The looming US Government shutdown...how will it affect you?

Started by Torch, April 07, 2011, 08:38:12 AM

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Torch

This morning, I was reading the list of government-funded operations that will cease this weekend if a budget compromise can't be reached. I suppose our household is more fortunate than others, our income is from the private sector, we've already received our tax refund this year, and we had no plans to visit a national park anytime soon.

But our teenage demon spawn will be traveling to Europe this summer, and at this moment her passport application is in the middle of being processed. (We waited until she turned 16 so that she could receive an adult passport good for 10 years of travel rather than the child passport which is only good for 5 years). If the government shuts down, the State Department will no longer process passport applications.

No passport, no trip to Europe. Ugh.

Yes I know, small potatoes compared to some folks, but I'd be curious to know how those "little things" are affecting others, if anyone would care to share.
"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle, when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."  Sir Roger Bannister


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Trieste

Torch, can you link the list for those of us who have had our heads in the sand lately? (My political reading has suffered with Mr. Trieste's hospital visits. >.<)

Callie Del Noire


Torch

This article from the AP has a fairly comprehensive list.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_government_shutdown

I think you'll be okay Callie, all federal benefit payments would continue. Although active duty troops abroad will only get one week's pay instead of two in their next paycheck.  >:(
"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle, when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."  Sir Roger Bannister


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Torch

Your are totally excused for doing the ostrich thing, Trie. Completely understandable, and I've been there, done that. It's amazing how in a personal crisis your world shrinks.

*hugs*

"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle, when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."  Sir Roger Bannister


Erotic is using a feather. Kinky is using the whole chicken.

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Ophan

My husband and many close friends will not get paid if the gov. Dose not pass the bill. My husband is in the military and with out his paycheck we will not beable to make ends meet. I got out 4 months ago and my G.I. bill has not hit yet and I start collage soon. With out my G.I. bill I will not beable to start or get my sgt BAH for housing. (Which will also help a lot with bills and such.)

Sure we have a small savings but this freeze will drain it dry.

In a nut shell my family and friends are very worried.

Caela

For me personally it won't effect us much. Both myself, and the brother that lives with me, work private sector jobs so our income won't be hurt. I have two other brother however who are active military members (one Army, one Marine) and the Marine is married with a baby on the way. They really can't afford to not be getting paid right now. ~sighs~

I get very tired of politicians being so damned busy playing politics with each other, instead of doing their jobs, that it hurts the people they are supposed to be representing.

Oniya

The company I work for has government contracts, one of which is responsible for the work I do specifically.  I may be told to stop work, which will drop our income down to my roommate's Workmans Comp payments.  She should be getting a decent sum of back-pay this week, and will be giving us 'back rent' from that, which may handle a month of the forbearance agreement we have with the mortgage company.  My boss even told me to put as much in the bank as possible, but I don't think she realizes how impossible that's been this last year.
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Jag

It's hard to say for us. The hubby works for a security company that send him to a place that has government contracts. If they get cut, he will likely be put on hold or sent to a different site to do security. The problem with that he gets paid whatever the site pays him per their contract with them. If he gets moved to a new site, he loses a lot of his pay since that site is one of the highest paying places for his company. We're barely pushing along as it is. I don't think we could manage with any kind of pay cut.
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GothicFires

I just hope this doesn't interfere with me getting my surgery scheduled (medicare).  If it does i may have to resort to self amputation >.<
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elone

I don't think a shutdown will happen, but if it does it will surely be so short lived as to not cause any real harm, just some inconvenience. Of course, a total shutdown would probably be a good thing in many respects because the government is totally incompetent. Maybe we would have to quit funding the wars, the oil companies, the banks, earmarks, special interests, useless defense spending, and the like.

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Callie Del Noire

Quote from: elone on April 07, 2011, 11:16:31 PM
I don't think a shutdown will happen, but if it does it will surely be so short lived as to not cause any real harm, just some inconvenience. Of course, a total shutdown would probably be a good thing in many respects because the government is totally incompetent. Maybe we would have to quit funding the wars, the oil companies, the banks, earmarks, special interests, useless defense spending, and the like.

Yes, I am cynical.

Careful.. some of that 'useless defense spending' isn't. I agree about the earmarks, bank/oil company bailouts and such.

Asuras

My dad (recently retired) worked as an auditor for the Department of Defense - in other words, his job was to make sure that Lockheed and Northrup Grumman weren't overcharging for fighter planes. When the government shut down last time he was furloughed, I thought this was awesome because I was 10 and my dad was home all day.

Still...retrospectively it seems kind of weird that if Congress is arguing about how much money it wants to save that people whose job it is to save the American taxpayer money get furloughed.

Oniya

Similarly, it seems weird that the government that is 'so concerned' about the state of the economy is willing to have a pissing contest and shut down - ensuring that all the government employees don't get paid, thereby making them hold onto the money they do have even more tightly.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Sel Nar

Sounds like a severe case of 'Penny-wise, pound-foolish'

Or, just a case of 'my mind is made up, stop confusing me with these 'fact' things'. I'm so glad I live in Canada, even with the recent non-confidence vote.

Trieste

I'm hoping that we won't be affected. Mr. Trieste has a private-sector job, but right now he's in the hospital and I don't know what kind of government funding they get (mental note to check up on that, since federal funding shows up in sneaky places). I work for UMass in the library as well as attending as a student, but it's a state school and there hasn't been even a whisper of possibly closing down.

