Tag: Shutdown

Josh Green examines the rift between the GOP and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a major GOP donor:

On Oct. 1, House Republicans ignored the Chamber’s pleas to keep the government running. The shutdown is costing the U.S. economy $300 million a day, according to IHS (IHS), a global market-research firm, and it’s only the latest sign suggesting that the old adage, “Republicans are the party of business,” no longer holds true. From the austerity imposed by sequestration to the refusal to reform immigration laws to the shutdown and now, as appears likely, another debt-ceiling showdown when U.S. borrowing authority expires on Oct. 17, the GOP’s actions have put a strain on one of its most valuable partners: the business community.

Drezner asks, “given the Chamber of Commerce’s tilt, why aren’t GOP representatives listening more closely?” Larison’s answer:

Because the Chamber of Commerce leans so heavily towards the GOP, Republican politicians may conclude that they can ignore some of its complaints without provoking the group to shift more of its support to the other party. Consistently and overwhelmingly favoring one party over another signals to party leaders that your group’s concerns can be dismissed more easily when the leaders have other priorities. The Chamber’s support for Republicans is being taken for granted because that support is so lopsided in the GOP’s favor, and as a result it sometimes has much less influence with what the party does in Congress than one would expect.

YouGov’s latest:

The latest research from YouGov, conducted in the first two days of the shutdown, shows that half (50%) of Americans blame Republicans in Congress for the continuing shutdown. 11% blame Democrats in Congress while 29% blame President Obama for not ending the shutdown. This divides along partisan lines, with Democrats tending to blame Republicans and Republicans tending to blame the President or Democrats. Independents, however, are largely split, with 41% blaming Republicans in Congress and 33% blaming the President.

I’d find the narrow split among Independents unnerving, if I were the president. 33 percent blame the president for the shutdown and impasse? Given that he has already conceded sequester-level spending, and has cut the deficit in the last three years by the swiftest amount since the end of the Second World War, what else do they want him to do? If he were to abandon his signature domestic achievement after re-election, because of blackmail, we might as well give up on elections and representative government altogether. All round, this does not seem to me as a battle either side will “win” as such. Right now, as Harry Enten notes in a review of the polls, “no side is winning, one side is just losing by less”:

More Americans disapprove than approve of the job being done by all three actors in the dispute over the federal budget. President Obama comes out “ahead” in the ABC News/Washington Post poll with a -9pt approval rating. Both parties in Congress are much lower. Democrats in Congress manage to maintain a net approval of -22pt, while Republicans in Congress fall to a -37pt approval rating. These are all awful. …

A new CNN/ORC poll puts the net favorability rating of the Democratic party at -9pt: its lowest since CNN started asking the question in 2006. Republicans, too, are at their lowest level since 2006 as well, with -30pt favorability. A large portion of the difference between the parties’ favorability is that Tea Party supporters are less likely to hold a favorable view of Republicans than Tea Party opponents are of Democrats.

Meanwhile, Weigel highlights a Fox News poll with some bad numbers for Republicans. This one – compared with the last Fox News poll – stood out to me:

A tumble in the GOP’s favorable rating to 35–59, with 59 percent unfavorable marking the highest level in the history of the poll.

Of course that just might be the Tea Partiers frustrated that the GOP isn’t being radical enough in bringing the government and the economy into collapse.

A reader writes:

My 80-year-old father-in-law is a Korean War vet and was 11 when we invaded Normandy. He has not been abroad since he returned from his tour in 1956. As part of his 80th birthday celebration, my wife asked that we find a way for me to take him to Europe to see all the WWII sights he’s been reading about since he was a young boy. For over a year now I’ve been planning and saving for this trip, and we leave one week from today.

But we might be forced to miss it because of GOP obstructionism. The American cemetery at Normandy and Patton’s grave at the US cemetery in Luxembourg, you see, are administered by the American Battlefield Monuments Commission, so they are essentially national parks overseas and closed due to lack of funding. Sixty-nine years of waiting to see one of our nations most sacred sights, and most likely his only opportunity, and this good and decent man may miss it because a congressional leader doesn’t have the will to stand up to his radical fringe.

Another reader:

I know this doesn’t qualify under the window rules, but I wanted to share it anyway regarding the government antics. I’m out here in San Francisco on long vacation. Today, I hiked from the wharf out to the ocean. At my starting point, I saw confused and pissed-off tourists, locked out of Alcatraz, waiting in line to get refunds. One lady from Leeds, here with family on vacation, said, “Even our government isn’t this messed up.”

