I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

This may be the way the world ends — not with a bang but with a temper tantrum.

O.K., a temporary government shutdown — which became almost inevitable after Sunday’s House vote to provide government funding only on unacceptable conditions — wouldn’t be the end of the world. But a U.S. government default, which will happen unless Congress raises the debt ceiling soon, might cause financial catastrophe. Unfortunately, many Republicans either don’t understand this or don’t care.       

Let’s talk first about the economics.       

After the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996 many observers concluded that such events, while clearly bad, aren’t catastrophes: essential services continue, and the result is a major nuisance but no lasting harm. That’s still partly true, but it’s important to note that the Clinton-era shutdowns took place against the background of a booming economy. Today we have a weak economy, with falling government spending one main cause of that weakness. A shutdown would amount to a further economic hit, which could become a big deal if the shutdown went on for a long time.       

Still, a government shutdown looks benign compared with the possibility that Congress might refuse to raise the debt ceiling.       

First of all, hitting the ceiling would force a huge, immediate spending cut, almost surely pushing America back into recession. Beyond that, failure to raise the ceiling would mean missed payments on existing U.S. government debt. And that might have terrifying consequences.       

Why? Financial markets have long treated U.S. bonds as the ultimate safe asset; the assumption that America will always honor its debts is the bedrock on which the world financial system rests. In particular, Treasury bills — short-term U.S. bonds — are what investors demand when they want absolutely solid collateral against loans. Treasury bills are so essential for this role that in times of severe stress they sometimes pay slightly negative interest rates — that is, they’re treated as being better than cash.       

Now suppose it became clear that U.S. bonds weren’t safe, that America couldn’t be counted on to honor its debts after all. Suddenly, the whole system would be disrupted. Maybe, if we were lucky, financial institutions would quickly cobble together alternative arrangements. But it looks quite possible that default would create a huge financial crisis, dwarfing the crisis set off by the failure of Lehman Brothers five years ago.    (emphasis mine - just what everyone else is saying.  If the U.S. cannot be trusted to honor its debts because its political system has been sabotaged and broken by a group of lunatics who aren't even the party in power -- who are subverting the nation's constitution and electoral system, then investors will find someplace else to put their money.)   

No sane political system would run this kind of risk. But we don’t have a sane political system; we have a system in which a substantial number of Republicans believe that they can force President Obama to cancel health reform by threatening a government shutdown, a debt default, or both, and in which Republican leaders who know better are afraid to level with the party’s delusional wing. For they are delusional, about both the economics and the politics.       

On the economics: Republican radicals generally reject the scientific consensus on climate change; many of them reject the theory of evolution, too. So why expect them to believe expert warnings about the dangers of default? Sure enough, they don’t: the G.O.P. caucus contains a significant number of “default deniers,” who simply dismiss warnings about the dangers of failing to honor our debts.       

Meanwhile, on the politics, reasonable people know that Mr. Obama can’t and won’t let himself be blackmailed in this way, and not just because health reform is his key policy legacy. After all, once he starts making concessions to people who threaten to blow up the world economy unless they get what they want, he might as well tear up the Constitution. But Republican radicals — and even some leaders — still insist that Mr. Obama will cave in to their demands.       

So how does this end? The votes to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling are there, and always have been: every Democrat in the House would vote for the necessary measures, and so would enough Republicans. The problem is that G.O.P. leaders, fearing the wrath of the radicals, haven’t been willing to allow such votes. What would change their minds?       

Ironically, considering who got us into our economic mess, the most plausible answer is that Wall Street will come to the rescue — that the big money will tell Republican leaders that they have to put an end to the nonsense.       

But what if even the plutocrats lack the power to rein in the radicals? In that case, Mr. Obama will either let default happen or find some way of defying the blackmailers, trading a financial crisis for a constitutional crisis.       

This all sounds crazy, because it is. But the craziness, ultimately, resides not in the situation but in the minds of our politicians and the people who vote for them. Default is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/opinion/krugman-rebels-without-a-clue.html?hp

----------------------------------------------------end

They are indeed subverting the Constitution and attempting to destroy the integrity of our electoral system.  Elections work because we have made a bargain to accept the results.  We don't go around overthrowing our leaders because we don't like them.  Except these seditionists are attempting to do just that.  This is short of armed insurrection, but only just. 

