Everyone knows the phrase "government shutdown" doesn't mean the entire U.S. government is shut down. So in a partial government shutdown, like the one underway at the moment, how much of the government is actually shut down, and how much is not?
One way to measure that is in how much money the government spends. In a conversation Thursday, a Republican member of Congress mentioned that the military pay act, passed by Congress and signed by President Obama at the beginning of the shutdown, is actually a huge percentage of the government's discretionary spending in any given year. And that is still flowing. So if you took that money, and added it to all the entitlement spending that is unaffected by a shutdown, plus all the areas of spending that are exempted from a shutdown, and added it all together, how much of the federal government's total spending is still underway even though the government is technically shut down?
SO .... for all the whining and crying and castigating and name-calling Barack the Terrible has been doing, not only has it become clear to the majority of low-information Americans that their lives are more or less utterly unaffected by the federal government "shutdown", it turns out the shutdown isn't really much of a shutdown. Hate to break it to you low-info folks, but us informed folks could've told you this.
Let's add to what Byron York is saying here: The veterans you see breaking down barriers erected by Barack the Terrible, kids with cancer not being able to participate in clinical trails, campers getting kicked out of national parks .. These are all theater orchestrated by Barry and his administration to make people think that having 17% of the government shut down is catastrophic.
Furthermore, when the "shutdown" collides with the debt ceiling on October 17th, it won't be catastrophic either -- unless Barack the Terrible wants it to be.
Barack the Terrible will tell you that if the federal government doesn't raise the debt ceiling by October 17th, it will default and plunge the world economy into a horrible economic depression; markets will fail, the sky will fall, the world may literally come to an end as we know it. The media, even the so-called "conservative" media, help Barry perpetrate this fraud by referring to Oct. 17th as the date the federal government goes into default on its debt.
There is no better way to put this: This notion is bullshit, a bald-faced lie intended to scare the crap out of the low-information American. If we default on our debt payments on October 17, it will be because Barack Obama chooses to punish the American people in general and specifically those of us who oppose out of control government spending. And if he does, it will because Barack the Terrible chooses to advance his "fundamental transformation" of the United States into a weak world power that is no better than any other country. In short, Barack Obama will create this crisis in order to advance his vision of the United States of a failing state that is in need of his transformation through his Marxist vision.
As David Stockman, Reagan's budget director, (unlike Barack the Terrible, Reagan actually HAD a budget) pointed out on Lou Dobbs Friday, the federal government takes in $250 billion a month "shutdown" or no "shutdown". It takes $30 billion of that to service the debt obligations. The rest can be prioritized to spend on things like Social Security, the military, Medicare etc. If we default, it would be because Barack the Terrible chooses to default.
So what we need is for the Republicans to stand firm, get the message out, keep the faith and let people see that shutting down the federal government barely affects them. What will affect us all is if we keep piling debt on top of debt until we are no longer able to service it. If we become the world's biggest Greece. If the largest economy in the world collapses under the weight of Barack Obama's reckless spending -- and it won't take to long if his pet entitlement is full implemented -- the entire world will feel it.
2 comments:
You wrote, referencing what David Stockman said:
"the federal government takes in $250 billion a month "shutdown" or no "shutdown". It takes $30 billion of that to service the debt obligations."
That's mostly true, but only if you define "debt obligation" to be solely the interest owed on bonds and treasury bills. This is the equivalent of saying that your debt obligations consist solely of your minimum credit card payments and not your rent, car lease or electricity bill.
After Oct 17th, the government will owe contractors for services rendered, employees for work provided, social security to people who have paid into the system and very much see it as an obligation for the government to pay them back, etc, etc. Those are the sorts of payments the government would default on, in whole or in part, regardless of what the president decides.
Also, for the sake of your tortured readers (or, reader, since I seem to be the only one) you might want to pick an opinion and stick with it.
Last week you said we'd all live through a shutdown, then you warned that the shutdown was going to kill kids with cancer, and now you are back to saying it is a non-event.
Last week you said hardly anyone would notice the shutdown, then you complained about a website where people could share whether they noticed the shutdown, and now you are glad people will experience how the shutdown barely affects them.
"Let the damn government shut down" was your refrain. Then you railed against President Obama for not negotiating to reopen the government and against Senator Reid for refusing " to fund major parts of the government." Now you are saying major parts of the government aren't even shut down, that it's only 17%.
Shesh!
Look, the government absolutely has to spend less money. A *lot* less. But shutting down the government is a stupid course of action. In the end it actually costs us money. To wit: The House has already voted to restore full back pay to federal workers. In other words, we are currently paying people NOT to work.
So, this whole mess is expensive. And it will result in a budget and an Obamacare law that are essentially unchanged.
If you were an "informed folk" you would know that.
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