I am doing some government work this fall and I just got an email saying that the government is on a continuing resolution that ends Friday, and that there may be (but probably won’t be) a shut down starting on Saturday.
I don’t know what this is about because I haven’t seen anything about it in the news.
burnspbesq
Yup. That’s exactly right. A new CR needs to get through both Houses of Congress by Friday night, or the Gubmint shuts down.
Corner Stone
Don’t worry about it. It’s all part of the 11-D Chess.
MikeTheZ
It was assumed it would be passed in the Lame Duck, until the ReThug ultimatum earlier today. Also, too.
Southern Beale
How fun for you DougJ! I worked for a government agency during the LAST government shut-down, the Great Glorious Newt Gingrich Government Shut-Down. It was so cool. We got a couple days off (though most of us worked from home so we wouldn’t have a giant landslide of work awaiting us when the office re-opened).
In retrospect that was incredibly stupid. I should have just said fuck the deadlines, blame it on the Republicans. Ah well, live and learn.
Annelid Gustator
@MikeTheZ: The ultimatum excepted gov’t funding and taxes. Presumably a renewal of the CR will fall into that category. Never can tell, tho.
burnspbesq
There are a lot of Republicans who are spoiling for this fight, because the think they can win the messaging war this time. It is by no means certain that there will be another CR by Friday.
burnspbesq
@Southern Beale:
I was considered essential, so I didn’t get sent home. It was a little weird, walking around a half-million-square-foot building with about 30 people in it.
arguingwithsignposts
They said they wouldn’t vote on anything until the continuing resolution and the tax cuts are addressed. I assume there will be “negotiations” on the CR.
MikeTheZ
@Annelid Gustator: The almost certainly won’t vote for the CR without the tax cuts because they know they can get Obama to trade the tax cuts for the CR.
A Guest
@MikeTheZ: Personally I hope they don’t. And I’ll be happy for the time off. Pretty certain my boss is essential and I’m not. Whee!
Unabogie
@Corner Stone:
So if the Republicans, who got into the office due to the whiny apathy of the True Progressives, succeed in shutting down the government by refusing to pass a budget, then this is Barack Obama’s fault, and you’ll punish him by helping to elect more Republicans?
Got it. Makes perfect sense.
adolphus
I worked for the Federal government for 7 years. Between October 1 and Xmas of just about every year we were funded on CR’s. Every year. It almost never made the news. It is because Congress can never get their shit in a pile before the end of the FY to pass a budget. It doesn’t help that the FY begins a month before the general election if there is one.
This year may be different, but it is probably just the normal level of incompetence.
Judas Escargot
Summary of what the CR covers is here.
Not sure why $193K to Sen. Byrd’s survivors is in there as a line item.
Unabogie
Seriously, what I’d like to see, but never will: Republicans pull a stunt and screw over the average person. “The base” gets so mad at Republicans, and blames those Republicans, and works their asses off to unseat those Republicans.
Just Dale
Appears to have passed the House
If you really care, you can track this kind of sausage making on thomas I used to spend a lot of time there before I came to my senses and left the national lab where I worked.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Well, the previous thread on this topic was a joke.
The GOP is stamping its feet for the simple reason that it knows that they can get only the tax cuts that the Dems will give them. If we do nothing, the cuts expire in four weeks IIRC. The end. Therefore they have to make a lot of noise now to try to scare up some support for their cause.
In other words, they do not have the upper hand. And if I were in charge, I would just say, okay, go ahead and freeze the Senate and shut down the government. We can spend the holiday season talking about how you GOP bastards turned off the lights because you couldn’t get your rich patrons their tax breaks. Let’s see how that works for you next year.
The GOP really has no ground here. Whatever ground they have is what we give them. Let them throw their tantrums, take their ball and go home. When they get home, they have to call their banker and corporate and Wall Street overlords and say “We blew it.”
Fuck ’em.
Midnight Marauder
@Unabogie:
That is just madness. You are talking like a crazy person.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
And unless I am missing something, once they shut down the government, they are setting themselves up for an emergency session, all rushing back to Washington for a vote in the middle of their precious winter vacations.
I say, just call their bluff. The cuts expire in 30 days, do they not? Okay. Your move.
trollhattan
Worked for a nonprofit that was partly federally funded during the Reagan years and this was an annual dance ritual. CR after CR until there was a budget. I sure did hate that bastard.
JCT
Yup– I have a new NIH grant that was supposed to start today.
No go thanks to the funding “uncertainty”.
Already had to let a post-doc go because no one could assure me that my profoundly “fundable” score would indeed be funded.
Elections have consequences, but given what the folks who are losing their unemployment benefits are dealing with, this is small potatoes.
WyldPirate
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
This likely won’t work because the Rethugs will gladly vote no on this and throw the ball in the Dems court. It will go to the Senate where the Rethugs won’t vote for cloture. Taxes get raised. Obama and dems get blamed.