My cousin is in the army, so it'll suck that he doesn't get paid, but I believe all his basic living expenses are actually covered by the military (housing, food) so even though it sucks not to have discretionary income, he won't be in a crisis.

Ket

Housing and food allowances come in the paycheck, even for those who live on base (but in a very reduced form). However, if he lives off base, that money will not come, as it is divided up into the bi-monthly paychecks military members receive. Even for those who live on base and use the galley/chow hall, they still need at least a little bit of discretionary income. Uniforms don't pay for themselves, and the allowance a service member receives is only doled out once a year. There are payments that automatically come out of a service members pay, such as life insurance, that will not be paid on time and will be incurred as a debt. Many service members have vehicles and insurance on them, even if they live on base, and many have those payments come out as an allotment each month. Without being paid, these payments will not be made, causing late payments and fees to build up with lenders. The SCRA does not have provisions in place to cover such things.

I'm lucky in that if those on the hill cannot come to an agreement here shortly, my retirement and GI Bill payments will not be affected. However, many of my friends are active duty or reservists, and their pay will disappear for an unknown amount of time, pay that they rely on completely to live. The area I live in is highly dependent on the military and other government money that runs through it. Losing that money, for even a relatively short period of time, will cause a large impact. The region, while still affected by the recession, has not been affected as badly because we have that large influx of government funds. I can't even begin to imagine the effect of losing that money will have on the local economy here.

The largest business and employer in America is showing their incompetency in managing themselves, and in doing so, punishing the citizens of the country. 
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Zakharra

Quote from: Ket on April 08, 2011, 10:42:01 AM
The largest business and employer in America is showing their incompetency in managing themselves, and in doing so, punishing the citizens of the country.

Got the love the competency of the US government.

Revolverman

Quote from: Sel Nar on April 08, 2011, 05:17:20 AM
Sounds like a severe case of 'Penny-wise, pound-foolish'

Or, just a case of 'my mind is made up, stop confusing me with these 'fact' things'. I'm so glad I live in Canada, even with the recent non-confidence vote.

At least things happen when the budget doesn't pass eh? : P

gaggedLouise

#19
Can't think of many other countries where a budget stalemate would lead to the state saying, "The Government is closing shop until you guys have found a solution". That's something you just don't do. Neither school teachers, nor librarians, nor train drivers, nor soldiers getting paid! Then again, other countries have general or mega-scale strikes - very occasionally, but still they do - that shut down large parts of business life, health care and/or industry etc, and that's something I don't figure would occur in the U.S., not on the scale it can get to here.

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Callie Del Noire

Problem is failure to agree on a budget would have resulted in a change of leadership in the government in most of the countries aside from the US I have lived in. Ireland and UK for sure, and I'm sure that Spain would have had problems too.


gaggedLouise

#21
Quote from: Callie Del Noire on April 08, 2011, 05:06:44 PM
Problem is failure to agree on a budget would have resulted in a change of leadership in the government in most of the countries aside from the US I have lived in. Ireland and UK for sure, and I'm sure that Spain would have had problems too.

Yes, formally, but in most countries the budget is discussed with energy for sure but the budget deliberations is not the arena of choice to try to bring down the government. There's several resons why the US stands apart I guess, one would be that in other places (most of Europe, certainly the UK, and Canada too I think) the government is supposed to have a clear majority in the parliament or they won't take over in the first place. Of course Obama has a senate majority, but not a house majority at present; and then there's the special rules of qualified majority for getting some things to the floor. Kennedy had a quite solid party majority in both houses (past 60 in the senate so he would not be routinely filibustered) all through his presidency, but still had major trouble getting laws and budgets through the congress. It's hard to imagine that state of affairs in Britain, Germany or Spain.

Then in many other countries, economic policies and running economic issues define the election campaigns more powerfully than they sometimes do in the US, so if a party or a group of parties have won a majority, it's sort of taken for granted that they have got a mandate that encompasses their ideas of economic policies. The views they pushed in the camoaign, and during their time in opposition, or views and concepts that are roughly like those. So public spending doesn't really become the head-on frontier you want to use to force them right out of power, force a climate of no-confidence - not until the next election is drawing near.

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ReijiTabibito

Correct me if I'm wrong, those here more in the know than I, but it sounds like that budget isn't the only thing the parties are fighting over.  A lot of the articles I've read have had disagreements over something dealing with abortion?

HockeyGod

Quote from: ReijiTabibito on April 08, 2011, 06:08:46 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, those here more in the know than I, but it sounds like that budget isn't the only thing the parties are fighting over.  A lot of the articles I've read have had disagreements over something dealing with abortion?

Planned Parenthood is funded by the federal government to provide health care services (cancer screening, preventive medicine, etc.). The republicans want to eliminate funding to Planned Parenthood because some of their clinics provide abortions. No federal funding is used on abortions (it can't be per the last republican law enactment). 97% of work at Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with abortions, but actually helps rural and low income women.

See this post: https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=100221.msg4481259#msg4481259

ReijiTabibito

So...the Republicans want to win in an area where they've essentially already won in?  And take away help from people who are likely to vote Republican? (IE, women in rural areas like the South)

>_<

And these are the people we've got running our country.