251–260 of 612 posts
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Reagan did famously fire 11,000 striking air traffic controllers - so while you might be right I can understand a lot of hesitation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Contr... That was very cool. I know Reagan presidency is often romanticised, especially by, ugh, libertarians, but he had a pair of balls.
As a non US citizen, I don’t understand what’s that shutdown even about, seems like absurd thing to do. Is it all because of Trump or he is not the only one to blame? I remember there was some shutdown when Obama was there too? Or am I mistaken? Edit: downvoted for asking a question?
Keep in mind that the shutdown began during the previous congress, when Republicans controlled the House, Senate, and the Presidency. It has extended to the current congress where the Democrats now control the house.
To break down some additional bits and pieces for folks about how the US government works:
A bill (such as a budget) needs to be passed by both the House of Congress and by the Senate and also approved by the President.
Senate rules make it possible to infinitely delay (effectively block) any bill without support of 60% of the Senate (so even a bill that would pass the Senate may not even be voted on if more than 40% of the Senate opposes it).
If the President vetos (doesn't sign) a bill the house and senate can only override that with a 2/3 majority vote in both.
I hope not too off topic, but I'm puzzled by shutdowns. Every other country I can think of has a system where if the finance is not agreed, the previous budget just continues. The budget sets the yearly amount for each department and it runs on until another budget changes how much everyone gets. Sometimes a new department gets created, sometimes something is abolished. Everyone gets their salary and services run on.…
This is so broken. The terrorists have taken over our government.
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ATC is going to be as important economically and for public safety as police and military. You literally cannot fly commercial flights without ATC. They issue the flight plans, provide the routing, provide clearances for every taxi movement on the ground and every landing and takeoff for every commercial flight in the country. So what I mean is that whatever argument is made to make it illegal for police to strike (a…
This is just wrong. Commercial flights fly all the time without ATC. The majority of airports in the USA are uncontrolled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-towered_airport
Most Jets and planes people have experience with would be flying at those altitudes.
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In many western countries, when a government can't form a working coalition or agree on a budget, new elections are called.
The US system is so archaic at this point, the founding fathers never anticipated the federal government budget being this important to the country. Provisions for dealing with something like a shutdown just aren’t in the constitution other than 2/3 supermajority requirements for veto override or impeachment, which is a recipe for gridlock. Many US states have much more sane budgeting systems and manage to run even u…
That was the whole point of how the government of the US was designed: it's supposed to be hard to "get things done" at the federal level
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It’s also interesting how a democratic Rome voted for becoming an oligarchy.
They didn't vote for oligarchy. They stabbed Caesar in the Senate.
I hope not too off topic, but I'm puzzled by shutdowns. Every other country I can think of has a system where if the finance is not agreed, the previous budget just continues. The budget sets the yearly amount for each department and it runs on until another budget changes how much everyone gets. Sometimes a new department gets created, sometimes something is abolished. Everyone gets their salary and services run on.…
To supporters of one of the parties, this is the point. They want the government to run a balanced budget and this is a way of holding it to account. This is also why the debt ceiling can not be removed or extended enough to not become an annual issue.
To both parties, this is a useful tool to hold over an opposing president. Currently, if one party controls Congress and it is not the president, they still don't have too many options short of impeachment to reign a president in.
Additionally, a congress vote is not enough here, the president needs to sign it in, which is how Trump is able to use the mechanism to demand his wall gets funded here.
On the other hand, in most Westminster inspired systems, failure to pass a budget triggers a new election. And the executive power to not sign in a bill usually has much more strings attached. So this deadlock cannot occur.
Bearing in mind that ~40% of american's could not come up with $400 to cover emergencies, this is going to become more prevalent in the next few days / weeks as people will simply not be able to afford gas to get to their unpaid work. I read an article today discussing how TSA workers in HI are living in their cars in the airport parking lot as they cannot afford to commute. The FBI just cancelled its internship prog…
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This is the longest shutdown ever, so we're kinda past the "reasonable expectation" line when you're in uncharted historical waters...
In many western countries, when a government can't form a working coalition or agree on a budget, new elections are called.
Federal workers should start striking. I gather that in most cases they're explicitly prevented from striking, but I think there's a good chance that it's too unpopular to actually punish them. Also yesterday some leadership of the flight attendants union called for a general strike until it was over: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/could-an-unlikely-av...
I don't know about striking per se. But I have been somewhat confused about why all these workers are reporting to work when they're not being paid. If it's purely out of good will and dedication for their jobs, I appreciate that, but I wonder if it doesn't just serve to mask the problem. Employment at will means that every day is a new agreement - I work then you pay. If one side of that declines, then so should the…
If they refuse to work without explicitly quitting, then they could probably be terminated with cause, which means they'd likely be ineligible for unemployment benefits.