Official Shutdown Thread

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Based on your posts, if you are anything like the Obama supporters highlighted in numerous Youtube videos, then no, you and the American people do not know the Constitutional responsibilities of the Senate and House.


First, if Republicans have a majority of Congress, then how come they only control 1/2 of 1/3 of the government? However, the only reason the Republicans seemingly hold a majority is because the House is exercising their Constitutional responsibilities. Our republic was intentionally set up with bicameral representation and separation of powers to prevent the tyranny of the majority.
 


Right now, this is still a 'probably'. Has not been signed off by all participants involved.

"Probably are going to get" vs "are going to get".
 
Well, the House has done their job, the "probably" lies in the Senate. If the Senate fails to vote on this, then you know who to vote out in the next election.

 


I'll vote the way I have for years. Someone 'other than the incumbent'. At whatever level, from whatever party.
 
@Mingo - You used the Kaiser Calculator right? Guess what, it's wrong. Read the disclaimer, the premiums haven't been established yet for that calculator.

Age matters, you pay more if you're younger, less if you're older. But the subsidies aren't ready yet either. So a 25 year old making $10/hour without kids paying roughly $150 a month on that calculator. That's $75 out of their $600 paycheck. Leaving them $525, or $1050 a month to live off.

Factor in Rent (roommates even), utilities, maybe a car payment or small credit card, etc. Something realistic. That $150/month is significant to that person.

All I'm saying is I don't believe it should be mandated. Given the option of having medical or not, people will choose to have it... if they can afford it. I don't believe the gov't should be forcing anyone into buying anything.
 


Blindly voting like that doesn't help the system, it's part of the problem.
 


Maybe. But from my viewpoint, the two majors are both screwed up, just in different ways.
 


Good dialog is being created without any name calling.

Check it out.

For example, Mingo and Johnny aren't being affected right now by the ACA so they support it and believe in it.

Myself, I'm not currently affected by it but my employer did change healthcare plans a year ago to compensate for the coming ACA. I'm not directly affected right now, but I am concerned on how it will affects others, our country, and our spending.

As a rich white evil conservative, I'm told by the Liberals that I don't care about other people and I want everyone I dislike to die. On the other hand, I believe I shown to be anything but that.

I care about my country. I know there is a medical issue in this country as well. I believe it is being over hyped and the minority is trumping the majority when it comes to healthcare. Others willingly vote for it knowing that right now they receive no immediate positive or negative effects.

Regarding the original post by yourself, let's talk about that in regards to what I covered above.

So far, no one here is really affected by the ACA. The government is currently shut down, or so they say.

Who exactly has been affected by the government shutdown? I haven't noticed any changes at all. I realize that the Federal government has very, very little to do with my daily life. Many people here aren't affected, left or right aisle.

That begs the question. Why? The current administration is going out of their way to affect the citizens to show them how much the government does for them. They're actually going out of their way to try to make people think the government is everywhere. They're shutting down parks, pull offs, private property, and even tried to shut down access to the OCEAN.

The Right thinks this is a ploy to make people think they need more government. In reality, I think we realize how little we truly need the government in its current reach. It can be reduced. That's a concern of the Left because reducing the reach of the government reduces their voting base and strengthens the Right. On the other hand, expanding the government increases their voting base and reduces the Right's voting base.

This is something our forefathers warned against and said it would be the demise of the country. I believe what we are witnessing is the initial fight between government powers to take control. If we invest all in the government, it can't fail right? History tells otherwise. You see countries falling apart because they have too much government. Then one day a warlord takes over and government in the needed form never returns.

Look at Greece. More and more government until finally it collapsed. I hate to bring it up, but look at Germany right before the rise of the Nazi party. Government reach was out of control, hyperinflation hit, and that paved the road for tyranny.

Eventually, the "solution" is going to be more government and more and more until a complete collapse. As long as our government continues to play by the Checks and Balances implemented, we have a chance.

When the Left is the minority, they don't want a majority vote. When they are a majority, they want the majority vote. Corruption.

I'm not saying the Right has been any better, but they're not trying to expand government's role into our daily life.
 
