Anatomy of a Government Shutdown

“Of course a shutdown is possible because that's what the Republicans are threatening us with on national TV, Meet the Press or one of those dandies or whatever the show was. The Republican leader was asked, and I'm paraphrasing, 'is there going to be a government shutdown?' and he wouldn't respond to the question. So, this isn't Schumer or Reid or Hoyer. Of course it's a possibility. That's what we're trying to avoid."

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talking to reporters about House Speaker John Boehner

President Obama warned of stopped Social Security checks and issued a formal veto threat Tuesday to the Republican spending plan currently being debated in the House, setting the stage for a potential government shutdown next month.

Democrats in the last congress did not pass a budget at all, so the government has run on a series of stopgap spending extensions since October. The current one expires March 4.

Republicans, now in control of the House, have worked up a plan to fund the government to the end of the year that reduces spending $61 billion from 2010 levels and $100 billion from what Obama has requested. The House will have a second day of contentious debate on the spending plan as hard-line deficit hawks and pro-spending liberals take turns trying to amend the bill.

Despite all the falderal, final passage is anticipated Thursday, and attention is already shifting to the Senate.

There, the 47-member Republican minority is suggesting that their cuts will look different than the ones made by their friends in the House, but that they will try to match the volume of reductions. That provides a chance for the Senate GOP to start working on a compromise with moderate Democrats to find the 13 votes needed to push through a plan (more if ultra hawks like Sen. Rand Paul fly away).

Knowing the way the Senate operates, Power Play predicts that the final Senate legislation will be halfway between the Obama proposal and the House bill. That’s just how they roll.

Then, the House has to decide whether it can accept the compromise legislation. This would be the first chance for a government shutdown.

Senators are working up a short-term spending measure to provide more time for negotiations, but even that will be controversial among the most conservative members of the House. But there would likely be enough moderate Republicans and Democrats to back a very short-term extension – perhaps three weeks – to finish the negotiations.

It will then be up to a similar coalition of Blue Dog Democrats and most Republicans to put through the Senate plan over Tea Party protests. This is when things will get very dicey for the House leadership. There are many in their caucus who would much rather see the government shut down than yield in their pledge to slash spending.

But, some legislation will emerge from Congress, with cuts likely a little deeper than those passed by the Senate – a compromise of the compromise. Then it’s up to Obama to decide if he will accept.

Remember, because Democrats failed to pass a budget last year, the responsibility falls to Obama for any potential government shutdown. Unlike 1995 when the battle was over President Bill Clinton refusing to sign a Republican-passed budget, Obama will be put in the position of refusing to sign a stopgap spending proposal necessary because his party didn’t act in the previous year. This is not a long-term priority issue. This is an emergency appropriation.

Another major difference from 1995 is that with a Democratic Senate, Obama will have his chance to work his will before the legislation gets to his desk.

Hanging over all of this is the administration’s demand that Congress increase the federal debt limit from the current $14.3 trillion. Speaker John Boehner’s team has enhanced the Republican bargaining position here by detaching the debt limit issue from the budget. The House previously made such increases a part of spending bills, but the GOP is setting the issue aside for consideration.

That gives Republicans more time to pressure Obama for cuts – potentially as late as May.

Sen. Pat Toomey today will defend in a speech the Republican position that not increasing the debt limit does not necessarily mean defaulting on U.S. obligations. In 1995, President Bill Clinton used the default trigger as his reason for shutting down the government.

In Obama’s press conference Tuesday, he warned of an end to Social Security checks and veterans pension payments if Republicans didn’t produce a “responsible” spending plan.

But despite Democratic confidence that another shutdown would be a repeat of 1995 when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich lost his showdown with Bill Clinton, Obama seems unlikely to veto a spending plan and shut down the government rather than sign a measure produced with some bipartisan support and relating to only 15 percent of the budget for half of one year.

Boehner Goes Jersey on Government Workers

“To the extent that people are finding any type of attraction to what I’m doing, it’s mostly because I’m being straight with them. It’s not a bunch of prepared hooey, read off a teleprompter.”

-- Gov. Chris Christe, R-N.J., to Politico

Democrats are wailing with outrage over House Speaker John Boehner’s statement Tuesday that if Republican spending plans mean the loss of some of the 200,000 federal jobs added in the past two years then “so be it.”

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her team are denouncing Republican callousness on the issue of unemployment at a moment of economic fragility, and suggesting that those government jobs are helping to turn the economy around.