I ended my hike four hours later at my favorite bar, Louis’s at Land’s End. Despite its stellar view of the Pacific, it was deserted. A waitress told me that everyone was scared off because technically Louis’s, which leases its little aerie from the U.S. Parks Service, was supposed to be closed. “But the owner said screw ’em and opened anyway.” So thanks so the House Republicans, I had my Anchor Steam beer – and this view – all to myself.

Another:

I might just be one of the only federal employees who is saving money from being furloughed.

I’m an attorney with a very very long commute, and I’m not getting paid for my year-long fellowship.  So I’m not concerned about how this impacts me personally.  I am concerned, however, about the work that is getting put on hold.  I spend my days enforcing and investigating violations of civil rights laws, primarily the Americans with Disabilities Act and Fair Housing Act.  I’ve had to put a number of settlement negotiations on pause as the victims of discrimination wait patiently on the sidelines. It’s a very small group of us in our office doing this work, and we’re all sitting at home.  And believe me, our district is in dire need of a vigorous enforcement of these laws.

Another:

I work for a company that does a significant amount of business with the federal government. Our client list includes the EPA, Department of Energy, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Housing and Urban Development, and the National Institutes for Health. These are the kind of agencies that many on the right would likely target as non-essential under any circumstance and that they are comfortable with shutting down now.

But here are some of the things that these agencies do, just from the perspective of our work with them: reduce pollution in our water system, lower energy usage in buildings in a cost-effective manner, prevent people – especially children and the aged – from being exposed to chemicals and other hazards that could jeopardize their health or kill them, and encourage builders to construct homes that are environmentally sound and energy efficient. Just to name a few things.

So, I laugh (sort of) when those who support the shutdown talk about how we can get by without most of this stuff. I guess they don’t breathe, drink water, live in homes, work in buildings or have any illnesses in their families. They’re pretty lucky, I guess.

I feel a general sense of low-level anxiety at our company. We’re keeping busy right now with internal tasks but how long that can last, I have no idea. I suspect the next step will be asking/encouraging people to use vacation time, if they can. Then, who knows?

It’s really nice that some of the Republican “leaders” decided to make sure the old vets could visit the World War II Memorial. Maybe they could do something a little more constructive that doesn’t also constitute a photo opp.

Another:

I’m an Aerospace Engineer who evaluates safety issues for the FAA. A couple of my coworkers and I have been excepted to keep up on the highest priority tasks, and evaluating new potential issues as they come in. But 90% of my coworkers (most of whom don’t work full time on operational safety) are furloughed. If this extends for much longer we’re going to have to bring back more people, because as lower priority issues sit for too long, they tend to bubble up the risk scale, and we don’t want to have to start grounding airplanes. Luckily, we have the flexibility to initiate call backs.

Three years ago, before becoming a civil servant, I would’ve shrugged off the folks who claim these absolute minimum staffing levels constitute the proper amount of government. I might have even conceded the principle. But having seen the sausage being made, it’s amazing how little these small-government fetishists know about what gets done day to day. Oftentimes, zilch.

One more:

I’ve been reading the various iterations of your blog since the Pleistocene era of the blogworld. I finally [tinypass_offer text=”subscribed”] today. I’ve been meaning to for a long time, but today I pulled the trigger. Your blog is the only place where I’ve seen all these stories of people actually affected by the shutdown brought on by the virulent clown-show that is the modern Republican Party. This is the bit from one of your readers that pulled me in: “While the Neo-Confederate toddlers stamp their feet and hold their breath, it is America that is turning blue.”

I’ve long since fallen under the spell of your writing. But today made it clear to me that I’ve also fallen under the spell of your readers’ writing as well. It is this extraordinary back and forth between writer and reader – which is not to be found anywhere else on the intertubez – which is ultimately irresistible to me.

And us as well. Read the whole series here, as well as unfiltered response from readers on our Facebook page. Our ever-growing archive of reader threads is here.

A reader writes:

I’m trying to bring my fiancee, who currently lives in Mongolia, to the United States on a K-1 visa. We were both ecstatic when my K-1 visa application was recently approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The next step is for the approved visa application to be forwarded to the National Visa Center, and from there to the U.S. Consulate in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. As I watched the news about the attempt to pass a CR, I thought that it was unfortunate, but wouldn’t affect me directly.

Then suddenly it occurred to me that visa processing was almost certainly considered a “non-essential” government service, so I looked it up, and sure enough, immigration services is one of the things that will be severely curtailed or completely halted by the government shutdown. Which means that my reunion with my fiancee, which had looked to be on track to happen by the end of the year, is now being postponed indefinitely until the shutdown is resolved.

