Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/17/let-them-eat-wall.html
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Comrade trumpski is lighting the fire that will burn down our house.
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This is exactly what I was thinking the other day. It was a fellow commenter (I can picture your badge but not remember your name) who said that they’d like to see an analysis of how long a shutdown has to last before it does more harm than illegal immigration. They guessed 10 minutes, but would grant maybe up to 2 days.
The loss of services hurts everyone. I was thinking about it from the perspective of an employee who is not getting paid.
The thing is, if there really was a 2 day shutdown, I’d expect that fully half of employees would happily take the two days unpaid vacation. It would cause hardships for some, but it wouldn’t interrupt a program like food stamps (which still runs on weekends when the people administering it are off) or rent subsidy programs.
Right now it’s a month. If you are a federal employee and you go to your long-time landlord and say, “Hey, you know about the shutdown, what kind of deal can we work out, we both know I’ll be getting a paycheck again soon.” You can borrow money from your family. You can do all kinds of things. It’s painful and damaging, but if it reopened today things would get better.
But at two months? Three? Your landlord isn’t going to float you anymore. Forget borrowing money from your family, you’ll be moving in with them. The fraction of your employees who are going to have found new jobs is going to be low right now but we’re probably approaching the steep part of the S curve. If it goes on for “months” as Trump said, there won’t be agencies to reopen. They’ll have to start from scratch.
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Working as designed.
Bannon might be gone, but I’m sure that there are other “burn down the government” types* in the White House.
* actually, I think Bannon is a “burn down everything” type.
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And typically after 30 days of furlough a reduction in workforce (RIF) is supposed to kick in. Potentially laying off thousands (all?) government employees. Luckily OMB has stated for the record that this will not happen.
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A lot of the discussion around the shutdown is focused on who will get the blame- Trump or the Democrats. Senate Republicans can put a stop to Trump’s foolishness any time they want by passing legislation to reopen the government with a veto proof majority. The fact that they have not can only mean that chaos, dysfunction, and disaster are their actual goals
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I’ve got a supporter here at work and 1) she thinks he’s been doing a great job bringing jobs back to America and 2) is totally okay with burning the whole thing down.
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“If recent history is any guide, federal contractors could be out more than $200 million a day in lost or delayed revenue from the partial government shutdown”
Actually THIS is what should be burning down. IMO true waste in government stems from bloated never ending poorly managed government contracts. Especially defense contracting.
(A government shutdown is not the way to tackle that stinking can of worms.)
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THIS. Sounds like every single Nostradumbass voter I know from November 4, 2016 until today.
He isn’t a bleeding heart libtard, he isn’t a democrat, he isn’t Hillary “LOCK HER UP” Clinton…therefore whatever he is doing it’s the right thing to do.
Fucking idiots.
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Trump proving you can shoot yourself in the foot while digging your own grave.
Meanwhile, a group of junior House Democrats can’t find Mitch McConnell at any of his offices…
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It’s not about the wall, and Trump and McConnell are probably pretty happy with the success of their civil service purge so far. The shutdown is an end in itself.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/
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I’ve been predicting since day 1 of Trump that the Trump Recession will be dated as starting on February 1st, 2019. The shutdown makes it all the more likely.
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We had air travel before the TSA. Why not take this opportunity to abolish the TSA and let airports manage their own security?
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…but I also think he might re-open the government over the weekend, so that his 3rd year in office (Jan 20) doesn’t kick off with the government shut down. Doesn’t stop the recession though, sadly. Damage (from everything) is done.
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It’s a nihilistic, death-cult mentality dressed up in flag-waving patriotism and wholesome “traditional family values”. Whoever comes up with a way to channel it into an outlet that allows them to destroy themselves while sparing the rest of us will have earned her Nobel Prize for saving the planet many times over.
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I’m beginning to think if we all rushed down to Tijiana and built him his goddam wall, Trump and McConnel would keep the shutdown going - because that’s what their Master told them to do. It’s not about a wall. It’s about tearing down America.
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That doesn’t seem to be on the table, but getting rid of the FAA and privatizing (letting airlines manage air traffic control) is.
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The whole mentality is so fucked. They don’t win unless someone else is losing, even if it means they are losing too.
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