This is not that hard. The Rethugs know the electorate won’t remember who voted it down in 2010 when they hit the polls in 2012. What they will remember and be reminded of in every damned campaign ad is Obama instituted the biggest tax hike and history.
I was just over at Eschaton and Atrios and he had an interesting post that probably would have worked had the Dems and Obama had their shit together. Basically, just planned to have let the Bush cuts Obama/b> and the Dems originated. The get what they wanted AND it loses the “Bush tax cuts” monicker.
That takes strategic planning; something that seems to be in short supply on the Dem side of the aisle.
Corner Stone
@Unabogie: I’m not sure how you got any of that from my comment, but you keep on goin’ wit yo bad self!
I was giving DougJ a hard time with the 11-D crack as he has previously said he’s not much for it and I’m sure he’s more than tired of hearing about it.
How you can get chafed by your assless chaps after reading my comment is beyond me.
rickstersherpa
For the very wealthy, there is a lot riding on this. For instance using Steve Schwartzman of the Blackstone Group, he is suppose to make between 500 million to 700 million dollars in 2011 and 2010 based on Blackstone going public in 2007 says Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE57C5AX20090813
Now, if the Bush tax laws are extended, he will be just taxed 15% on this (between 70 million and 105 million dollars in taxes, assuming on reduction do to other deductions and schemes). Even if the carried interest rule remains, the capital gains rate goes back up to 20%, if the Bush Rules expire and old Steve will be paying an extra 30 million dollars in taxes. He did not funnel 3 million or so to the Repubs to get that result, so I can expect he and his lobbiests are speedialing McConnell, Coryn, Rove, Boehner, and Gillespie to tell them to hang tough and screw Obama over so he gets his tax cut (and really even a temporary extension would work very well for him).
Really, if you go over the incomes of the top CEOs and hedge fund managers, about 5,000 families across the country, you will see they have billions of annual income at stake even when talking just about one year.
Finally, there is both an interesting (where he reports) and infuriating (whe Bai engages in that perrenial Village sport and advises the President to engage in some hippie punching to get the love of the “moderates and independents”) by Matt Bai in today’s Times. Looking at a blog post that Obama put up in 2005, and various comments, Obama comes across as a pragmatist, uncomfortable with Govenrment spending “essentially a Blue Dog himself.” And none of this should be a shock because this is what the guy said he was during the primaries when he discussed the issues. Kthug warned us repeatedly, but hey, the guy is Black, he must be a liberal, right?
His pragmatism and lack of ideology however is a huge disadvantage when he his negotiating with ideologues and men and women who have one over arching goal, his political destruction.
I am still going to reserve my primary anger at the Republicans because basically, they are saying that Obama, the Democrats, and the people who vote for them just don’t count, that they deserve no consideration at the table in regard to their issues and concerns. As Kthug says, they have assumed a very nihilist position, that if they can’t govern the country, no one can govern it.
One ray of light. Despite the Repubs, the European Central Bank, the Chinese, Tim Geithner, and Sarah Palin all trying to sabotage it, the U.S. economy appears to actually coming off life support. The housing market will probably bottom out next Spring and Summer, and then pick up. This could result in some surprising growth and a sharp decline in unemployment in 2012. If so, then Obama is the likely winner in 2012, perhaps in spite of himself.
catclub
Ever hear about the amendment tree and ‘filling up the tree’?
The GOP will offer an amendment to the tax bill saying that
no, all the tax cuts expire. Then, if that amendment is voted
down, they will use THAT vote to bludgeon anyone who voted against THAT vote as saying they voted to raise taxes.
The Democrats therefore refuse to have any vote, out of fear.
Or enough cave and vote in favor of the amendment.
Never mind that same democrat will vote for the overall bill to cut taxes on the first $250k.
Baud
@Unabogie: Thanks for this. I thought I was the only one on the Internet who felt this way.
WyldPirate
@JCT:
Congrats on the NIH award, JCT. I hope the funding gets sorted out soon.
BTW, what was your section’s cutoff score and are the scores trending up or down?
Maude
@catclub:
You have made a good point. The perception game is in full swing. The problem for the Repubs is the UI extension. The AP headline stated that the jobess benefits run out for the holidays.
That headline is a sign that the Repubs may have miscalculated about denying benefits. They need to take the taxes off unemployment. That is evil.
lol chikinburd
@Unabogie: Arguing this is futile. The loud (and mostly-white) “progressive” contingent do bear some responsibility — not all of it, by any means, nor necessarily most of it, but the significant portion that was under their control — for the weakness of Obama’s present position. But the worse that situation gets, the more comforting becomes the narrative that it’s all the other guy’s fault. Multiply that by the ego investment, and you ain’t digging them out of that bunker.
