they can't find a solution.

Oh, have them come to work but skip all their compensation until they pass a budget that includes it.

Does anyone know how would this affect public schools?

I've always been under the impression that public schools and police services are all managed by state/local taxes and not tied to the federal budget.

They get federal dollars for certain things, but you are correct that they are managed and largely paid for by their respective state.

Perhaps those in D.C. will be affected.

DC schools will not close, although I don't know what rule/categorisation/whatever is being applied. The mayor is attempting to keep all city functions going: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/DC-Waits-to-See-If-I...

I can't understand this. What is meant by Government Shuts Down? No law and order will be enforced?

The US government is on partial shutdown. So many hundreds of thousands of US government workers will either 1. not be paid to work, or 2. be furloughed (not go in to work). This applies to non-essential workers (found a list here - http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2013/09/politics/government-s... ).

Retroactive pay will apply once things are worked out.

One important thing not to forget, Partisan issues aside, is that both Congress and the President still get paid without any hiccups.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/27/us/who-goes-to...

Broad strokes seems to be that anything a normal citizen would enjoy or a program of social uplift etc gets shut down. National parks, NASA, various food inspectors (how is that not "essential"??) and some sporadic regulators.

Meanwhile, the DEA, military recruiters, and yes congress / the president keep getting paid. Is there a single elected official that will be affected by the shutdown? That would seem like mis-aligned incentives.

Who else is ready for some debt ceiling!?

Congress and the President are both required to be paid by the Constitution (20th amendment and Art 2, Sec 1, respectively).

Ah, so they like that part of the constitution.

When would a full shutdown occur?

I'm not aware of any official provisions for a "full shutdown", but if the debt ceiling isn't raised in roughly two weeks the government would technically default on it's obligations. This could certainly be viewed as a type of full shutdown.

The debt ceiling issue is a lot more complicated than that and even if it weren't raised the federal government would continue to be able to spend the money it receives from tax revenue. That would be a more severe shutdown (and likely catastrophic to world financial markets). But it would not be a "full" shutdown in the sense that the entire government stops functioning.

A "full shutdown" would take everyone in uniform marching to the District of Criminals and throwing all the politicians in jail.

> A "full shutdown" would take everyone in uniform marching to the District of Criminals and throwing all the politicians in jail.

You can go live in some kleptocracy in Africa if that kind of thing inspires you.

This is exhibit 2736372 of "why political articles on HN are bad". We now have individuals advocating a military coup d'état against the elected government in the US.

Fuck the elected government in the US!

No, this:

"You can go live in some kleptocracy in Africa if that kind of thing inspires you."

"exhibit 2736372 of "why political articles on HN are bad"."

What you have done is say some one must leave the country and cannot argue for some sort of change because you don't like it. That is the behavior of the quoted Africa remark. Which is a questionable remark in it's self.

He's not 'advocating change', he's saying a military dictatorship is better than a democracy. Do we really need to argue that kind of point?

On HN, it's an item of debate. HN is the only place I've ever had to explain that a quasi-military benevolent dictatorship is an incredibly wonderful idea and would be great for installing if only we could trust anyone who was actually part of it.

Which is why HN is a really bad place for political articles. HN attracts people who believe in momentous change, rather than incremental change: no matter how many times it's pounded in that startups aren't a get-rich-quick scheme, you still have people who think that their big idea is going to make them the CEO of the next Internet giant.

My initial comment was in no way intended to to imply that "a military dictatorship is better than a democracy." That was a construct of your imagination. Many of those whom I referred to as being in uniform are civilians, such as police officers, and I hope that any subsequent government imposed by such action would be a Constitutional Republic in nature since I favor the precepts set forth by the aforementioned Constitution.

As for your failed interpretations of my intent and arguing such points, by your continued comments on this matter you are displaying your own willingness to argue this point.

Working without being paid during the furlough ("volunteering") is outlawed[1] to prevent employees from suing for back pay... which is also not guaranteed by any law. CNN simply made that assumption because it was granted during the last major shutdown.

http://www.bsnlawfirm.com/newsletter/OP0413_Natter.pdf

An acquaintance stated that he won't be able to enter campus to check on his live specimens. So they're going to die. I didn't get any details from him, but I'm sort of hoping he's talking about bacteria...

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