by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Man the battle stations! The government of the United States of America has shut down! Or has it? Is this, the third government shut down of the Trump administration, a critical impasse in our nation's ability to function, or is it merely another vaudeville act of smoke and mirrors perpetrated on a gullible public by the clowns we employ to run our government?
The gambit is being labeled a "partial" shutdown because Congress has been selectively funding programs that it considers to be critical over the past few months - and saving the funding of things regarded as less-than-critical for the dramatic final moments of this legislative session. In fact, the government has already been partially shutdown for the past several weeks as department supervisors and administrative personnel let regular business lapse as they focused on developing contingency plans for this very contingency.
A partial government shutdown is a carefully crafted scam that is designed to inconvenience as few people as possible. Our government likes the show of being avenging angels of fiscal responsibility, but the show comes to a screeching halt when real people start to be effected and begin to complain. Neither Congress nor the President wants to get the blame for interfering with the delivery of the U.S. mail, for instance, nor do they want to be associated with social security checks failing to be issued. Those are bridges that politicians will not cross.
So the shut down focuses on things that are generally out-of-sight or don't impact large numbers of real people. This time they are talking about closing gift shops and restrooms in national parks. Some people will be inconvenienced by those moves, and others will simply do their business behind trees - safe from the notice of park rangers who will furloughed and at home watching football games.
The military, our government's sacred cow, has been spared any inconvenience of a shutdown, as have Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Homeland Security, one of the departments that is actually being shutdown, is responsible for certain things that cannot be stopped without riling the public - including airport security and border security. TSA officials and border agents have been told that they must report for duty - but will do so without pay. Merry Christmas, y'all!
I was working for the federal government during the great shutdown of 2013. At that time I was employed as a civilian social worker with the Air Force. My position was not mission critical, which meant that I was among many military support staff nationwide who were furloughed - or sent home without pay. Those civilians whose positions were considered to be mission essential kept right on working - but also without pay. We were all called into a meeting before the shutdown and told that as soon as the shutdown ended, we would receive back pay - and we did. So the shutdown of 2013, from my perspective, was a paid vacation of several days.
Smoke and mirrors.
A big ol' sham.
Just like Trump's wall.
Citizen Journalist
Man the battle stations! The government of the United States of America has shut down! Or has it? Is this, the third government shut down of the Trump administration, a critical impasse in our nation's ability to function, or is it merely another vaudeville act of smoke and mirrors perpetrated on a gullible public by the clowns we employ to run our government?
The gambit is being labeled a "partial" shutdown because Congress has been selectively funding programs that it considers to be critical over the past few months - and saving the funding of things regarded as less-than-critical for the dramatic final moments of this legislative session. In fact, the government has already been partially shutdown for the past several weeks as department supervisors and administrative personnel let regular business lapse as they focused on developing contingency plans for this very contingency.
A partial government shutdown is a carefully crafted scam that is designed to inconvenience as few people as possible. Our government likes the show of being avenging angels of fiscal responsibility, but the show comes to a screeching halt when real people start to be effected and begin to complain. Neither Congress nor the President wants to get the blame for interfering with the delivery of the U.S. mail, for instance, nor do they want to be associated with social security checks failing to be issued. Those are bridges that politicians will not cross.
So the shut down focuses on things that are generally out-of-sight or don't impact large numbers of real people. This time they are talking about closing gift shops and restrooms in national parks. Some people will be inconvenienced by those moves, and others will simply do their business behind trees - safe from the notice of park rangers who will furloughed and at home watching football games.
The military, our government's sacred cow, has been spared any inconvenience of a shutdown, as have Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Homeland Security, one of the departments that is actually being shutdown, is responsible for certain things that cannot be stopped without riling the public - including airport security and border security. TSA officials and border agents have been told that they must report for duty - but will do so without pay. Merry Christmas, y'all!
I was working for the federal government during the great shutdown of 2013. At that time I was employed as a civilian social worker with the Air Force. My position was not mission critical, which meant that I was among many military support staff nationwide who were furloughed - or sent home without pay. Those civilians whose positions were considered to be mission essential kept right on working - but also without pay. We were all called into a meeting before the shutdown and told that as soon as the shutdown ended, we would receive back pay - and we did. So the shutdown of 2013, from my perspective, was a paid vacation of several days.
Smoke and mirrors.
A big ol' sham.
Just like Trump's wall.
1 comment:
The Post Office is not funded by appropriations from the Congress.
The USPS has been running a technical deficit that shortage is traceable directly to a law passed during the George W. Bush Administration. That law, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, requires the USPS to prepay retirement obligations to the tune of $5+ Billion each year.
Of course that means somewhere in Washington, D.C. is a big pot of pension money that vulture capitalists are scheming to steal from these postal workers.
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