It should be helpful to Boehner that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in town today to give a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. The pugnacious Republican has made a political virtue of his war with public employees in New Jersey. His battle with government unions was once forecast as political doom in a state so heavily dominated by public employee labor groups.

Of course, Christie also has the advantage that over-taxed New Jerseyans had reached a point of great desperation and were willing to consider drastic measures after the disastrous term of Gov. Jon Corzine (D).

But national frustration with public workers and government unions has grown too. The wide disparities in salary and benefits between government and private-sector workers have caused deep irritation.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that in 2009 federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 while private workers made $61,051. The gap was double what it had been in 2000.

Christie has shown that pushing back against privileged government workers with high pay and tremendous job security can have popular appeal, even in a state as dependent on government employment as New Jersey.

Democrats may find that other Republicans, including Boehner, have success in embracing the Christie approach.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/16/obama-issues-government-shutdown-threat/#ixzz1j8qVkon0
Anatomy of a Government Shutdown

“Of course a shutdown is possible because that's what the Republicans are threatening us with on national TV, Meet the Press or one of those dandies or whatever the show was. The Republican leader was asked, and I'm paraphrasing, 'is there going to be a government shutdown?' and he wouldn't respond to the question. So, this isn't Schumer or Reid or Hoyer. Of course it's a possibility. That's what we're trying to avoid."

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talking to reporters about House Speaker John Boehner

President Obama warned of stopped Social Security checks and issued a formal veto threat Tuesday to the Republican spending plan currently being debated in the House, setting the stage for a potential government shutdown next month.

Democrats in the last congress did not pass a budget at all, so the government has run on a series of stopgap spending extensions since October. The current one expires March 4.

Republicans, now in control of the House, have worked up a plan to fund the government to the end of the year that reduces spending $61 billion from 2010 levels and $100 billion from what Obama has requested. The House will have a second day of contentious debate on the spending plan as hard-line deficit hawks and pro-spending liberals take turns trying to amend the bill.

Despite all the falderal, final passage is anticipated Thursday, and attention is already shifting to the Senate.

There, the 47-member Republican minority is suggesting that their cuts will look different than the ones made by their friends in the House, but that they will try to match the volume of reductions. That provides a chance for the Senate GOP to start working on a compromise with moderate Democrats to find the 13 votes needed to push through a plan (more if ultra hawks like Sen. Rand Paul fly away).

Knowing the way the Senate operates, Power Play predicts that the final Senate legislation will be halfway between the Obama proposal and the House bill. That’s just how they roll.

Then, the House has to decide whether it can accept the compromise legislation. This would be the first chance for a government shutdown.

Senators are working up a short-term spending measure to provide more time for negotiations, but even that will be controversial among the most conservative members of the House. But there would likely be enough moderate Republicans and Democrats to back a very short-term extension – perhaps three weeks – to finish the negotiations.

It will then be up to a similar coalition of Blue Dog Democrats and most Republicans to put through the Senate plan over Tea Party protests. This is when things will get very dicey for the House leadership. There are many in their caucus who would much rather see the government shut down than yield in their pledge to slash spending.

But, some legislation will emerge from Congress, with cuts likely a little deeper than those passed by the Senate – a compromise of the compromise. Then it’s up to Obama to decide if he will accept.

Remember, because Democrats failed to pass a budget last year, the responsibility falls to Obama for any potential government shutdown. Unlike 1995 when the battle was over President Bill Clinton refusing to sign a Republican-passed budget, Obama will be put in the position of refusing to sign a stopgap spending proposal necessary because his party didn’t act in the previous year. This is not a long-term priority issue. This is an emergency appropriation.

Another major difference from 1995 is that with a Democratic Senate, Obama will have his chance to work his will before the legislation gets to his desk.

Hanging over all of this is the administration’s demand that Congress increase the federal debt limit from the current $14.3 trillion. Speaker John Boehner’s team has enhanced the Republican bargaining position here by detaching the debt limit issue from the budget. The House previously made such increases a part of spending bills, but the GOP is setting the issue aside for consideration.

That gives Republicans more time to pressure Obama for cuts – potentially as late as May.

Sen. Pat Toomey today will defend in a speech the Republican position that not increasing the debt limit does not necessarily mean defaulting on U.S. obligations. In 1995, President Bill Clinton used the default trigger as his reason for shutting down the government.

