US begins shutdown amid budget row

[busybeeburns]

 

US begins shutdown amid budget row

 

The US government has begun a partial shutdown after the two houses of Congress failed to agree a new budget.

 

The Republican-led House of Representatives insisted on delaying President Barack Obama's healthcare reform - dubbed Obamacare - as a condition for passing a bill. More than 800,000 federal employees face unpaid leave with no guarantee of back pay once the deadlock is over.

 

It is the first shutdown in 17 years and the dollar fell early on Tuesday. Goldman Sachs estimates a three-week shutdown could shave as much as 0.9% from US GDP this quarter. The White House's budget office began notifying federal agencies to begin an "orderly shutdown" as the midnight deadline approached. Shortly after midnight, President Obama tweeted: "They actually did it. A group of Republicans in the House just forced a government shutdown over Obamacare instead of passing a real budget."

 

House Speaker John Boehner told reporters he hoped the Senate would agree to a bipartisan committee known as a conference "so we can resolve this for the American people".

 

"The House has voted to keep the government open but we also want basic fairness for all Americans under Obamacare," he said.

 

The Senate is to meet again at 09:30 (13:30 GMT) on Tuesday. The BBC's Mark Mardell in Washington says the divide in US politics has grown so bitter that government itself cannot function.

 

 

Democrats were never likely to make concessions on healthcare reform - Mr Obama's signature achievement and a central issue in last year's presidential election, our correspondent says. But Republicans have made demands that they knew would not be met rather than be accused of weakness and betrayal by their own hardliners, he adds.

 

On Monday afternoon, the Democratic-led Senate voted 54-46 against a bill from House Republicans that would have funded the government only if President Obama's healthcare law was delayed for a year.

 

Major portions of the healthcare law, which passed in 2010 and has been validated by the US Supreme Court, are due to take effect on Tuesday regardless of whether there is a shutdown.

 

President Obama went on national television to criticise Republicans for trying to refight the last election. A shutdown would have "a very real economic impact on real people, right away," he said, adding it would "throw a wrench" into the US recovery. "The idea of putting the American people's hard-earned progress at risk is the height of irresponsibility, and it doesn't have to happen."

 

After the Senate vote, the chamber's Democratic majority leader blamed Republicans for the imminent halt to all non-essential government operations. "It will be a Republican government shutdown, pure and simple," said Harry Reid, referring to the Republicans as "bullies".

 

Mr Obama has signed legislation ensuring that military personnel would be paid. The defence department had advised employees that uniformed members of the military would continue on normal duty, but that large numbers of civilian workers would be told to stay home.

 

Under the shutdown, national parks and Washington's Smithsonian museums will close, pension and veterans' benefit cheques will be delayed, and visa and passport applications will go unprocessed.

 

Programmes deemed essential, such as air traffic control and food inspections, will continue. The US government has not undergone a shutdown since 1995-96, when services were suspended for a record 21 days.

 

Republicans demanded then-President Bill Clinton agree to their version of a balanced budget. As lawmakers grappled with the latest shutdown, the 17 October deadline for extending the government's borrowing limit looms even larger.

 

On that date, the US government will reach the limit at which it can borrow money to pay its bills, the so-called debt ceiling. House Republicans have also demanded a series of policy concessions - including on the president's health law and on financial and environmental regulations - in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

 

"I'm thoroughly disgusted with our politicians," Ken Griffith from Kentucky told the Associated Press news agency. "They're acting like a bunch of three year old children. It's who can hold their breath the longest."

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24343698

[Matter-Eater Lad]

The post office is still running, that's all that matters.

