[bambax]

As a foreigner the whole government shutdown is a thing of wonder: how does it work exactly? For instance, is there no police anymore?

How does Congress stay in session during a shutdown? Where does electricity in federal buildings come from if the Federal govt can't pay for it?

[lambda]

One thing to understand about the US is that it is actually a federation of states. Much of the day-to-day work happens at the state or local level, not at the federal level. Police, fire departments, emergency first responders mostly employed at that level, and when the federal government is involved, a lot of it is in doing some coordination between states, setting standards, funding for various programs, and so on. Even things like building interstate highways, which are funded by the federal government, are generally done by allocation to the state governments to actually construct them.

However, the military is entirely part of the federal government, as are many other organizations. In the case of not having a budget, the government is required to shut down all functions that are not essential for safety and security. So things like the military, the TSA, and so on can continue to function, but office workers doing jobs like allocating the funding for highway construction are furloughed, put on temporary unpaid leave from their jobs.

This is, of course, terrible for the efficient functioning of government; when the impasse is over, they will have to come back to their jobs and try to catch up. Oh, and in the time leading up to the shutdown, many of them would have been busy preparing for the shutdown, documenting which functions would be considered essential and thus able to continue during the shutdown; because the deadline was no surprise, and there had been many temporary funding bills leading up to this point, there was always a pretty high chance that this shutdown would happen.

Of course, this inefficiency plays well into the politics of one of the parties, who hold a religious belief that private enterprise is always more efficient than government, and so playing games like this that increase its inefficiency help to sell their case and get government functions sold off to private enterprise, who just so happen, in so many cases, to be some of the largest donors to campaigns of this particular party.

[jmadsen]

"Of course, this inefficiency plays well into the politics of one of the parties, who hold a religious belief that private enterprise is always more efficient than government"

Which is beyond ironic to anyone who's worked in the corporate world, but I guess that's for another thread.

This idea they have that private enterprise naturally evolves toward the most efficient system is laughable.

[icelancer]

>>Which is beyond ironic to anyone who's worked in the corporate world, but I guess that's for another thread.

>>This idea they have that private enterprise naturally evolves toward the most efficient system is laughable.

Work in private industry AND government and you might find the comparison a bit more apt, not that I'm a Republican.

[Chriky]

I've worked in both, I find bureaucracy is roughly proportional to the seriousness of the work. Serious work - Law, Healthcare, Finance etc are very bureaucratic regardless of whether it's the private or public sector.

Public sector can sometimes seem worse because there's less money sloshing round and people demand it isn't wasted, which effects a lot of bean counting.

[bonesss]

There's also something to the notion that we want our regulatory bodies and government agencies to be slightly 'conservative', to avoid waste and avoid short-term folly. Our public institutions should live for generations, and have transparency and ethical demands placed upon them by the citizenry.

We could collectively decide to eliminate a lot of red tape in government, no problem. It's just the effect of unchecked, unsupervised, unaccountable governments that make us want that red tape in the first place. Todays Justification Paperwork is yesterdays front-page scandal...

[jernfrost]

In my native Norway, we let the public sector and private sector compete to perform public services. I can't say that I've ever seen that the private sector has a clear advantage, otherwise they would already have taken over running everything.

In fact I think I know of far more cases of private companies doing considerably worse job than what the public sector did.

My city recently switched to a private company for garbage collection e.g. It was an absolutely horrible mess. My home town had a care home for mentally ill people, that got taken over by a private company. They promised to run it cheaper than the government. Except they totally messed up everything. They lost a lot of talented people, who quit due to their poor management. Then they demanded to be paid more than the public solution had charged to do the same job.

So not only were they worse, they were also more expensive. Sure these are just anecdotes. But it puts a hole in the claim that the private sector is ALWAYS better. To disprove the notion of always you only need a single counter example.

I am not against private companies. Just let them compete on equal terms and prove that they can do the job better. Unfortunately our conservative government is often so ideologically tied to the idea of private always being better than they push for private sector solutions even when a company is not able to demonstrate that they do a better job.

In fact almost every case I've seen where a private company does the job cheaper, it is because they give their employees worse conditions and salaries, not because of smarter organization and management.

[stcredzero]

I can't say that I've ever seen that the private sector has a clear advantage, otherwise they would already have taken over running everything.

An entity that can rig the courts, the laws, and the regulations to its favor has an advantage.

Sure these are just anecdotes. But it puts a hole in the claim that the private sector is ALWAYS better.

Yeah, that's just magical thinking nonsense. You have to take the situation apart and look at what the incentives are. Economic libertarian woo is just as bad as alternative medicine woo. Markets aren't magic. They are a particular kind of distributed machine. It sounds like that mental hospital/home didn't have a competitive environment, or they couldn't have demanded more funding.

In fact almost every case I've seen where a private company does the job cheaper, it is because they give their employees worse conditions and salaries, not because of smarter organization and management.

