[Peace-discuss] AFL-CIO: 8 Things You Need to Know About the Shutdown

[Robert Naiman]

If they were shutting down the Pentagon, I might have some sympathy for
your position. But that's the one part of the government that they're not
shutting down.

There is a big problem with the partisan discussion - it's excluding the
Pentagon. A key reason that I agreed to host this event was to make sure
that the Pentagon was included in the discussion.





On Thu, Oct 3, 2013 at 7:06 PM, "E. Wayne Johnson 朱稳森" <ewj at pigsqq.org>wrote:

> **
> Let's find ways to make the shutdown permanent.
>
>
>
> On 10/04/13 5:31, Robert Naiman wrote:
>
>
>
> http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/8-Things-You-Need-to-Know-About-the-Shutdown
>
>  8 Things You Need to Know About the Shutdown
> Seth D. Michaels
>
>  This post originally appeared at Working America.
>
>  In case you haven’t heard, the government shut down [Tuesday morning] as
> Congress failed to pass a “continuing resolution” to keep it operating.
> You’ll hear a lot of people saying this is a “standoff” or a simple case of
> two sides being unable to compromise. But it’s not politics as usual—it’s
> an unusual, and dangerous, hijacking of politics by a determined minority.
> Here are eight things to keep in mind as you watch this play out.
>
>  1. It’s Totally Optional: First and foremost, there’s no reason for a
> shutdown, except that House Republicans refuse to pass a continuing
> resolution (CR) without attaching unrelated provisions to undermine the
> Affordable Care Act. This is not an inevitable crisis. It’s a manufactured
> one.
>
>  2. About 800,000 People Aren’t Working, Many Working Without Pay: That’s
> according to this good, comprehensive overview by Brad Plumer of The
> Washington Post. “Non-essential employees” like medical researchers,
> pesticide regulators, wage-law enforcement officials and veterans’ benefits
> processors are staying home today, and it’s unclear whether they’ll get
> back pay. That hit households hard.*
>
>  3. A Lot of People Could Go Without Benefits: Per Plumer’s report, some
> services provided by the government—like disability claims and pensions for
> veterans and food aid for low-income parents—will fall short if the
> shutdown goes on too long.
>
>  4. That’s Awful for the Economy: When people don’t get the money they’re
> expecting to get, they can’t do things like buy food or pay rent. When
> families and businesses don’t know when government will re-open, that makes
> matters worse. One economic research firm estimates the cost of a shutdown
> to our economy at $300 million a day.
>
>  5. Senate Democrats Have Already Compromised: The CR that Senate
> Democrats have passed, multiple times, isn’t based on their ideal budget.
> It’s based on the House Republicans’ lower spending levels, which lock in
> place sequestration cuts.
>
>  6. Keeping the Government Open Isn’t a Concession: House Republicans are
> trying to say that they’re just trying to “negotiate” with the Senate. But
> “do what we say or the economy gets it” isn’t a “negotiation.” It does not
> constitute a compromise on their part to “offer” to fund government
> operations. It’s called “governing.”
>
>  7. Many Republicans Understand What They’re Doing Is Crazy, Are Doing It
> Anyway: It’s simply not the case that most, or even all, Republicans, are
> enthusiastic about forcing a standoff. Even conservative writers admit that
> this is about a small, committed ideological caucus within the Republican
> Party. As Kate Nocera reports, Wisconsin Republican Reid Ribble called the
> shutdown strategy “irrational” and admitted that it would cause “risk to
> our economy.” And yet—out of loyalty to leadership, fear of a primary
> opponent or some other mysterious reason—he voted with the rest of his
> party for the “irrational” and economy-damaging strategy at every
> opportunity. You get zero credit for knowing the right thing if you keep
> doing the wrong thing anyway.
>
>  8. It’s Undemocratic: Government by manufactured crisis and
> hostage-taking violates the basic norms of democracy—and the polls show
> that shutting down government to block or undermine the new health care law
> is a deeply unpopular position. Republicans are engaging in this behavior
> because they couldn’t win enough power in elections to get what they want
> any other way. It’s absurd to accept that as normal.
>
>  As this situation unfolds, keep those eight points in mind.
>
>  *Full disclosure: as the spouse of a federal employee, I’m part of one
> of these hard-hit households.
>
>   --
> Robert Naiman
> Policy Director
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing listPeace-discuss at lists.chambana.nethttps://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>
>
>


-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20131003/0a5e3566/attachment.html>