[The Doctor]

just children fighting over a silly game :blank:

[Italian Plastic]

i was reading about how the curiosity rover isn't taking any new data during the shutdown and i clicked a link and i got this

:dead:

everything about this seems really silly

[Captain Crieff]

just children fighting over a silly game :blank:[/color]

:nod:

i was reading about how the curiosity rover isn't taking any new data during the shutdown and i clicked a link and i got this

:dead:

everything about this seems really silly

what the hell :| :|

[The Doctor]

and if they ever get the idea of stealing our world record, bury your dreams deep America

I'm sure you won't survive like this for 500 days

[Captain Crieff]

and if they ever get the idea of stealing our world record, bury your dreams deep America

I'm sure you won't survive like this for 500 days[/color]

 

:lol:

[Black Rose]

Fighting it over that health-care bill?

[Tash]

[Black Rose]

America, welcome to your new leader:

;)

[Coeurli]

Fighting it over that health-care bill?

Apparently, yes? How mature and responsible of the people handling the world's biggest economy. :lol:

[Batman]

Fighting it over that health-care bill?

 

Apparently, yes? How mature and responsible of the people handling the world's biggest economy. :lol:

Apparantly the Republicans never actually had a real health care plan, but are still bashing Obama's...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thank God I live in Germany o__o

[Captain Crieff]

^ batman facepalm :awesome:

[BookLover715]

It's, mostly just Republicans wanting to feel liked again. We should just take George Washington's advice in his resignation speech and stop this silliness, seriously. :|

[The Final Track]

Thanks, GOP!

[busybeeburns]

:lol:

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>One last tweet before the government shutdown!

 

How many congressmen does it take to scr</p>— Church Curmudgeon (@ChrchCurmudgeon) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrchCurmudgeon/statuses/384890428174397440">October 1, 2013</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[Matter-Eater Lad]

Apparantly the Republicans never actually had a real health care plan, but are still bashing Obama's...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thank God I live in Germany o__o

 

No plan isn't much worse than a horrible plan for health care.

[Prince Myshkin]

Don't be silly, Nick.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

If you're an Oligarch then Obamacare is fine. It's a ahandout to the corrupt in the medical industry and giving more money and power to the people who helped create the medical crisis. It'll raise prices as we are broke. It's not for the people, like every bad thing they do, they sell it "as for the people". Like the bailouts, wars, attacks on freedom, quantitative easing and so on. It does not address the government protection of the medical industry that has led to the extreme prices. You can't give the people who are protecting criminals in the industry more money and power and expect anything good to happen no matter how well they sell it as "for the people". Obama is just another whore for the Oligarchs.

[Prince Myshkin]

It's not marginally better than no plan, though.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

No it's not. The house is on fire and half want to do nothing and the other half want to throw gas on it. This will be worse than doing nothing as it will raise prices, bankrupt us faster and create more problems by complicating the already over-complicated medical industry.

 

If government stops protecting the criminal activity by the medical industry prices would drop drastically. In the UK the average cost of birth is 3,000 but 30,000 in the US. In the UK the average cost of heart surgery is around 15,000 and 150,000 in the US. If we could let prices drop to market level then government could pay for healthcare and it would be cheap and not bankrupt us. Not only do we need a plan, but something that will last.

[NumbersGirl]

The post office is still running, that's all that matters.

What does that really have to do with it? Although USPS a monopoly of sorts, it's not funded by the federal government... it's funded by the postage that we buy to send stuff.

 

this[/url] is the exact opposite of protection.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

I'll do my research tomorrow on the links. In the short term I'll say this again; you can't give the people who have protected the industry so far and caused prices to rise more money and power and expect them to actually go against the people who helped put them in office and destroy their monopoly. You don't give criminals more money and power in the area they're committing a crime and expect them to suddenly do the right thing.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

Also, it was almost the same as the bill put forward by the insurance industry lobbyist. I'm trying to find that bill, it may take some time. I remember seeing that a while ago. Since it's almost the same as a bill created by lobbyist for the insurance industry, who do you think will really benefit from it?

 

The Obama administration presented the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as a victory for health care over the corporations and their profits. In fact, not only does the ACA maintain the profits of the big insurance and drug companies, but it was written for the Obama administration with the help of these very same companies.

