Why did the U.S. government shut down in October 2013?
Disclaimer: I personally support Obamacare. The most direct answer is that the Tea-Party Republicans are to blame. They are the ones who are forcing Boehner to do this government shutdown. The fact of the matter is, the constituents of the Tea-Party Republicans hate Obamacare SO much, that they will vote them out if they DON'T make a move against Obamacare. They will be out of office if they DON'T take a stand against Obamacare. They were voted into office precisely for this reason. They HAVE to do this. But nothing is done in a vacuum. You have to ask yourselves, why does the Tea-Party so strongly control so many districts? Why do they use such vicious tactics?The answer to that question is that Obama is to blame. Obama is ultimately to blame for this government shutdown, because it's exactly the type of politics that Obama played in 2009. There was no Tea-Party in 2009. There were no Tea-Party Republicans. Democrats controlled both the Senate and the House. So what did Obama do? He passed Obamacare without a single Republican vote. He basically wrote the Republicans off. He tried to pass the biggest form of legislation in US Government in 20-30 years via a partisan vote. He didn't care what the Republicans thought. He ignored the minority. He made a lot of Republicans very very angry. So what do they do now? In 2010, a whole bunch of Tea-Party movement people got swept into power precisely to take down Obamacare and to reign in the debt. These people were elected specifically to take down Obama. And that's what they're doing. Obama shoved the law down their throats, so the Republicans are using the same tactics to get back at Obama. The Moderate Republicans might have allied with the Democrats against the Tea-Partiers, but now they won't because Obama burned his bridges with them in 2009. Republicans feel that Obama wanted his name on one of the biggest pieces of legislation in the 20th century for his own legacy. That's why they don't trust Obama. Moderate Republicans trust the Tea-Partiers far more than they trust Obama. So ultimately, both Tea-Party Republicans and Obama are to blame. Obama caused divisive politics by pushing through major legislation in the narrowest vote ever for any major law. Of course they're going to fight back.
What do you think of Trump threatening a government shutdown if he doesn't get funding for his wall?
Thank you for the A2A.It feels like a tantrum. I WANT MY WALL. GIVE ME MY WALL! IF YOU DON’T GIVE ME MY WALL I AM GOING TO HOLD MY BREATH TIL I TURN BLUE.Who cares? The reality is that you’re going after the 20% of the problem with the wall. 80% of people in this country illegally are here because they FLY HERE and then overstay their visas. Unless that wall is 30,000 feet high, it won’t stop the bulk of illegal immigration.If your concern is “bad people”—they go through border crossings. Spend less money, get more Customs and Border Patrol agents (and more DOGS who can smell the stuff you want to keep out) and forget the wall. People in Texas, where the wall will have huge negative consequences (ranchers losing land because they can’t put a wall through the water) don’t want a wall. Do a better job at border crossings, and put more Agents who know where PEOPLE crosss illegally.The wall is a statement piece, but not all that useful. Democrats do not want open borders. We want SMARTER borders.
Donald Trump recently threatened a "government shutdown" over his Mexican border wall. What exactly is a "government shutdown" and how does it work?
Last government shutdown occurred when President Obama was in office, 2013. It lasted 16 days. The cost of the shutdown? Roughly 24 billion dollars. How do I know?The financial ratings agency Standard & Poor's said Wednesday following the end of the shutdown "to date has taken $24 billion out of the economy," equaling $1.5 billion dollars a day and "shaved at least 0.6 percent off annualized fourth-quarter 2013 GDP growth."The True Cost of the Government Shutdown RevealedSo any fidiot who claims it’s ‘no big deal’… is dreaming. It will negatively impact the economy. Not just government employees either. if you check out the above link, you’ll see they broke down what was lost…- According to the U.S. Travel Association: There has been $152 million per day in all spending related to travel lost because of the shutdown. As many as 450,000 American workers supported by travel may be affected.- According to the National Park Service: They welcome more than 700,000 people per day usually in October and visitors spend an estimated $32 million per day impact in communities near national parks and contribute $76 million each day to the national economy. Those revenues were lost.- According to Destination D.C., the official tourism corporation of D.C.: There is a 9 percent decrease in hotel occupancy from the last week in September before the shutdown to the first week of October during the shutdown. This year, hotel occupancy was down 74.4 percent for the week Sept. 29 to Oct. 5 compared to the 2012 numbers. (Source: Smith Travel Research, Inc.) In 2012, an estimated $6.2 billion of visitor spending supported more than 75,300 jobs.The hit to Washington, D.C. has been especially hard, according to Mayor Vince Gray's office:Regional (D.C./Maryland/Virginia) impact: $217 million a day (17.6 percent of the region's economy) from lost/deferred federal and contractor wages.Washington, D.C. economic activity impact: $44 million a week decreaseWashington, D.C. tax revenue impact: $6 million a week decreaseHospitality sector observations: 7 percent decrease in restaurant traffic in the first week in October compared to 2012 and 13,000 fewer hotel bookings (8.3 percent decrease) and $2 million less room revenue in the first week in October compared to 2012.So, expect similar impacts should tRump actually follow through w/ being a bigger fidiot than usual.
