sadurdaynight
63366
833
33
Sep 24, 2023 10:04 PM
sadurdaynight
63366
833
33
meowingintensifies
Childish games played by adults, who have the intelligence of teenagers. Buckle up, things aren't getting better.
MyCakeDayOnlyComesOnceEveryFourYears
#3 Yeah, that's not what's happening here. Unless of course "pork barrel politics" is code for "Republicans seeking social media attention with demands so extreme even the rest of their own party isn't on board"
hoopyhoop
The budget process worked a lot better when we did have pork barrel politics. Everybody knew the deal was to fund the other person's pet project in exchange for funding for yours.
wadatahmydamie
#4 “We” lol
Nah fam, Republicans are. Americans aren’t.
CaptCrobar
I mean it makes sense. Why should any of us pay income tax, sales tax or any tax during the shutdown?
alcaray
That's not a hill I would choose to defend till death.
TsukariYoshi
Most of these shutdowns I've just been able to shrug my shoulders and just keep doing me, but I *work* for the government now, as a contractor. And what I've been reading shows that contractors generally get shafted on this sort of thing. If we're not essential enough to keep working, we're not getting any back pay, either. So this'll be fun. At least I'll have time to play some video games, but hopefully I don't have to cancel my yearly trip to see my mom due to funds.
Babomonkey
*fazed
DarthVella
Thank you, fellow nitpicker. It is a lowly, thankless job, but someone's gotta do it.
skellumqt
The people shutting down the government aren't pork barrel politics, they're exactly the people who don't want to pay taxes. Also, you are represented. The problem is there is a significant chunk of the country who wants their representatives to fuck it all, and think it's great.
porkpotpie
I mean... Non-Americans living in the States pay taxes without being able to vote, so welcome to the club? First time?
xlr82xs
I pay American taxes despite neither being American nor living there sometimes. And then more taxes locally on that income too. Atleast I get freedom sausages
giveittomestraightlikeapearcidermadefrom100percentpears
As a non-American.. I enjoy learning about the debt ceiling every year. It's like learning how to play poker, I remember how to play it for the night. By the next day, I've already forgotten.
Starfury42
Trump (and probably some MAGA congress people) think is by doing a shutdown his trials will stop. Wrong. NY/GA will continue and the courts are an essential service so even if the idiots shut it down judges/juries/prosecutors still go to work. If they taxed the corporations/high income earners they'd have enough money.
Teaflings
Tax religious institutions. They are for-profit companies that do not pay taxes.
mohavewolfpup
Do one better and shut them down. They’ve been irrelevant for centuries now
Giantmutantcrab
Fascism is here. Time to whip out the guillotines
bindedig
Can we just shut down the house , get a new speaker, let the senate take over and continue ?
Didn’t orange man say the president can do anything under article 2 ? Biden can just sign bills without the house.
vonbaronhans
I'm increasingly convinced of the position that taxes do NOT pay for things. Governments with control over their fiat currency pay for things by creating money. And they maintain the flow of money in the economy by deleting from the economy through taxes. Modern Monetary Theory for anyone who might be interested. (Local governments do, in fact, have to levy taxes to pay for things.)
sadurdaynight
In the US, every gov't except Fed has to operate on a zero-balance budget. IE: taxes in, expenses out have to equal zero or there has to be a surplus of tax. If they have too many expenses, they can sell bonds or something. EG: bonds to get a tollway going, then tolls to keep it going. But, yeah, Fed prints money. Taxes are supposed to offset expense, and they hopefully don't overprint $ to devalue the currency. Lot of countries are debt-driven economy.
Beleg7
This has some serious "both sides" stink to it.
aneyeholeman
Didn't we just go through this like a week ago? It feels like we just went through this like a week ago.
HonestCommentFarmer
There was drama over increasing the debt ceiling about 4 months ago. This is about passing a budget. It's COMPLETELY different, pinky swear.
blomey
Breaking news! Republicans are trash!... more at 11!
