Obama slams Republicans for threat to blow up entire economy

[Seth]

If they don't like that, they can go get a job in the private sector.

They're getting paid. If you don't like that, you can quit paying taxes.

Or I can utilize my First Amendment protected right to free speech and right to petition my government for redress of grievances to discuss and publish my opinion with an eye towards unelecting everyone who voted for the bill.

[Seth]

So Seth, why didn't a single member of Congress see things your way? Not even one protest vote from some teabagger with few or no federal workers in his district? Can't you look past your own angry ideology and try to answer Why?

Because their interests lie with pandering to the poor benighted federal workers with whom they have to both work and have common cause. Eight hundred thousand people is a significant number and Congress is playing the long game, as I said, and they will hand out this largess from the public treasury to attempt to secure positive votes (or at least diminish negative votes) at the mid-term elections.

Start by considering the difference between a salaried employee and an hourly wage employee. Then consider the difference between being on vacation and being fired.

A furlough is a furlough. It's one of the conditions of employment, including federal employment. There is not, nor should there be any guarantee of wages without work anywhere in our economy, particularly not when it comes to public employees, who serve at the pleasure of the People, who may fire or furlough them at will.

I am indeed a public servant. I chose it as my career. And YOU should get on your knees and kiss MY feet that I did. I could be making more money in the private sector, but I chose to defend your whining ass instead.

If that's your attitude, get the fuck out of my government and work somewhere else. Nothing I hate more than uppity public servants who think for one split-second that they are special or indispensable. They aren't. Every single one of them is non-essential and replaceable at a moment's notice and they need to remember that. Time for another round of public-sector federal worker firings like Reagan did to the air traffic controllers. It keeps them humble and shows them that they aren't invulnerable to the vicissitudes of politics, economics or life.

You want to be a public servant, then fucking SERVE...bend your knee, tug your forelock and thank me for employing you and don't get uppity because you can be replaced.

[Tero]

This looks like a likely scenario
http://politix.topix.com/homepage/8304- ... -allegedly

When is the debt ceiling date?

[Warren Dew]

This looks like a likely scenario
http://politix.topix.com/homepage/8304- ... -allegedly

When is the debt ceiling date?

Boehner caving like a RINO again? Yes, unfortunately that seem fairly likely.

Of course, the U.S. would not have to default on the debt to avoid raising the debt. There would be plenty of pain, but interest on the debt plus current contractual obligations could easily be paid out of current tax revenue.

[piscator]

If they don't like that, they can go get a job in the private sector.

They're getting paid. If you don't like that, you can quit paying taxes.

Or I can utilize my First Amendment protected right to free speech and right to petition my government for redress of grievances to discuss and publish my opinion with an eye towards unelecting everyone who voted for the bill.

Good luck with all that, whatever you decide.

[piscator]

There is not, nor should there be any guarantee of wages without work anywhere in our economy, particularly not when it comes to public employees, who serve at the pleasure of the People, who may fire or furlough them at will.

Yes there is. The mostly-Republican House just passed it unanimously. Duh.

[Seth]

There is not, nor should there be any guarantee of wages without work anywhere in our economy, particularly not when it comes to public employees, who serve at the pleasure of the People, who may fire or furlough them at will.

Yes there is. The mostly-Republican House just passed it unanimously. Duh.

I'm aware of that. It could have just as easily and properly said no. The Senate still can. And might.

[Seth]

This looks like a likely scenario
http://politix.topix.com/homepage/8304- ... -allegedly

When is the debt ceiling date?

Boehner caving like a RINO again? Yes, unfortunately that seem fairly likely.

Of course, the U.S. would not have to default on the debt to avoid raising the debt. There would be plenty of pain, but interest on the debt plus current contractual obligations could easily be paid out of current tax revenue.

Right, it just means they can't pay for anything else, which would be a great lesson.

[Warren Dew]

This looks like a likely scenario
http://politix.topix.com/homepage/8304- ... -allegedly

When is the debt ceiling date?

Boehner caving like a RINO again? Yes, unfortunately that seem fairly likely.

Of course, the U.S. would not have to default on the debt to avoid raising the debt. There would be plenty of pain, but interest on the debt plus current contractual obligations could easily be paid out of current tax revenue.

Right, it just means they can't pay for anything else, which would be a great lesson.

I suspect they could pay for medicare and social security as well. Medicaid and farm subsidies might be out of luck.

[piscator]

There is not, nor should there be any guarantee of wages without work anywhere in our economy, particularly not when it comes to public employees, who serve at the pleasure of the People, who may fire or furlough them at will.

Yes there is. The mostly-Republican House just passed it unanimously. Duh.

I'm aware of that.

That didn't stop you from making a normative prescription to the contrary though. Reality rarely gets in the way of religious faith...

[JimC]

For every US poster here, it's either the horrible Republican's fault, or those wicked Democrats to blame.

Some even delight that the US is lurching to the bizarre libertarian vision of smaller government via the national equivalent of self harm (the razor feels so good...)

For authoritarian governments around the world, it is heaven sent...

"look where this democracy rubbish gets you; paralysis and chaos..."

Putin will have the biggest shit-eating grin imaginable.

[pErvinalia]

Looks like I'll at least be getting back pay after this mess is all over:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. government shutdown saga continues on Capitol Hill today, but for the 800,000 federal workers sent home without pay there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Today, the House of Representatives passed legislation that, if cleared by the Senate, would assure those employees would receive their back pay when the government reopens.

The “Federal Employee Retroactive Pay Fairness Act” passed with a rare, unanimous vote and is poised to pass through the upper chamber unhindered.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/20 ... y-be-paid/

So for Seth, Warren and any other hateful anarchists libertarians people who were actually looking forward to this perhaps not happening, it's time for you to get your bearings on reality. The House passed this unanimously. Ponder that for a while.

Hey, I don't mind if people who actually worked during the shutdown get paid. They earned it. As for the rest of the trough-slopping government employees, they got a furlough, they got a few unpaid days off. Big deal. Who cares? Happens to others all the time. Small price to pay given how much more they make as federal employees than the average US wage...something like double or more...for the same work.

So suck it up buttercup, you're a public SERVANT and when you don't work, you shouldn't get paid.

These people have mortgages and bills to pay. Bills don't take a holiday. It's not the fault of people perfectly willing to work as their contracts state, that their employers are incompetent boobs. The employee's have done nothing wrong here. They deserve the pay that their families have budgeted for.

[pErvinalia]

If they don't like that, they can go get a job in the private sector.

They're getting paid. If you don't like that, you can quit paying taxes.

[Warren Dew]

These people have mortgages and bills to pay. Bills don't take a holiday. It's not the fault of people perfectly willing to work as their contracts state, that their employers are incompetent boobs. The employee's have done nothing wrong here. They deserve the pay that their families have budgeted for.

Actually it is partly their fault. If you want stable employment, best not work for an employer who is $17 trillion in the red.

[piscator]

What do you know about stable employment, Warren?