A Non-Partisan view of the Federal Government Shutdown

[drcollie]

The Federal Government Shutdown is absolutely ridiculous and is the buzz of all Washington DC radio & TV today. I note on that on NBC news last night they say Congress has only a 10 % approval rating nationally right now.....and that's probably just 'Friends and Family' making up that small margin. Not only will this hurt all families employed by the Federal Government, but it will trickle down (actually more of a flood) to small businesses like mine as well. No one is going to buy a new sofa - or take the family out to dinner - if their paycheck is interrupted. It will be hunker-down mode on spending and that's not good for any of us.

The talk is all "Whom is to Blame?" Republicans or Democrats? The House, the Senate or The White House? I know who is to blame....its the Voters. We, The People, have elected as our Representatives a large group of tough-talking, highly principled, preaching-the-moral-high-ground people who refuse to bend or compromise. Now we are getting exactly what we voted for. Republican or Democrat it really doesn't matter as we have installed a bunch of hard heads and they not moving the country forward. Tough talk rhetoric sounds great on the political stump, but it doesn't seem to be working very well in actuality.

Politics is the art of compromise. We have managed to elect people that don't compromise. Think about that next time you're at the polls and vote accordingly.

[MRSSQRDAWAY]

You are so right. Over this past year my husband and I as retired military and Federal employees have had our income reduced four times. We did not know if we were going to receive anything in our direct deposites on 1 Oct. I have had to revise my personal budget to include plans to replace 40 years old furniture several times. I am now sending Duane an order for a sofa with a compromise I really did not plan . Over the years we have survived several government shutdowns. loss of income, but people this is still the best government, county on earth.

[hglaber]

Perhaps it's just a distorted perception (as hindsight often is), but one issue is it seems like political strategy used to be "Both sides compromised and ended up with something that benefited a lot of people. How can I take all of the credit?" Now political strategy seems more geared to "How can I create a catastrophe that hurts a lot of people, and make sure the other guys get the blame?"

The trouble is, quite often both sides think they engineer the catastrophe to insure the other guy go down for it. This shutdown is the textbook example - they both think they can blame it on the other party. Since both sides think they will benefit from the mess, how could it be anything but inevitable?

[cuse69]

I might suggest two additional elements of the problem we the "voters".

First and foremost is apathy. Too many don't vote.

Second is campaigns become public relations contests, not a true presentation of positions, values, competence. We have become a nation that accepts "spin" as an acceptable answer for any tough question, and our politicians have become experts at it. They tell us what we want to hear and we like what they tell us.

[Ci2Eye]

All good points so far.

I remember a time when there used to be something called "Blue Dog Democrats". I live in Georgia and they were especially prevalent here in the south. They were Democrats but of a more conservative to moderate ideology. There are now few of them left. They have been replaced by either more liberal Democrats that more closely tow the party line or in some cases by Republicans. Likewise, especially in the North, there were moderate to Liberal Republicans. Today they are all labeled as RINOs and banished from their party. In the north there are now few Republicans politicians left.

What we are left with is a very divided government with two very polarized sides and not many people in the middle and I think we never realized just how important the folks in the middle really were. The conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans were the dealmakers. They were the ones who could see both sides of an issue and forge compromise. They were a more critical element than we ever knew.

Couple that with an Executive branch that stays somewhat removed from the process preferring to allow the two sides in the Legislative branch to work out the details of any legislation and we are left with a system that simply isn't working any more. We have two warring factions that are barely able to perform their critical functions and completely unable to respond proactively to anything.

[ceasar2k6]

Here are the real problems:
1. We really have no clue what candidates stand for. All we know is what we see on tv from opposition; which is to say a vote yay or nay on a topic without any actual details. That's called scare tactic
2. Ones we elect are so scared of those opposition ad's that they worry about covering their butts and getting re-elected, rather than actually do good.
rinse and repeat.

I remember hearing this on a TV show, to paraphrase: when the senate and congress control went from republicans to dem and then president tried to ban all anonymous/issue campaign contributions (like NRA to gun lobby), the new speaker of the house said something like: why would I wanna ban this: we finally got the control back, so it's time for us to recoup our depleted war chests.

That's the point... they treat politics as a career not as doing good.

They all are bad

[aaron]

If a straight vote to fund the government were placed on the House floor, it would pass by an overwhelming majority. The issue is first and foremost the Hastert rule, the policy of the Speaker of the House to only put matters up for vote when they are supported by the "majority of the majority", which is keeping such a simple, straight vote from taking place. The problem is not that the majority of Members of Congress are too extreme to vote to fund the government - by all appearances a significant majority stand ready or willing to do so. The issue is that as long as the Speaker adheres to the Hastert Rule, a self-imposed policy, half of the majority party can keep such a measure from coming to vote.

Congress would end this stand-off in a heartbeat if its members were permitted to vote on a straight measure.

[cuse69]

Might as well deal with the impasse now while it's only a partial shutdown, then to wait 2 weeks when the issue of debt ceiling can take down the entire house of cards. Maybe the extra time will be of value. If not, today's issues of the CR will only be a minor prelude to the disruption that a stalemate over the debt will cause.

[aaron]

Boehner has stated that he's not going to let the nation default - which I take as good news (no default) and bad news (it suggests he's going to drag this thing out...).

[MRSSQRDAWAY]

FORUM MEMBERS : Lets talk how to find, buy and care for fine furniture. I know everyone is apprehensive over the state of our country to . I love to read this forum , and think we need get back to the purpose of why Duane pays for this to be on the internet. Lets talk furniture!