Government Shutdown Looms

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The fight just gets dumber
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Fiscal hawk Bob Bixby invoked Larry, Moe and Curly in describing the fight over the 2011 budget. By Jeanne Sahadi, senior writerFirst Published: April 8, 2011: 7:25 AM ET

 
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Let's hope children aren't watching C-SPAN these days.

Lawmakers are behaving in ways that would earn them a time-out if they were in kindergarten.

 
Deficit hawk Bob Bixby, who runs the Concord Coalition, described the craziness masquerading as debate over this year's budget as akin to the Three Stooges knocking heads over a cigar.

"Moe, Larry and Curly are fighting in the back seat of the car. No one is in the driver's seat. As the boys settle down, Curly looks up and says, 'Hey, don't look now but we're about to be killed.' "

Bixby wrote that two weeks ago.

At the time, he was a little worried the analogy might have been too harsh. On Thursday, he said he wasn't worried about that anymore.

That's because with just hours to go before the government shuts down, it is still the case, as it was two weeks ago, that "politicians can't stop squabbling over a few billion dollars from a small slice of the budget while our overall fiscal policy is headed for a cliff."

Instead, they have spent the past week issuing ever-snarkier comments about the other party's real intentions. And they have been making grandiose statements on the floor of the House and Senate about how it's the other side that will be responsible if the government shuts down.

That, of course, hasn't left them much time to attend to what are, by all measures, much more important matters.

For instance, they might do better to re-focus their energy on securing the country's fiscal future. That's a long-run proposition that will in no way be meaningfully advanced by shutting the government down or by passing another $10 billion or $20 billion in cuts today.

Lawmakers will have to muster every ounce of energy and goodwill they have to hammer out a serious, comprehensive debt-reduction plan that will unfold over many years.


And that debate will have to start with the 2012 budget -- efforts on which should have been well under way by now, but which have been held up by the current 2011 fight.

Given the persistent push for spending cuts by the newest and most conservative lawmakers, that 2012 debate will now be tied to a vote over increasing the debt ceiling, which is the country's legal borrowing limit.

0:00 /02:27Impact of a government shutdown
The Treasury Department estimates that it will be hit no later than May 16. The consequences for the economy if the ceiling isn't raised would be far worse than anything a government shutdown might yield because it would eventually cause investors to question U.S. creditworthiness.

But the disappointment of having to compromise on anything having to do with spending cuts in the 2011 fight may have poisoned the well for the debt ceiling vote and the upcoming 2012 debate.

"If they avert a shutdown [over the 2011 budget], conventional wisdom will say that the bullet was dodged. Au contraire. If the Tea Party types feel they were forced to compromise now, they will likely double down their obduracy on the debt limit, and again on the FY 12 appropriations. More end games, more threats, all year," said Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Bixby has a slightly more optimistic take. He thinks because the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling are so damaging, lawmakers may actually engage in a more serious fiscal debate in the run-up to that vote than have in the 2011 fight. And they may strike a deal for at least one long-run fiscal measure that improves the country's debt outlook.

Then again, he doesn't expect there to be just one debt ceiling vote. A few is more like it.

Much like the six temporary spending bills Congress has passed to keep the government funded up until now, Bixby expects there will be a series of debt ceiling increases -- each extending the limit for only short periods to put pressure on negotiators to strike a deal.

That means there could be a persistent sense of uncertainty about what lawmakers will do next.

Well, you can't say you haven't been trained for that marathon.    src

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I don't know if anyone has been listening to this debate.   I was listening to CSPAN yesterday and all i have to say is some  of these Republicans are completely nuts!    

It would seem  that things are improving economically a little bit recently.   Unemployment is down for instance.   The last thing that is needed is a shutdown right now,   because it doesn't really mean the govt is still spending money even if the majority of government workers are furloughed. 

The debate I heard was insane and so irrelevant to the matter at hand,   which is the budget!    I heard congressman making complaints about  National Public Radio (NPR)  and Planned Parenthood like it would solve the problem.   Seriously  Planned Parenthood cannot legally provide abortions with federal dollars;  they do however provide necessary services to poor women.     Why are you blowing everything up over this?  

Why are these things being thrown under the bus when the huge subsidies for corn ethanol still remains?  

From what i understand both sides are not so far away from a dollars standpoint,  but the Republicans want to take a stand on the "issues"  as they like to call them.  

There is also a huge game of blame going on.  The Republicans have it that the stimulus spending is the basis for the problem  yet they seem to forget how much this debacle in Iraq had cost this country.   Revisionist history is really popular.  They also seem to forget how bad things were in the final days of the GW Bush administration.   The then- Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson was trying to push through these massive stimulus bills without even a shred of accountability.    This did pass early in the Obama administration,  but Republicans seem to forget they were totally on board with this when Bush was still president.  

and remembering the last time a Government shutdown occurred, 15 years ago  it was clearly  the Republicans were clearly blamed for that whole debacle.   Why would they want to go there again?

(my disclaimer-  i am a registered republican and i still think they're nuts!)

 
I just watched the waiting for superman documentary on the public school system and am thoroughly disgusted with this country atm.... I went to private school luckily my mother notice a problem in grade 1 when I couldn't read and switched me in grade 2... Then I excelled by leaps and bounds and now have a career, went to university and did quite well for myself considering I grew up in a low income community with a single parent much of my childhood.

All these laws and regulations implemented are supposed to help the people of the country but they do the exact opposite and keep the people from being able to act and change the conditions we are living in..... The only people these laws are protecting are the politicians and they don't give a rat's ass about the communities it's become blatantly obvious by the way the standards of living are deteriorating. I honestly believe this shutdown is going to cost the country more than if it continues to run.. all these people laid off will want some sort of sevrence. and much more will be laid off in the public service sector cleaners and security of whom ever takes care of these politician babies. 

I am ranting but one thing that stuck with me in that documentary was the fact that all the money it costs to run the prisons, it would cost a fraction of that to have educated these prisoners in private school so they could have had a better life and not robbed that convenience store or stolen that car or whatever, something has to change but how do you get anyone to listen to you who can change things?

 
LOL.  Ironic, definitely.
 

Originally Posted by DreamWarrior /img/forum/go_quote.gif

I have to show up on Monday to find out if they're sending me home!  How backwards is that!?!
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