In Washington state in the US, there were private DMV counters at Fred Meyer. AAA auto insurance can also do some of these functions. The customer experience is almost universally better at the private counters, because the private employees have incentives to make the customer experience pleasant, and the state employees have none. If a company can cheap out on its employees as compared to the state, and the level of service stays the same, then the market worked. If a company does that, and the level of service gets crappier, but the company doesn't face consequences, then the market has not worked. I bet, if you tried hard to prove the null hypothesis and looked for circumstances that would interfere with the market, you'd find them.

[Dylan16807]

> An entity that can rig the courts, the laws, and the regulations to its favor has an advantage.

You really think the garbage collection department has that much influence?

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

I've worked in both, they're really not that different. Large organizations just seem to gravitate towards inefficiency.

[TeMPOraL]

I'm of belief that the inefficiency scales with internal organizational complexity, which roughly scales with size. Basically, the more people you need to involve for a typical step in a project, the less efficient you get. Government branches seem to be terribly inefficient, because even the smallest one is in fact responsible to a lot of people (other agencies, oversight bodies, politicians and, ultimately, the public).

[enraged_camel]

I'm a business analyst and work with both private sector and government clients. From about a decade of analyzing how each type operates, I can tell you that the amount of bullshit that goes on in them is about the same level.

[icelancer]

Completely disagree. Government RFPs are an order of magnitude more absurd than private sector bureaucratic requests. It's not even close.

[enraged_camel]

Sure, but the private sector has its own equivalent vehicles of waste, such as corporate executives getting paid insane salaries and bonuses even for average performance. You don’t get that in government because salaries are capped.

[KhanMahGretsch]

>This idea they have that private enterprise naturally evolves toward the most efficient system is laughable.

This is a straw-man, nobody claims that private enterprises are necessarily more efficient than government organisations. What is claimed, however, is that a free-market system invariably leads to better processes and products, compared to a government monopoly, because there is a competitive advantage in optimising overheads.

To suggest that government organisations are "often" or even "occasionally" more efficient than private organisations is quite chuckle-worthy.

[icelancer]

>>Of course, this inefficiency plays well into the politics of one of the parties, who hold a religious belief that private enterprise is always more efficient than government, and so playing games like this that increase its inefficiency help to sell their case and get government functions sold off to private enterprise, who just so happen, in so many cases, to be some of the largest donors to campaigns of this particular party.

One party believes 92% of this and the other party believes 83% of this statement, for any non-American reading this.

[lambda]

Yes, this particular religious belief is widespread in both parties, but definitely considerably more prominent in one.

I believe there is a name for this belief, Mammonism comes to mind.

[Clanan]

FYI this is a great neutral explanation up until the last paragraph, which is politically charged. This attempts to imply the Republican party sought the shutdown. In fact, the shutdown was caused by the Democratic party not voting for the Continuing Resolution (pseudo-budget). 60 Senate votes are required, but the majority party (Republicans) only has 51. It's a big slimy ball of politics all-around.

Also, more on point, many government entities have "carry-forward" funds which are available during a shutdown. In 2013 the Executive Branch (Democrat president) discouraged the use of these funds. The current admin is encouraging their use to ensure as little disruption as possible.

[kharms]

*The majority party has 51 Senators but only mustered 47 votes from their own party, with another 5 coming from the minority.

[jernfrost]

Clanan, to my knowledge this is ALL Trump and the republican's fault. Until 3 weeks ago they could have passed anything they wanted. It is just because they wasted time and Trump sabotaged everything the republicans came up with that so much time passed that they reached a stage where a 60 senate vote was needed.

You can't blame this on democrats when republicans could have handled this exclusively themselves and had ample time to do so.

This is simply a reflection of the chaos that is the Trump administration.

It is ironic to think of how I told Trump voters before the election, that if you vote on that man you will get noting but grid lock politics, because he is not a uniter. He is not a man who seeks cooperation and common ground.

I got laughed at for this, with Trump supporters telling me they didn't need democrats for anything because they controlled both houses.

I guess it is my turn to laugh then. I great irony that they manage to get themselves into this mess. The democrats didn't even have to lift a finger.

[Clanan]

Citations are far more helpful than ranting. If you want a productive conversation, you should provide some. Democratic leaders have made the current budget/CR about DACA, which was not relevant to it. (Ironic because they're in favor of everything in the CR, but they voted against it anyway!) Here's House minority leader Pelosi promising to block any funding that does not include DACA [0]. Yes, the Trump admin could have avoided the shutdown by giving in to minority demands, but that doesn't mean they're at fault, logically.

As for opinions, my political golden rule is "never trust a politician". We're veering far off-topic, though.

Edit: as further evidence of the cause of the shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Schumer just caved. The shutdown was a political gamble for both sides; I'm assuming internal Democrat polling found that they were receiving the most blame. Continuing the disruption would be disastrous. (Obvious, considering they effectively blocked the CHIP children's health insurance.)

[0] http://thehill.com/homenews/house/363778-pelosi-were-not-lea...