 

If the goal of health care is to keep people healthy, the health care system in this country is broken. Forty-six million people, 15.4 percent of the country, have no medical coverage. For those who are currently working, one in five have no insurance. The U.S. spends over $7,000 per year per person on health care, nearly double what Canada, Austria, or France spend with their national health care plans. All that extra money isn’t going towards better care but towards the profits of companies in the health care industry.

 

The ACA was written to supposedly address this crisis, not by changing it, but by making it a law, ensuring even more profits for the health care industry, which spent over 380 million dollars to support the ACA. The health care companies have always been against any sort of national plan, or a “public option” in which tax dollars would pay for a basic health insurance program because any program like that would eliminate the privately-run health insurance programs and the billions of dollars in profits they create for the health care companies.

 

In the 1993, the Clinton administration proposed a health care reform bill similar to the ACA in that it required bosses to provide some sort of minimum coverage to their workforce, but it also proposed to increase funding to cover people who were too poor to afford insurance. But this was shot down by the pressure of the big health care companies because they claimed it regulated too much their ability to charge outrageous prices. Out of this debate, a proposal emerged from the right wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation: rather than increasing public funds for health insurance, individuals should be required by law to buy insurance. The insurance would be subject to minor regulations, but the health care companies profits would be further guaranteed.

 

In 2008, the Obama administration wrote the ACA in collaboration with all the major players in the health care industry, the drug and insurance companies, the major hospital chains, and lobbyists representing the largest employers in the country.

 

Essentially the bill is the same as the Heritage Foundation plan from the 1990s. Under the ACA, all individuals must either buy insurance, get it from their employer or pay a fine every year. Health care companies will be able to make billions more off of the millions of people who will now be forced to buy health insurance. The original plan proposed a so-called “public option” plan to compete with private insurance plans. But quickly the public plan was eliminated to protect the private insurance companies from competition. The ACA also imposed no price controls on prescription medications, guaranteeing that drug companies could continue to charge outrageous prices for prescription drugs.

 

Essentially, the ACA was designed to write the for-profit health care system into law, increase corporate profits, and to discourage people from demanding a health care system that would actually provide real health care coverage for all. The ACA wasn’t written to fix a broken system – it was written to ensure that the broken system would be kept in place. After all, from the standpoint of the health care industry, the system is working just fine for their profits.

http://speakout-now.org/obamacare-or-corporate-care-the-writing-of-the-affordable-care-act/

 

 

Obama is a corporate whore who has proven over and over again he is for the rich, not the average person. His economic policies and those done by the fed he supports have sucked wealth from the poor and middle class up to the rich. There's a reason the income gap is the widest since the 1920's and it's not because he's doing much for the average American. Obamacare is just another trick to gain more wealth for his friends and power for the government by taking a crisis and spinning it to his advantage just like they do with every war, attack on freedom and economic policies that end up benefiting wall st.

 

He's screwed the poor and middle class over and over, why would this be any different? Bush's fourth term.

 

I usually hate this site, but this article sums it up.

http://www.infowars.com/insurance-giants-that-wrote-and-lobbied-for-health-law-cash-in/

[NumbersGirl]

Under the ACA, all individuals must either buy insurance, get it from their employer or pay a fine every year. Health care companies will be able to make billions more off of the millions of people who will now be forced to buy health insurance.

Minor detail... the companies will also have to PAY loads of new medical bills for the people that were previously uninsured. It's not simply new money coming in with nothing going out.

 

I'm not saying that I'm all for this new program; in general, I'm against government intervention in market scenarios. But as it stood before all this, health care wasn't really a "market" per say. The insured weren't only paying for the insured, they were paying for all of the uninsured that couldn't afford to pay for their health care. That's part of what drove up the cost of health care, e.g., the insane costs of procedures here compared to other countries. People shouldn't avoid addressing their health issues for fear of bankrupting themselves and their family.