In Obama’s press conference Tuesday, he warned of an end to Social Security checks and veterans pension payments if Republicans didn’t produce a “responsible” spending plan.

But despite Democratic confidence that another shutdown would be a repeat of 1995 when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich lost his showdown with Bill Clinton, Obama seems unlikely to veto a spending plan and shut down the government rather than sign a measure produced with some bipartisan support and relating to only 15 percent of the budget for half of one year.

Boehner Goes Jersey on Government Workers

“To the extent that people are finding any type of attraction to what I’m doing, it’s mostly because I’m being straight with them. It’s not a bunch of prepared hooey, read off a teleprompter.”

-- Gov. Chris Christe, R-N.J., to Politico

Democrats are wailing with outrage over House Speaker John Boehner’s statement Tuesday that if Republican spending plans mean the loss of some of the 200,000 federal jobs added in the past two years then “so be it.”

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her team are denouncing Republican callousness on the issue of unemployment at a moment of economic fragility, and suggesting that those government jobs are helping to turn the economy around.

It should be helpful to Boehner that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in town today to give a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. The pugnacious Republican has made a political virtue of his war with public employees in New Jersey. His battle with government unions was once forecast as political doom in a state so heavily dominated by public employee labor groups.

Of course, Christie also has the advantage that over-taxed New Jerseyans had reached a point of great desperation and were willing to consider drastic measures after the disastrous term of Gov. Jon Corzine (D).

But national frustration with public workers and government unions has grown too. The wide disparities in salary and benefits between government and private-sector workers have caused deep irritation.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that in 2009 federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 while private workers made $61,051. The gap was double what it had been in 2000.

Christie has shown that pushing back against privileged government workers with high pay and tremendous job security can have popular appeal, even in a state as dependent on government employment as New Jersey.

Democrats may find that other Republicans, including Boehner, have success in embracing the Christie approach.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/16/obama-issues-government-shutdown-threat/#ixzz1j8qVkon0

Thanks

wall clocks | tea kettles

Anatomy of a Government Shutdown

“Of course a shutdown is possible because that's what the Republicans are threatening us with on national TV, Meet the Press or one of those dandies or whatever the show was. The Republican leader was asked, and I'm paraphrasing, 'is there going to be a government shutdown?' and he wouldn't respond to the question. So, this isn't Schumer or Reid or Hoyer. Of course it's a possibility. That's what we're trying to avoid."

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talking to reporters about House Speaker John Boehner

President Obama warned of stopped Social Security checks and issued a formal veto threat Tuesday to the Republican spending plan currently being debated in the House, setting the stage for a potential government shutdown next month.

Democrats in the last congress did not pass a budget at all, so the government has run on a series of stopgap spending extensions since October. The current one expires March 4.

Republicans, now in control of the House, have worked up a plan to fund the government to the end of the year that reduces spending $61 billion from 2010 levels and $100 billion from what Obama has requested. The House will have a second day of contentious debate on the spending plan as hard-line deficit hawks and pro-spending liberals take turns trying to amend the bill.

Despite all the falderal, final passage is anticipated Thursday, and attention is already shifting to the Senate.

There, the 47-member Republican minority is suggesting that their cuts will look different than the ones made by their friends in the House, but that they will try to match the volume of reductions. That provides a chance for the Senate GOP to start working on a compromise with moderate Democrats to find the 13 votes needed to push through a plan (more if ultra hawks like Sen. Rand Paul fly away).

Knowing the way the Senate operates, Power Play predicts that the final Senate legislation will be halfway between the Obama proposal and the House bill. That’s just how they roll.

Then, the House has to decide whether it can accept the compromise legislation. This would be the first chance for a government shutdown.

Senators are working up a short-term spending measure to provide more time for negotiations, but even that will be controversial among the most conservative members of the House. But there would likely be enough moderate Republicans and Democrats to back a very short-term extension – perhaps three weeks – to finish the negotiations.

It will then be up to a similar coalition of Blue Dog Democrats and most Republicans to put through the Senate plan over Tea Party protests. This is when things will get very dicey for the House leadership. There are many in their caucus who would much rather see the government shut down than yield in their pledge to slash spending.

But, some legislation will emerge from Congress, with cuts likely a little deeper than those passed by the Senate – a compromise of the compromise. Then it’s up to Obama to decide if he will accept.