HopelessNecr0mantic
Thats...not news.
wandermanspacebot
But they are breaking things.
HopelessNecr0mantic
woozle
bigdix69420
A succulent Chinese meal
TsukariYoshi
To this day I still use "I see you know your judo well!" and no one ever gets the reference :(
ModernVoodooApostasy
Pork barrel? Really? Do go on.
2graves
It's a Republican buzzword, need to know more?
maday1br
Don't get too excited, it's just a metaphor for government overspending on pet projects; not a scrap of edible pork to be had. EDIT: I only now realize you're asking about what spending, not 'what is a pork barrel.' Hopefully my initial response is funny enough to warrant reading.
ModernVoodooApostasy
I know exactly what the term means. It's almost always used by righwingers to describe any project they don't want.
ForRohan
That's what I thought.
KarateCanine
Just as China and Russia want. Man they must pay the republicans well
Krossis
Apparently it only takes 5 figures to get them to bend the knee
drosophilamelanogaster
*bend over
autodidacticcortex
Let’s do a kickstarter and get our own
blaghart
taxation isn't theft, taxation is part of the social contract. Profit is theft, since it is by definition the amount of money that wasn't paid to labor for the value they created with their work.
Sands5
Taxation when the government is shutdown is though. Or is it fine when the government breaks their part of the social contract.
blaghart
the government isn't breaking their part of the social contract though, because all debts accrued during a shutdown DO get paid. Think of it like the fact that you don't have to pay tax until the end of the year.
Sands5
But they are sacrificing the nations/our credit score by doing this. It has already been lower once when they did this before. So it's at least them breaking the social contract at the cost of the nations credit score.
blaghart
the lowered credit rating came despite a lack of shut down. The two are unrelated.
Sands5
So Moody's is just fearmongering about us having negative credit? https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/moodys-warns-us-government-shutdown-would-be-credit-negative-2023-09-25/
tomatoboy
#3 except there’s not pork barrel spending causing the issue. It’s a small group of people trying to starve the federal government of funding because they don’t believe it should have any power getting away with murder due to a weak speaker and narrow majority.
SpamYarBlockers
They don’t care if they stay in office; they have lucrative lobbying and media personality jobs waiting
SilverNicktail
No, no, they believe it should have lots of power. Centralised power. Power held by a very small number of people. One, you might say.
OnomatopoeicOnanisma
I think not the same story, but related, over at rawstory they are saying that GOP appropriations bill proposed intends to gut public spending to extend tax cuts for the rich.
Thunderchunks
This. Pork barrel is a thing, but that's not what's going on here
DomeGuy
A case can be made that we're seeing so many shutdowns because there ISN'T pork-barrel spending to get enough reps in line.
OctopusGrift
Also funding random weird projects is how science gets done.
sunyudai
They are literally shutting down over their own budget bill, it's not even a dem/republican fight this time. It's a rep/rep fight.
Rhythmaster
(To the tune of "final countdown) it's a government shutdown! *kazoo plays.
StarscreamAndHutch
They are following orders from trimp who thinks if the govt shuts down that his trials also stop. It doesnt work that way.
HubicPairs
lol. Trimp
marsilies
I mean, they'll PAUSE until the government starts back up. It's very short term thinking.
MileysVirus
I could be wrong, but from what i understand, criminal and civil litigation will continue
marsilies
This article states federal courts can continue for 2 weeks due to other revenue (court fees, etc.), but they may need to eventually shut down. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-judiciary-can-keep-operating-2-weeks-if-government-shuts-down-2023-09-19/
StarscreamAndHutch
Federal litigation does not stop. It is funded differently. He also has state cases that dont care about federal gov shutdown.
marsilies
This article states federal courts can continue for 2 weeks due to other revenue (court fees, etc.), but they may need to eventually shut down. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-judiciary-can-keep-operating-2-weeks-if-government-shuts-down-2023-09-19/