Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
Normal Legislative practice:
Vote for this must pass bill even though we’ve loaded it with pork barrel spending and changed a few bits of unrelated legislation into it. You’ll hurt the country worse if it doesn’t pass.
Tea Party terrorism:
Vote for this continuing resolution to fund the government while we change/defund the Affordable Care Act.
See the difference?
Me neither.
Cross posted on Flit-TM
Since I am a Department of Defense contractor, examining military recruits. I expected that we would not be called to come in after Monday but I worked Tuesday and was told they expect no slowdown. Of course, maybe they won’t pay us but that is still in the future.
UPDATE: Today is the 8th and I have been called again for tomorrow.
So far, the shutdown seems to be working with the assistance of Democrat verbal and active mistakes. I always thought Gingrich fumbled the ball in 1995. This time, the GOP strategy of passing small directed bills to fund popular programs, seems to be working. Certainly the Democrats like Harry Reid and the National Park Service are helping all they can.
Washington politicians may have the time to debate how to fund the government, now that their pig-headedness has shut it down, but the nation’s World War II veterans don’t.
“World War II veterans are dying by the hundreds every day,” says Fred Yanow, of Northbrook, Ill., who spent 1942-45 in the Pacific theater as an Army private. “It’s a shame that they don’t care about World War II veterans when so many of them are dying off.” The 16 million men and women who wore their nation’s uniform in the so-called “Good War,” from 1941 to 1945, are leaving for eternal R&R at the rate of 650 a day.
Which Washington politicians ?
Claire McCaskill had some clever comments.
Secretary of Defense Hagal has recalled most Department of Defense (DoD) civilians back to work Monday. The legal reasons why were in the NY Times Sunday 6 Oct 2013 edition this morning.
The following is the fine print behind the “Mostly” —
“I expect us to be able to significantly reduce — but not eliminate — civilian furloughs under this process,” Mr. Hagel said.
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Mr. Hagel warned that “many important activities remain curtailed while the shutdown goes on,” and he cited disruptions across the armed services.
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Late Saturday, the Defense Department comptroller, Robert F. Hale, said that Mr. Hagel’s order would recall Pentagon employees who work in health care, family programs, commissaries and training or maintenance.
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Additionally, the order will recall to work those civilian Pentagon employees whose jobs, if interrupted, would cause future problems for the military; those categories include contracting, logistics, supply and financial management.
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While the numbers have not been finalized, officials estimated that only 10 percent of the furloughed employees would not be recalled, including Defense Department civilian employees who work in auditing, some in legislative and public affairs, and Pentagon employees who service other government agencies.
Most of DCMA will be back to work Monday, as will DFAS, DCAA and DLA.
The DoD Inspector General (I.G.), civilians in the various uniformed Service I.G. offices and DoD civilians involved in things like planning DoD assistance to disaster relief efforts are still going to stay home.
What was genuinely terrifying was the [Obamacare] rollout, which demonstrated unequivocally that the power elite had become too corrupt to even defend itself properly. The Obamacare exchanges are the single best measure of how competently they are handling foreign policy, national security and economic strategy.
Even though their political fortunes depended on it, the Obama administration was too politicized, inefficient, and compromised to even hire a competent contractor in time to roll it out half-decently. Just think of it. The same administration that brought you this monumental screwup is charge of protecting the world. And before the GOP crows, think this. That bunch of jokers must be more competent then the GOP since they beat them every time.
It was a “the Emperor has no clothes” moment for me. The power elite in Washington is inbred to the point of being genetically retarded. They believe their own propaganda now. They promote their own ridiculous mediocrities. Look at Anthony Weiner! Look at Bill Blasio, or Al Sharpton. Holy Smokes are we in trouble.
The reason its falling apart for them now is because it had to. How were they going to pay for Obamacare assuming they could get anyone to enrol on its ‘Exchanges’? Why are they raising the Debt Limit? To pay for their useless programs? And where are they going to get the money to pay for this debt?
Nobody has any answers. They probably haven’t even thought of the questions.
For all the times that this federal government shutdown repeated fiscal game of chicken has been played and I have been through this rodeo a number of times it’s the sheer, petty spitefulness of this iteration which has raised my hackles. Barrycading off the open-air monuments along the Mall including the WWII and Vietnam War monuments blocking off scenic overlooks and the parking lots at Mt. Vernon, and forcing the closure of a number of otherwise self-supporting attractions which have the ill-luck to be on federally-owned property. I am glad to know that the governor of Wisconsin is telling the feds to go pound sand, and suspect that the governor of Arizona may be coming close to doing so, likewise. Meanwhile, the commissary at Andrews AFB is closed, and the golf course is open. Yes, I know that they are under different funding organizations, but the optics of this are really, really bad. If this were a Republican administration, I suspect we’d be hearing all about it, with video and stills of tearful and hungry military dependents all over the news, but then if my aunt had testicles, she would be my uncle. For all I know the junior enlisted troops are happily shopping at Wally-world and the generic shelves at the local grocery stores and not missing the commissary very much at all … but knowing that President Barrycade likes to golf there and takes every opportunity to do so … really, as I said bad optics.