JCT
@WyldPirate: Thanks– at this point it feels like winning a lottery and that’s just sad. The system was not designed to function at these funding cutoffs.
To the best of my knowledge we funded at around 14% this go-around and that’s a little lower than last time. I’m also on study section now and it’s profoundly depressing.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@WyldPirate:
I doubt that that is the outcome. I think the Republicans vote for whatever tax cuts we give them. It’s all in the staging.
“They trashed your tax cuts to hold out for tax cuts for the rich, and tried to shut down your government too.”
That’s a loser for the GOP and they know it.
This is a game of chicken that they can only lose, unless we let them win.
chopper
@lol chikinburd:
let’s be honest, the dems and progressives never had obama’s back. not any time since day 1. just watch how everyone (with few exceptions, like pelosi) started scattering the moment they realized the sheer magnitude of the shit the president was going to have to get done.
that’s the way us dems are. we’re cynical and afraid of failure so instead of really backing anyone we stand aside and wait for things to go south so we can say ‘i told you so’, secretly hoping that the GOP will take over and we can sit around bitching about being the minority, cause that’s the way we like it. shit, listen to all the progs saying ‘bring on president palin’. they like the idea. they don’t feel like the smartest guy in the room unless they’re the pissy minority.
this isn’t to say that obama hasn’t screwed up in a lot of these fights. but no president has ever accomplished much of anything without the backing of his party. obama’s been on his own pretty much the whole time.
chopper
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
which means we’re boned.
Unabogie
@lol chikinburd:
I find it frustrating that no one seems to be angry at the people they claim to oppose. Republicans do something bad and these guys only want to attack Democrats over it.
I think it comes down to this: they expect Barack Obama to be their voice. And when he doesn’t amplify what they feel, they take it as a betrayal. Like children. Barack Obama can only be all good or all bad. But they are missing the concept that it’s up to them to change things. Don’t like what Republicans are doing? Get people to stop voting them into office so they stop making life so difficult. You think the lines need to be clearer? How about making it easier for Democrats to support liberal ideas by getting the average folk to understand them. Don’t like the Dem messaging? How about spend some time making your own Dem messaging instead of acting as a GOP messaging firm, huh?
WyldPirate
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
I disagree. I think the Rethugs gamble and count on the short memories of the voters. They haven’t gone wrong on that so far as the voters forgave them PDQ after 8 years of Bush that led to the latest round of this shit.
Perhaps you’re right, though. It will be entertaining to watch if it happens.
WyldPirate
@JCT:
Wow, That’s not as bad as I thought. But it’s still pretty grim.
I really loved research and sorely miss rattling test tubes, running gels, growing cultures and cranking extracts through the HPLC, but staring at the prospects of trying to start out in a tenure track position at 44, I just couldn’t see myself dealing with the potential rejection. Oh well. Lots of good memories.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@WyldPirate:
Yes it will be entertaining to watch. There are many possible ways this plays out. Personally, I prefer the Called Bluff approach. If well staged, it looks like a GOP Loser to me.
“Yeah, we denied the middle class a tax cut, we tried to steal $700b for our rich patrons by turning the lights out on the government at Christmas in the middle of an economic period of great stress, we fucked our allies by holding up an important treaty, and we denied hungry out of work people their benefits. NOW will you let us have our White House back?”
Bring it, Republican Shit For Brains. Bring it.
JCT
@WyldPirate: The real issue is that you can no longer survive on a single R01 and getting that second one is sheer brutality — took me a few tries, that’s for sure. Rejection is my BFF.
And I miss wet lab stuff too — at this stage all I do is write and read. Haven’t played with my cells in years. My students now laugh whenever I “threaten” to do anything.
My “other” option is to practice medicine full-time. Given all of the govt funding uncertainty (that will probably never get better) — sometimes I think about switching over.
I guess nothing is perfect.
Comrade PhysioProf
@JCT: If your score was well within the payline, couldn’t you get your department to back you and have your institution open an “at risk” account and allow you to start charging pre-award costs? For R01s, NIH allows costs incurred up to 90 days before the start date of the grant to be charged to the grant without even asking for permission. And you can get even longer if you ask permission.
I just did this for an extremely well-scored competitive renewal so that I don’t have to slow down until the grant gets awarded. And yeah, I hear you on the “you need two R01s to be self-sustaining in a medical school”. This is because we have to charge so much of our own salaries to our grants, as compared to people in undergraduate departments who generally get 3/4 of their salaries paid for their teaching.
priscianus jr
@arguingwithsignposts:
mclaren
And as we all know, if you don’t see it in the news, it didn’t happen.
Nylund
Does anyone else see the irony in the GOP threatening to shut down the government on Saturday because the deficit is too high unless the Democrats agree to a bill that will increase the national debt?