I generally try to stay away from politics on my show and everywhere else. That being said, I do not vote for a candidate because of a letter behind their name (R, D, I, etc). I firmly believe that anyone who does so is part of the huge problem we currently have in politics these days. Because of that, I have had folks on the right call me a liberal whiner, folks on the left call me a conservative whore. What I am is an independent thinker who votes for the candidate who is going to do their best to support this republic we live in and the Constitution. Some folks hate those who can think for themselves.
That brings me to our government shutdown. Both sides remind me of a gaggle of second grade brats fighting over a brownie.
Both sides are bought and paid for by big business, yet preach how they are for the little fella. Huh? The little fella is being ground between two rocks right now because of the childish behavior being exhibited in Washington DC. Federal workers have been working for a month with no pay. The pols say that is ok because they will get their pay after the shutdown is over. The pols are not being entirely honest about this. Yes, many will get their back pay. Many will not. In either case, it is not ok. Our politicians in Congress and the White House are all mostly millionaires who have no clue how the little fella scrapes by check to check. They have no concept of the reality the rest of us live in.
Here are some facts about the previous government shutdown in 2013, courtesy of Politifact.com:
How much does a shutdown cost?
“A shutdown is a huge waste of taxpayer dollars, disruptive of government operations, and simply bad management,” said John Palguta, a former federal human-resources official who is now an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute.
The most thorough report examining the 2013 shutdown comes from an Office of Management and Budget analysis.
• $2.5 billion in compensation costs for furloughed workers (whose lack of pay for two weeks hampered consumer spending);
• 120,000 fewer private-sector jobs created in the first half of October;
• $500 million lost in visitor spending because of closed National Parks ;
• $11 million in lost National Parks and Smithsonian Institution revenue;
• Interest accrued on billions of dollars of payments owed to third parties that the government was unable to pay during the shutdown;
• Resources spent on putting activities in standby or maintaining them in an idle mode;
• 1.2 million Internal Revenue Service identity verification requests that couldn’t be processed, causing a delay in private-sector lending and other activities;
• Stalled approvals from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration delayed moving products to market.
Private financial analytics companies also estimated a negative effect on the economy.
Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, said the 2013 shutdown stunted fourth quarter GDP growth by 0.5 points, resulting in a $20 billion hit. Standard & Poor’s said the shutdown took $24 billion out of the economy and reduced yearly fourth quarter GDP growth by 0.6 percent. Macroeconomic Advisers estimated the shutdown cut 0.3 points off of fourth-quarter growth
Needless to say, the numbers for this shutdown will be much higher due to the length. It is time for our politicians to do their jobs and quit posturing for their egos. OPEN THE GOVERNMENT.