Is this time different?

[Sawin]

Some might argue, the sooner you buy something, the cheaper it is. (You just gotta pay attention to short term cycles/buy the dips)…

[Oscar77]

FoxtArt, the hate for Trump is really derailing the value of your posts. I get it, there are a lot of things that piss me off about him too but my post wasn?t directly about the deficit (although there?s potential for a secondary effect there). It was about how the Democrats are threatening a shutdown and they don?t seem to realize they aren?t in a position to manipulate this particular shutdown into maximizing the pain on the American public.

In past shutdowns, this is precisely what they did which left the less informed citizenry with the idea that reduction in government spending equals pain and inconvenience in their daily lives. Trump seems to be preparing to show the citizenry that a significant reduction in the size and scope of government will be minor if any pain and inconvenience. Government spending has grown 30% in the last 5 years. The first year of that was all on Trump although he had the COVID spending as a partial excuse but the last 4 years of it was all on the Dems. Regardless of who pushed that spending increase, it?s not healthy for the nation or the economy so I think getting the public to understand it can be trimmed and programs can be terminated is a good first step.

Hell, I?d have given Clinton or Obama credit if either of them had done this but they didn?t ? they did precisely the opposite, inflicting the maximum possible damage on the public to keep the spending flowing.

Sir:
I apologize for side tracking your thread.
I would agree with everything you said.
We will see.
Though me, personally since I'm tied to the Military, wish they would just stop already just set these budgets for a few years and be done.
It is VERY frustrating to literally go year to year with no idea of what or how much the Military budget might be.

[HoneyBadger]

Sir:
I apologize for side tracking your thread.
I would agree with everything you said.
We will see.
Though me, personally since I'm tied to the Military, wish they would just stop already just set these budgets for a few years and be done.
It is VERY frustrating to literally go year to year with no idea of what or how much the Military budget might be.

Wouldn't it be great if Congress actually did what the constitution directs them to do in Article I section 9? It's one of their enumerated jobs to approve a freaking budget before money can be spent.

[Oscar77]

Wouldn't it be great if Congress actually did what the constitution directs them to do in Article I section 9? It's one of their enumerated jobs to approve a freaking budget before money can be spent.

YES, and what I understand of this, in this case, the Dems are trying to re-fund all the shit that was de-funded and the Repub aren't having it.
Right or wrong (well actually Trump de-funding all that crap was perfectly legal and EVERY lawsuit agreed), So I'll correct myself and say:
The Dems need to accept the new way the Fed Govt is being run and financed. We had an election over this and they lost.
Now move on, get this shit funded and be done with this.
Dont like it? Well win elections.
And to be fair, IIRC, the Repub have pulled this pity-party in the past too. No.

[eddiememphis]

Just checking in with everyone nine hours into the shut down.

So far, I'm doing OK. I hope everyone else is as well.

Just remember, together, we can get through this.

[BushMasterBoy]

What if DARPA and the Congressional Budget Office found out AI could replace all the politicans and save millions of lives and trillions of dollars every year? Would the people vote for it?

[mb504]

What if DARPA and the Congressional Budget Office found out AI could replace all the politicans and save millions of lives and trillions of dollars every year? Would the people vote for it?

Well, in the movie Eagle Eye the AI found a solution to most of the problems with politicians.

[theGinsue]

Just checking in with everyone nine hours into the shut down.

So far, I'm doing OK. I hope everyone else is as well.

Just remember, together, we can get through this.

That's hilarious. My turn...


Well, the sky has fallen and it can't get up.

I've got all of the poor orphan children out on street corners selling apples for a nickel. We should be good - until we run out of apples to sell.

Based on everything I've been hearing from our loving and caring Democrat leaders, I'm totally scare-id right now. How ever will I put food on the table tonight? How will we be able, as a society, to continue to provide for the core necessities like completing further studies into why naked mole rats demonstrate aggressive behavior within their gender neutral test communities? I'd wring my hands if they weren't so frail from my malnutrition this shutdown has caused. Oh, the huge manitee!




[serious font]

Both parties have gotten us into this too many times through the years - but most especially the Democrats. Right now, the Democratic party is trying to wield power it just doesn't have. They're trying to gen up fear over this situation and fail to realize this is helping the current administration with their goal of cutting the bloated positions within the federal government. I saw an article last night indicating that there are >200k federal employees that are looking to flee their positions because of this shutdown [ETA/Correction: Yeah, so ~130k of the government employees the media are saying are fleeing their positions due to the shutdown are actually those who, last February, accepted the option to leave their positions and get paid for 6-8 months while being on administrative leave]. If that occurs, the administration has indicated that many of those positions, and many more left inactive if this shutdown goes on for very long, will be eliminated.

Is this shutdown an inconvenience? For many seeking government services, yes. Is it catastrophic? Almost certainly not.

[/serious font]


ETA: AI use in the government - As with any tool, it can be helpful but how helpful or how detrimental depends on how that tool is used by the humans behind it. I keep reading article after article about proposed uses for AI. From these I'm left feeling that many feel AI is the end-all-be-all solution to all of our problems and there is a desire to deploy AI and just let it do its thing with as little human intervention as possible. That would be a huge mistake and would most certainly get us into a worse environment than we're in today. So, that's likely what's going to happen.

[theGinsue]

Wouldn't it be great if Congress actually did what the constitution directs them to do in Article I section 9? It's one of their enumerated jobs to approve a freaking budget before money can be spent.

Hahahahaha.... Oh, you were serious?!

Yes, it would be great but we all know this just isn't what Congress does.

"Damn it Jeff, you had one job...."
Even when Congress does their one real job they're always coming down to the wire to get these "continuing resolutions" for the budget passed. I suspect that another temporary budget will get passed to end the shutdown, then in 90 days we'll be right back here where we stand today, or at least where we were yesterday. One would expect that, given it's truly their primary function, Congress would make the budget their #1 focus and put everything else aside until it gets settled. But, alas, when we get past this hurdle and temporary funding for the government is approved, they'll go right back to working legislation for anything but the budget, putting us into this same position in just a few days ahead. It's what they do to remind the public how important that they are. The only way to solve this is for laws to be passed to require Congress to perform no other duties until the budget is settled. But who'd write or pass these laws? Yeah, Congress; so we know we'll never see that occur.


As to the OP's original question: "Is this time different?" Nope, more of the same; wash, rinse, repeat.

[Aloha_Shooter]

https://gazette.com/2025/10/01/rocky...ment-shutdown/

This is the way it should be handled -- and the way it should have been handled in the past if Clinton and Obama hadn't used the shutdowns to score political points by putting the screws to the American public. There is no reason to close parks, forest lands, or open air monuments. They can post signs saying there are limited or even no services being provided at this time due to the government shut down. Heck, I wouldn't even object to the park service putting up just what the normal daily services would have cost so the American public can say -- yeah, this is something I want to fund (I do, I think park rangers are severely underfunded and underappreciated).

The reason I asked the question in the title is that this time, we have an administration that is willing to handle the shutdown in a way that shows we don't need all of the vast bureaucracy that has been built up over decades, that life can go on with a more minimalist government -- and ironically, the Trump administration may be poised to make even deeper cuts in the bureaucracy than they could have if the Democrats went along with the House GOP budget.