Remember, because Democrats failed to pass a budget last year, the responsibility falls to Obama for any potential government shutdown. Unlike 1995 when the battle was over President Bill Clinton refusing to sign a Republican-passed budget, Obama will be put in the position of refusing to sign a stopgap spending proposal necessary because his party didn’t act in the previous year. This is not a long-term priority issue. This is an emergency appropriation.

Another major difference from 1995 is that with a Democratic Senate, Obama will have his chance to work his will before the legislation gets to his desk.

Hanging over all of this is the administration’s demand that Congress increase the federal debt limit from the current $14.3 trillion. Speaker John Boehner’s team has enhanced the Republican bargaining position here by detaching the debt limit issue from the budget. The House previously made such increases a part of spending bills, but the GOP is setting the issue aside for consideration.

That gives Republicans more time to pressure Obama for cuts – potentially as late as May.

Sen. Pat Toomey today will defend in a speech the Republican position that not increasing the debt limit does not necessarily mean defaulting on U.S. obligations. In 1995, President Bill Clinton used the default trigger as his reason for shutting down the government.

In Obama’s press conference Tuesday, he warned of an end to Social Security checks and veterans pension payments if Republicans didn’t produce a “responsible” spending plan.

But despite Democratic confidence that another shutdown would be a repeat of 1995 when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich lost his showdown with Bill Clinton, Obama seems unlikely to veto a spending plan and shut down the government rather than sign a measure produced with some bipartisan support and relating to only 15 percent of the budget for half of one year.

Boehner Goes Jersey on Government Workers

“To the extent that people are finding any type of attraction to what I’m doing, it’s mostly because I’m being straight with them. It’s not a bunch of prepared hooey, read off a teleprompter.”

-- Gov. Chris Christe, R-N.J., to Politico

Democrats are wailing with outrage over House Speaker John Boehner’s statement Tuesday that if Republican spending plans mean the loss of some of the 200,000 federal jobs added in the past two years then “so be it.”

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her team are denouncing Republican callousness on the issue of unemployment at a moment of economic fragility, and suggesting that those government jobs are helping to turn the economy around.

It should be helpful to Boehner that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in town today to give a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. The pugnacious Republican has made a political virtue of his war with public employees in New Jersey. His battle with government unions was once forecast as political doom in a state so heavily dominated by public employee labor groups.

Of course, Christie also has the advantage that over-taxed New Jerseyans had reached a point of great desperation and were willing to consider drastic measures after the disastrous term of Gov. Jon Corzine (D).

But national frustration with public workers and government unions has grown too. The wide disparities in salary and benefits between government and private-sector workers have caused deep irritation.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that in 2009 federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 while private workers made $61,051. The gap was double what it had been in 2000.

Christie has shown that pushing back against privileged government workers with high pay and tremendous job security can have popular appeal, even in a state as dependent on government employment as New Jersey.

Democrats may find that other Republicans, including Boehner, have success in embracing the Christie approach.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/16/obama-issues-government-shutdown-threat/#ixzz1j8qVkon0
Anatomy of a Government Shutdown

“Of course a shutdown is possible because that's what the Republicans are threatening us with on national TV, Meet the Press or one of those dandies or whatever the show was. The Republican leader was asked, and I'm paraphrasing, 'is there going to be a government shutdown?' and he wouldn't respond to the question. So, this isn't Schumer or Reid or Hoyer. Of course it's a possibility. That's what we're trying to avoid."

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talking to reporters about House Speaker John Boehner

President Obama warned of stopped Social Security checks and issued a formal veto threat Tuesday to the Republican spending plan currently being debated in the House, setting the stage for a potential government shutdown next month.

Democrats in the last congress did not pass a budget at all, so the government has run on a series of stopgap spending extensions since October. The current one expires March 4.

Republicans, now in control of the House, have worked up a plan to fund the government to the end of the year that reduces spending $61 billion from 2010 levels and $100 billion from what Obama has requested. The House will have a second day of contentious debate on the spending plan as hard-line deficit hawks and pro-spending liberals take turns trying to amend the bill.

Despite all the falderal, final passage is anticipated Thursday, and attention is already shifting to the Senate.

There, the 47-member Republican minority is suggesting that their cuts will look different than the ones made by their friends in the House, but that they will try to match the volume of reductions. That provides a chance for the Senate GOP to start working on a compromise with moderate Democrats to find the 13 votes needed to push through a plan (more if ultra hawks like Sen. Rand Paul fly away).