Why did the U.S. government shut down in January 2018?
Failure to compromise.Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. So in the simplest terms they managed to screw it up. They have chosen to blame it on the Democrats for threatening to filibuster in the Senate if a solution to the DACA question wasn’t included in the bill. The Republican leadership had previously indicated support for DACA, so this shouldn’t have been an issue. But apparently the idea of blaming a government shutdown on their own intransigence on the issue of DACA was too attractive to the Republicans, who think they can parlay the shutdown into traction to reverse their precipitous decline in opinion polls by lying about both the shutdown and the consequences. Mitch McConnell objected to a bill to provide for continued payment of troops during the shutdown, yet ads will come out and alt-right ”news” will trumpet the headlines that those nasty Democrats wouldn’t even let the troops be paid while coddling illegal immigrants who aren’t “real” Americans in the first place, or some similar bit of obfuscation and propaganda. The truth is the Republican party is held hostage by the far right, they cannot reach a majority without them, the Democrats have the largest homogeneous voting block and are on track to heavily defeat Republicans in the mid-terms absent a major propaganda coup. Republicans think they can make this work for them. Democrats think they can use it to show the Republicans can't govern even in control of all three legs of instituting policy, and with a sympathetic packed Supreme Court. At any rate it distracts from the real major story, that of a foreign power colluding with top political operatives in the President’s entourage to swing the election away from a politician they feared to one they think they can control. See Deutsche Bank loaning money to Trump despite his defaults. Why would they do that???
What would happen if China called in all loans to the US?
OK, let us imagine a misguided foreign official (C) calling up U.S. treasury department (T) to make this demand:T: Hello! U.S. Department of the Treasury! How may we help you today?C: Hello! I’m calling to call in our loans!T: You’re calling to call what?C: All our loans! We want you to repay now!T: What loans?C: We own a pile of your bond! Bonds, loans, same thing! We’re calling them all in! Repay now!T: Sir, do you understand how our debt obligations work?C: We learned from Mr. Donald Trump! We want to call them all in right away! And you have to repay whenever we say so!T: Sorry, sir, Mr Trump really should know better than that. We promised to pay you the coupons and the principal on certain dates, we plan to do exactly that, and we see no reason to accelerate our contractually specified payment schedule.C: Damn you, Donald and your university! But wait, we got this little bond maturing tomorrow!T: Of course, we plan to pay the principal and the last coupon as we promised. Would you like to use some of the proceeds to buy another bond?C: Gotcha! No! No more buying bonds! And no more electronic transfer! Give us our money back! In cash! In small bills! Now!T: Not a problem for us, sir, we’ll just print some new tens just for you and ship them to you in a cargo hold of a “C” plane. Pay close attention to the woman portrayed on the new tens. She had more balls than you and your financial adviser put together.C: Damn you again, Donald! You made me lose face and look so silly. But wait, I don’t want your new uncirculated tens either!T: Would you like some pennies, sir?C: No! We want gold and gems! Repay your maturing bonds in specie and rubies!T: You bought our bonds with dollars, but you refuse to accept dollars as repayment?That is not an option, sir. We will repay in U.S. dollars that we’ll print especially for the occasion. You can use your dollars to buy whatever suits you.C: Very well, we shall pay Trump Investment Advisory Service to optimize for us a scientifically diversified portfolio of silver shavings, physical Bitcoin, and Atlantic City casino junk bonds. Mr. Trump personally guarantees it to be safer than U.S. treasury bonds.T: Good luck, sir!
What's all this fuzz about Obama and Financial Default?
Our country has maxed out all of our credit cards that we own and the stupid people in Washington DC wants to go out and get another one. When you can't pay your bills, you need to stop spending. They haven't figured that out yet.