Stripping the individual tax/mandate will gut the ACA, its the centerpiece of the bill. Its the same as defunding the whole thing. Its as simple as this: Republicans are doing everything they can to disrupt the ACA, they tried to completely defund it but that only caused them to take a hit in the polls so now they are doing the next best thing in an attempt to get rid of it while projecting this false sense of compromise. The bill was passed and ruled constitutional, the debate is over. Fund it and leave it alone to see if it helps with our ticking time bomb of a problem that is healthcare. They are using people's lives as leverage and its pathetic that elected representatives would do this just to get their way.

Please quit with the House is the voice of the people crap, more people voted democratic in the House elections and due to redistricting they are not proportionally represented in the House

The premiums you keep quoting riser are the initial prices. Until the subsides come online they will be inflated.
 


The word 'subsidies' hides the true cost. As it is with a LOT of things.
Get someone else, or ALL of us, to pay part of it results in a lower line item cost to the individual.

But where do you think that 'subsidy' money comes from?
 
John, the House in the last 10 days has sent 4 bills up to the Senate for approval. All denied. The House asked to sit down with the Senate to hash out a bill that will be passed. The Senate said no.

The purpose of Congress is to compromise.

If the ACA is founded on forcing people into it or taxing them on it, then it is doomed to fail. Less and less people are tax payers and banking on a flat fee as the way to fund it is a bad idea. More and more workers are becoming part time workers, meaning less overall income, so the 2.5% fee will actually be less. The whole "math" behind the ACA is a joke if it relies on that for subsidies.

They're hoping that 8 million people sign up by March 2014? Probably not going to happen.. I would be surprised if it even surpasses 1 million people. And if the sign up rates are low, it's doomed to fail, right? Because the money won't be there regardless.
 


You are right, but look at it this way. Before the ACA there were people who would take a piece of the "healthcare" pie without giving anything back in. These are the uninsured people, the rest of us have to pick up the slack. Now with the ACA, they will at least contribute "some" money on insurance or fine/tax and the same people that had to cover for the uninsured will be paying for the cost of the subsidies. However, the base premiums after the subsides should be considered a lessening of the burden on the rest of us that already had healthcare insurance.
 


Would you compromise with terrorists? I don't blame the senate one bit for denying the house. They are using people's suffering as leverage in their discussions. They are literally holding the entire government hostage to get their way. Might as well lock up the bank accounts of non essential government employees until they get their way. It would have the same result to an extent. Its disgusting and demeans our country as a whole. Who would compromise with people like this only to have them do it again and again?

Look at it this way, if they given in on the individual tax, what do the republicans give in on? Oh right, their only bargaining piece is the funding of the government. They are compromising on ideas or anything like that. They are compromising with the livelihood of American citizens and government functions.

1 million more people contributing to the pie is a damn sight better than 1 million more not paying for their healthcare costs.
 


My main problem with the whole concept is this:
It is not 'health care'.
It is mandated purchasing of some level of insurance, from a private company, under threat of IRS fines.
WTF does the IRS have to do with me buying health insurance? Why do they need that extra power?

This is a half-assed sop to garner votes. If we want "universal health care", AKA single payer....fine! Let's do that!
This seems no better than what we have now. And arguably worse, in that people are getting mixed signal and are confused about what it actually *is*.
 


Are you even an American? Your understanding of the government and how it works is lacking significantly.

Let's look at it this way. 3.5 years ago the ACA was passed. That Congress isn't there anymore, a lot of them got voted out. Today, the House doesn't want to pass revenue generating taxes and fines on the individual. WE voted them in for this current Congress. They are representing the people.

You also have to realize how many additional things and people are being taxed. Remember, the Bush tax cuts expired. That's additional revenue. They raised taxes on medical devices. They're enforcing the mandate tax to sign up for healthcare, or pay a fine if you don't.

That's a hell of a lot extra revenue to cover those 1 million people. And that's your assumption that all those people are using healthcare and not paying on it.

Simply put, what about all the illegal people getting free healthcare then booted out? That problem isn't being addressed. Last time I heard there were 13 million "illegal aliens" in this country compared to the 1 million legal who will get ACA covered.

It will be a money pit. The sad part is we're going to have to go further in debt, give people something for nothing, and then watch it fail and the f'ing idiots on the Left are going to have some excuse as to why the ACA failed. Either not enough people signed up, they have too much lost revenue by people not paying, or some BS excuse as to why their social wet dreams continuously fail.
 


Damm ... thats why your laughing so much at the public servants now ... because your not one of them ...
 
