Oh boy! Oh Boy! Frustrations are definitely running rampant as the fear of a government shutdown starts to shift it’s way into a reality.
Yesterday the Post (along with a lot of other news outlets) broke the story that possible budget compromises are at a stand still and worse off then they were last week. That’s not a good sign sitting just 48 hours away from the deadline. Making matters even more dire is that President Obama has put his foot down and said he won’t pass another CR unless it’s just to buy time to draft papers for a working deal that’s in place.
Congressional Budget Talks to Stave Off Shutdown Continue
Needless to say several people are concerned about it and are starting to voice those concerns in droves. The post article referenced above now has more than 3,000 comments and they keep coming. We’ve gone through them to bring you the highlights and we welcome your voice to table below in our own comment section.
****Note these are comments from independent people and don’t reflect the opinions of the Post or GovLoop*****
“Why not create a 10% corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) like most of us have to pay, to help balance the budget? Let’s hear your thoughts, Republicans..
First of all, “most of us” don’t pay the AMT. Less than 2% of taxpayers pay that. What “most of us” pay is zero federal income taxes because of exclusions, deductions, tax credits, etc. You have to earn a fairly substantial income to pay federal income taxes.”
“Two government shutdowns in 15 years…..?? By the time the 2012 budget war gets rolling, we should see #3. Crisis governance is officially declared normal operating procedure. From now on, the electeds must approve bills before knowing what’s in them. The abnormal is hereby declared normal.”
“Obama and Boehner agreed on a budget last week. Then the teabaggers got to Boehner and he backed down. Boeher needs to show some leadership if he expects to remain speaker.”
“Dems should be thanking the Tea party and Boehner – a government shutdown will , rightly, be seen as cause by uncompromising GOP. Obama and the Dems was willing to meet them half way ( that’s a compromise folks), but the Tea baggers would rather have a temper tamtrum and shut down the government to demonstrate thier power over Boehner. Good luck!”
So what are your thoughts?
I don’t see how a shutdown will negatively effect Republicans. At the beginning of the new fiscal year the Democratic party controlled the Senate, the House, and the Presidency. A budget could have easily been passed in the last session of Congress before the Repubs took over the House and gained seats in the Senate. Perhaps this sort of inaction and lack of urgency were major reasons why so many incumbents lost their jobs last election…
That was actually a common theme in the WaPost comments as well
I suspect a more perfect place will be the watering holes around town Friday evening. I’m thinking those comments may be a bit more blunt and unfiltered.
Touche John but that won’t be an option for 800k peeps come Monday
Why is is that the people who are shutting down the gov’t and sending me home without pay are still getting paid??? Nice how they worked that out for themselves!!!
Why, Donna? Because we keep letting them do such shenanigans by voting them back in time and time again or by not voting and letting those benefiting from other shenanigans vote them back in.
I heard this morning on the news the reason congress is paid in a gov’t shutdown is because it was written into the consitution… Is that true?
Why do they take care of banks and the car industry, but they can’t take care of their own employees?
Will anyone be held accountable for not doing their jobs???
Some federal workers, especially in the grossly overpaid Defense and Homeland Sec. entities, need a BIG paycut-or better yet–be eliminated from taxpaid payrolls.
Millions upon millions of taxpayers and non-public servants are indeed tired of poor listenng skils, corruption and immorality with fed employees. I am proud to botherve them and be a voice for those citizens forgotton in Washington, Virginia and Maryland. Current federal employees somehow need to feel the same pain as the millions of unemployed, non-governmental citizens who are struggling just to live! Federal employees must be reminded that America is for the many, not the few; there are 50 stars on that flag, not one or two!
The Federalgency Shutdown may help shed light on performance corruption and employee crminal activity at many Federal Agencies, particularly at Defense and Homeland Security.
Quite a few federal employees in those two depts. choose to act time after time as lawless fugitives–some have forgotten or never heard of a lawlful tenant of society/The Ten Commandments:”Thou Shat Not Kill,” and while failing background checks, were hired anyway by these two Depts.
Maybe these lawless Fed. employees that elude and obstruct jusice at taxpayers expense, while never serving jail time for their time and time again crimnal activity, while enabling themselves to get bogus security clearances–they all should be working instead at some big offshore Multinational corporation that never pays the IRS billions in back taxes–money that could end our national deficit–or better yet, turn themselves in to law enforcement and start serving that hard jail time.
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Yes, congress can’t be shutdown or not paid. Someone has to be there to ring the bell and tell everyone else to come back to work. No, it’s not fair, but what is, really? Both parties (and I have never wished harder that there were several MORE parties than just the two) need to better control their lunatic fringe. Maybe the major issue at the two political conventions coming up should be to force the wing nuts in each party to go off and form their own organizations and leave the governing to the grownups who know how to compromise.