Update from a reader:

I work for USCIS and I can assure you that this is not true. Immigration services within DHS and DOS are entirely fee based. Immigration paperwork is being processed as normal. The only delay will be the normal processing delay that accompanies any application or petition.

Update from the first reader:

It may be true that will USCIS will continue to operate as normal, but as I stated, my visa application has already been approved, which means that USCIS is no longer involved. The visa application has already been moved to the National Visa Center, and from there to the State Department. Per this document, guidance from State in anticipation of the 2011 shutdown indicated that State would severely curtail non-emergency visa-related activities.

I appreciate your effort to put a human face on this political farce.

One more update:

I am a Foreign Service Officer currently serving abroad.  In 2011, State Department guidance stated that visa services would be curtailed. This time around, we were given new guidance stating that all visa and citizenship services were fee based and would stay open (see Chapter 2, part C).  I hope that your reader can be reunited with his fiancee soon, and thankfully the shutdown should not slow down their reunion.

Another reader:

I work for the Indian Health Service on the Navajo reservation. My rural hospital is “essential” and we are still open for business. We are continuing to get paid, although we cannot take sick leave or vacation. It was heartbreaking to see one of our medical records employees coming back into work on Tuesday less than two weeks after having a baby. Like most of our staff, she is Navajo. The unemployment rate on the reservation nears 50%, so anyone with even a low wage job supports many extended family members. She could not afford to take unpaid leave.

As much as the shutdown impacts our staff, it hurts our patients more.

On October 1st, we got an email stating that we do not have funds to pay for medical care outside of our system. We do not employ cardiologists, oncologists, neurosurgeons, etc. All pending appointments that are not urgently life or limb threatening are cancelled until further notice.

Today, October 3, we got another email stating that our pharmacy does not have funds to buy medicines. We are only ordering medications that are “of a life saving and sustaining nature.” We already work hard to keep medication costs low. But now, for just one example, we are no longer able to stock medications to treat rheumatoid arthritis, a disease with particularly high rates in our population.

The United States government is bound by treaty to provide health care for Native Americans. The lack of a budget is gravely impacting our ability to honor that that obligation.

Another:

I am a furloughed government employee.  This government shutdown is so disheartening. I work in an office that deals with international issues and coordinates with the equivalent agencies in other countries.  We send delegates frequently to conferences to coordinate cooperative pilot programs, capacity building exercises for developing countries, and the negotiation of international agreements.  International meetings are on-going despite the shut-down, and the United States has lost its voice, investments, and subject matter experts for the time being.

It pains me that we have all be locked out of our offices and the missions we serve.  However, it’s merely the final step in a long line of insults: no cost of living increases for four years, endless budget uncertainty due to a revolving door of continuing resolutions, hiring freezes, cuts, and the still-continuing sequester.  My agency has not seen a Senate-confirmed leader in four years.  We have endured audits of 15 years worth of travel and conferences because of the GSA Law Vegas Scandal, though we had nothing to do with it. We are cautioned to not do anything that could be perceived as partisan in the wake of the IRS non-scandal, and have to make unnecessary, inconvenient, expensive accommodations to ensure that our office’s activities ensure money/attention flowing towards the states of the chairmen and ranking members of the congressional committees that oversee us.  We’re called leeches and ne’er-do-wells and told we “never created a single job.”

I hate the stereotypes that the Tea-Party has assigned government workers and greatly wish that Speaker Boehner and his party could come and meet us.  My office is so diverse: we have grandparents, thirty and forty-somethings, and childless millennials.  We have veterans from all five armed service branches, including those who saw active combat in Vietnam, Desert Storm, Kosovo, and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  We come from almost every state, and numerous colleges, universities, and career paths.

We don’t always agree on everything, but everyone works hard to pursue our office’s mission as a group, and navigate the sometimes draconian regulations that reflect an inherent distrust of us.  We all value public service, and there are several co-workers who cannot speak about 9/11 without getting emotional.  This is a very painful time emotionally as well as financially/logistically.  Some of my co-workers with decades of experience are actively looking for other work, which would be a huge loss to my agency’s institutional memory.  I can only imagine how many more across the entire government workforce are now doing the same.

I know I’m probably just a chump, but I believe it’s an honor to serve the People of the United States, and I got teary-eyed when I took my oath to “support and defend the Constitution…”  I wonder if the Republicans really believe they are upholding the Constitution as they strive to bring the U.S. to default to invalidate a legitimately passed and judicially-reviewed law?

Read the entire “View From Your Shutdown” series here.