Let's look at it this way. 3.5 years ago the ACA was passed. That Congress isn't there anymore, a lot of them got voted out. Today, the House doesn't want to pass revenue generating taxes and fines on the individual. WE voted them in for this current Congress. They are representing the people.
Click to expand...

I mean its not like the American people didn't overwhelmingly vote for a Democratic house or anything....
 
If this goes until the 17th your country is going to be bankrupted ... go backwards for 10 or more years and likely a civil war will erupt ...

But I gues the extremists there want that?

They must be moving a ton of money offshore this week ... protecting their personal castles and such.

 
@Mingo - Are you making stuff up buddy? The 2010 election for the House went heavily Republican. Republicans gained 63 seats in the last election. The 2012 election, Republicans lost 8 seats. If you followed it, it really didn't make sense why so many Republicans won but Obama was re-elected. Normally the president's party wins to give him more control, but it went the opposite way. Keep Obama, but they still wanted the House to continue doing what it had been doing. That was Boehner's platform, the American people spoke that he needs to keep doing what he's been doing.


@Rey - As noted earlier, my previous work environment had enough funds to keep working for 6 months but were ordered to shut down. Could be because it's a heavily Republican area, or could be costs savings. Someone has to pay the park rangers to shut down parks, road pull offs, private property, and the ocean ya know.

I would have been an exempt status, meaning I would have rotated in a group for my position even through a shutdown.

 
@Mingo - Are you making stuff up buddy? The 2010 election for the House went heavily Republican. Republicans gained 63 seats in the last election. The 2012 election, Republicans lost 8 seats. If you followed it, it really didn't make sense why so many Republicans won but Obama was re-elected. Normally the president's party wins to give him more control, but it went the opposite way. Keep Obama, but they still wanted the House to continue doing what it had been doing. That was Boehner's platform, the American people spoke that he needs to keep doing what he's been doing.


@Rey - As noted earlier, my previous work environment had enough funds to keep working for 6 months but were ordered to shut down. Could be because it's a heavily Republican area, or could be costs savings. Someone has to pay the park rangers to shut down parks, road pull offs, private property, and the ocean ya know.

I would have been an exempt status, meaning I would have rotated in a group for my position even through a shutdown.

 
@Riser - You are correct the people voted heavily republican in 2010 by a few million votes, but only 2 years later those few million plus a few million more voted democrat. If thats not enough proof that the people reject republican ideas about healthcare Im not sure what will. Maybe their dropping approval ratings?

Michelle Bachmann literally said this is what we wanted and we got it. Those idiots spent months planning this instead of doing their jobs and making this law work.
 
No, it doesn't work that way. You could have an entire city vote and skew the numbers. In heavily controlled areas, the opposing party rarely votes because they know they won't win. It skewers the numbers. That's why swing States are so important.

You also have to consider that for the first time in the history of the US, some areas turned in a 100% voting turn out. That's unheard of in the US. You have to either consider fraud, or that first time voters (btw, they were all heavily black districts that had 100%) came to the polls.

Yes, more Democrats may have voted. I will say it. Race factored into it for Democrats. Religion factored into a lower turn out for Republicans.

I went to a comedy club a couple weeks ago and comic went on his racist political rant. Black guy from the days of In Living Color. He said he had no clue about Obama but knew he won because he was black. Dead serious, no joke. Most of the crowd started going crazy and laughing because they all knew it was true.

So yeah, there is your significant turn out. Let's see what the next election brings, I'm guessing there will be a significant less turn out and no 100% voting districts. And you can even cross compare that to non-presidential election years and see the numbers change.

But everyone has a right to vote. Philadelphia alone can carry Pennsylvania for the electoral college due to the extremely high population. I bet you didn't know that.

Isn't that a concern of yours that cities with such high populations can sway everything? At least that is why there are districts to help represent everyone.
 
Cynicism on my part? To point out that buying votes in a city is easier than serving an entire state?

C'mon. I saw what happened in Detroit around voting time. The food lines the Democrats brought for the homeless. Registering them, having them vote the way they wanted, and then brought them to their own little food party. They gave them cigarettes and coffee to register, and pizza after they voted. Bus loads of homeless people brought in from all over to sway the vote in certain districts. Afterwards, the people were upset because they didn't realize they were being used. They thought they were going to get more.. but once the voting was done, everyone left.
 
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