Republicans LOST the presidential election.  They LOST seats in the Senate.  They only held on to control of the House because they gerrymandered districts (i.e. cheated).  They are attempting voter suppression and cooking the voter rolls to maintain their hold on power.  The MAJORITY of the people in this country have rejected their ideas, their policies and their plans over and over again, yet they refuse to abide by the results of the elecitons.  We really should all fear for the future of the Republic -- I know I keep saying it, but I cannot emphasize it enough.

L

By Neil Irwin, Published: September 30 at 10:45 am

The reason for the hard times at the FBI is the federal budget cuts that began with the 2011 debt ceiling deal, including the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration.

Remember the sequester? When it went into effect March 1, it appeared to be something of a bust in terms of the damage it caused, at least in terms of how that damage has played out in the public debate. The White House had been claiming that the cuts would be devastating. Then they went into effect, and, well, not much of anything happened.

As it turns out, slashing discretionary spending 5.6 percent doesn't cause massive, immediate, camera-ready dislocations in how government works. When such effects did arise -- namely in the form of long delays at airports -- Congress tweaked the law to fix it. While economists attribute sluggish economic growth this year in significant part to the sequester cuts, that impact has hardly occupied the public's attention.

The new report from the FBI Agents Association is a reminder of the smaller, less visible effects that the cuts have had across the country. Any large organization can endure budget cuts like that in the short run. People work a little harder, less urgent projects are shifted to the back burner, empty positions go unfilled, and so on. But the longer the scrimping goes on, the less those tricks can fill the gap. After seven months of sequestration cuts, here are some of the things the FBI is having to scrimp on, according to anonymous comments by agents:

Restrictions in surveillance technology means the necessary facilities used for terrorist  communications won't be monitored.

No gas means cases don't get worked – period. Nothing is close to anything on the reservation. Witnesses and victims don't have phones. We have to drive to them. They are too poor to drive to us. … Fewer guys - fewer cases get worked. That is the cruel truth. Real people won't get justice. The face of the sequester is a molested Navajo kid or a beaten Apache woman, neither of whom will see justice.

We have approximately 10 very important [counter-intelligence] cases that we would open … but we can’t open them because we don’t have the [Special Agents] to work the investigations and the other agents on the squad already have full case loads.

The hiring freeze has prohibited our team from adding new agents to combat the significant surge in investment fraud and mortgage loan modification fraud. Resources are stretched and not able to completely address the financial losses experienced in our area of responsibility . . . just this past week, four known fraudsters were advertising in the classifieds for employees to expand their current fraudulent schemes, however, with our lack of resources and now the additional cuts and furloughs, we are not able to address the progressing schemes.

I … investigate street gangs. Recently … we have been facing funding shortages on the criminal side for the last couple of years. There are certain gangsters I can’t go after with a Confidential Human Source (CHS) or any other way as ‘drug buy’ money is not sufficient.

Here's what these stories of the on-the-ground impact of sequestration on the FBI has to do with a likely government shutdown.

The effects of government on our lives are, much of the time, invisible. Things work in the background, making our lives better in ways that we don't even notice. Government-funded weather satellites provide the raw information that allows your local forecaster to tell you whether it will rain today. NIH researchers are developing insights that might cure cancer a generation from now. And the FBI is constantly building cases that put bad guys behind bars and lead would-be bad guys to think twice before bilking the elderly in a mortgage scam or running a street gang. (emphasis mine)

That's not to say there is no waste in government. Of course there is, as there is in any large organization. There are plenty of agencies whose missions seem outdated or unnecessary in the modern age.

But simply slashing funding for all agencies across the board, or shutting down nearly the whole  government, doesn't do anything to make government more efficient or shutter unneeded agencies. The U.S. economy and society will keep on chugging with the government shutdown and spending levels will be sharply below their levels of a year ago. But in the process, some really important, if not so visible, work will be going undone, and over time the country will be worse off.

If you don't believe a pointy-headed journalist, just ask your friendly neighborhood FBI agent.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/30/the-fbi-cant-investigate-terrorists-and-fraudsters-due-to-budget-cuts/?tid=sm_fb