Knowing the way the Senate operates, Power Play predicts that the final Senate legislation will be halfway between the Obama proposal and the House bill. That’s just how they roll.

Then, the House has to decide whether it can accept the compromise legislation. This would be the first chance for a government shutdown.

Senators are working up a short-term spending measure to provide more time for negotiations, but even that will be controversial among the most conservative members of the House. But there would likely be enough moderate Republicans and Democrats to back a very short-term extension – perhaps three weeks – to finish the negotiations.

It will then be up to a similar coalition of Blue Dog Democrats and most Republicans to put through the Senate plan over Tea Party protests. This is when things will get very dicey for the House leadership. There are many in their caucus who would much rather see the government shut down than yield in their pledge to slash spending.

But, some legislation will emerge from Congress, with cuts likely a little deeper than those passed by the Senate – a compromise of the compromise. Then it’s up to Obama to decide if he will accept.

Remember, because Democrats failed to pass a budget last year, the responsibility falls to Obama for any potential government shutdown. Unlike 1995 when the battle was over President Bill Clinton refusing to sign a Republican-passed budget, Obama will be put in the position of refusing to sign a stopgap spending proposal necessary because his party didn’t act in the previous year. This is not a long-term priority issue. This is an emergency appropriation.

Another major difference from 1995 is that with a Democratic Senate, Obama will have his chance to work his will before the legislation gets to his desk.

Hanging over all of this is the administration’s demand that Congress increase the federal debt limit from the current $14.3 trillion. Speaker John Boehner’s team has enhanced the Republican bargaining position here by detaching the debt limit issue from the budget. The House previously made such increases a part of spending bills, but the GOP is setting the issue aside for consideration.

That gives Republicans more time to pressure Obama for cuts – potentially as late as May.

Sen. Pat Toomey today will defend in a speech the Republican position that not increasing the debt limit does not necessarily mean defaulting on U.S. obligations. In 1995, President Bill Clinton used the default trigger as his reason for shutting down the government.

In Obama’s press conference Tuesday, he warned of an end to Social Security checks and veterans pension payments if Republicans didn’t produce a “responsible” spending plan.

But despite Democratic confidence that another shutdown would be a repeat of 1995 when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich lost his showdown with Bill Clinton, Obama seems unlikely to veto a spending plan and shut down the government rather than sign a measure produced with some bipartisan support and relating to only 15 percent of the budget for half of one year.

Boehner Goes Jersey on Government Workers

“To the extent that people are finding any type of attraction to what I’m doing, it’s mostly because I’m being straight with them. It’s not a bunch of prepared hooey, read off a teleprompter.”

-- Gov. Chris Christe, R-N.J., to Politico

Democrats are wailing with outrage over House Speaker John Boehner’s statement Tuesday that if Republican spending plans mean the loss of some of the 200,000 federal jobs added in the past two years then “so be it.”

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her team are denouncing Republican callousness on the issue of unemployment at a moment of economic fragility, and suggesting that those government jobs are helping to turn the economy around.

It should be helpful to Boehner that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in town today to give a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. The pugnacious Republican has made a political virtue of his war with public employees in New Jersey. His battle with government unions was once forecast as political doom in a state so heavily dominated by public employee labor groups.

Of course, Christie also has the advantage that over-taxed New Jerseyans had reached a point of great desperation and were willing to consider drastic measures after the disastrous term of Gov. Jon Corzine (D).

But national frustration with public workers and government unions has grown too. The wide disparities in salary and benefits between government and private-sector workers have caused deep irritation.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that in 2009 federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 while private workers made $61,051. The gap was double what it had been in 2000.

Christie has shown that pushing back against privileged government workers with high pay and tremendous job security can have popular appeal, even in a state as dependent on government employment as New Jersey.

Democrats may find that other Republicans, including Boehner, have success in embracing the Christie approach.

Thanks

Travel agency

The scientists at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) are really clueless dummies. Both China and Russia have implied that they will respond if the west attacks Iran. By respond they mean launch a nuclear war. The United States might not exist in a few years, but the dummies at BAS are as oblivious as ever.

This is not the first time that China and Russia have threatened nuclear war. China has done so twice concerning Taiwan. Russia threatened nuclear retaliation if Nato supported Georgia in the Russia-Georgia war.

Now America is in decline, and China and Russia are combining forces to challenge America. And the BAS is more worried about nuclear disarmament and climate change. Those clueless dummies aren't going to be around much longer.