[Retric]

Government is only funded through Feb. 8 and this reauthorizes the Children’s Health Insurance Program for six years.

So, they got something they wanted all for keeping the government operating for another 2.5 weeks. I would call it a solid democrat win.

Also republicans can pass 1 bill per year without the risk of filibuster and they used/wasted it on their tax bill. Thus, any government shutdown is arguably 100% on them.

[Clanan]

You're projecting your politics onto the events. The CR already contained CHIP, and the majority already promised a debate on DACA/immigration back in December. The Democrat leadership promised a shutdown if DACA was not added to the budget/CR. They shutdown, but then reversed almost immediately without DACA being added. No idea how that can be labeled a "solid democrat win" without some severe rationalization.

> Thus, any government shutdown is arguably 100% on them.

Under this logic, all outcomes can be blamed on the majority party in all situations, because tool X was used on Y instead of Z. In a theoretical situation where a supermajority vote fails 59-41, isn't it more logical to blame the failure on the 41 opponents rather than the 59 proponents?

[FireBeyond]

How is it in your world view that the Democrats get the blame for this but not the "no" voting Republicans, of which there were a significant number?

[Clanan]

Sure, blame them too. If a bill fails, blame everyone who voted against it. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

Of course, then you have a situation where politicians (on both sides) will grandstand if the outcome is already decided. For example, if a CR is guaranteed to fail, a moderate Republican will vote against it to appease his base. But if his was the deciding vote, he would vote to pass it to appease his party. Politics...

[ogre_magi]

Senate Democrats initiated the shutdown by opposing the continuing resolution. You can blame Trump if you want, but only in the sense that you could say it's his fault for not giving the Senate Democrats what they wanted.

Tea Party types found rationalizations for why the 2013 shutdown led by Cruz was really Obama's fault, so I'm not surprised #resistance types are blaming Trump.

[Taniwha]

What I don't understand is all this fuss about the Democrats having to vote to pay for Trump's wall, after all he promised that Mexico would pay for that, it shouldn't be a sticking point at all

[nimos]

Why could they pass anything up until 3 weeks ago? I though filibustering meant the senate always needed 60 votes if the opposing party wants to block the legislation.

[telchar]

They could have used the budget reconciliation process to bypass the filibuster. Instead they used their one opportunity this year to do that to get the tax bill passed. If they hadn't insisted on forcing through a (historically unpopular) tax bill, they could have passed a funding bill over any Democratic opposition.

[bsimpson]

As I recall from the last shutdown, Congress usually passes an apology bill to pay back-wages for the furloughed workers. In theory, it's unpaid time off, but in practice, they get made whole and it becomes a free (but potentially angsty) vacation.

[lambda]

Ah, you're right. I didn't recall whether they had been paid for that.

Either way, it's fairly inefficient; either they were paid for doing no work, or they were not paid and may leave for better jobs or morale destroyed due to that.

[bonesss]

Beyond the pay itself is also the financial anguish and unnecessary work the employees might have to go through if there is a missed car-payment or loan-payment or down-payment on a house... This creates meaningless productivity loss, with oodles of meaningless lost productivity required to make up for the original loss, to the glorious benefit of destroying morale and scaring away talent...

10/10 federal policy. #ShootFootNow #AskQuestionsLater

[chisleu]

IMHO, states should be prepared for federal governments being "shutdown" or dissolved. What we call shutdowns are not real shut downs. Military doesn't go on leave. They still do their same job. Many key workers do their same jobs as well. Some workers end up staying home and then later are usually paid for the time they missed at work anyway. #FreeVacation

It is a contrived emergency so the political parties can try to increase pressure to get pork through that they would not have otherwise in order to get the votes high enough to end the BS.

IMHO, the federal government should be entirely dissolved and the states should have a more loose confederation like the EU has. Federal law and over spending have gone too far. By overspending, I mean how the DoD decided to spend billions that it was not given by Congress. I don't mean any liberal vs conservative notion of how government should spend.

I know this is a pipe dream, but one way it could happen is through a "shutdown" that never stops.

[jernfrost]

chisleu I've contemplated this as well. I don't really believe in big political unions. However there are major practical problems dissolving a union which needs to be addressed, which people who favor dissolving a union seldom address.

It is very hard to have open borders between states if there is no federal authority. It is also hard for a state to run their own economic policy without their own currency and central bank.

Already American states struggle with running different welfare policies. You see how red states e.g. a freeloading on blue state welfare programs, by dumping their poor people in blue states and enticing companies created in innovative states like Calefornia by luring them with low taxes.

I personally think it would be nice if we could have a wide selection of countries and states following completely different policies. It is good with experimentation and trying new things. In practice however this is difficult, as somebody can just freeload on everybody elses work by creating a tax paradise.

[alkonaut]

What I don't understand is this: why not just change the process so that unless there is any change in funding decided politically, funding always continues as-is?

[pjc50]

The whole setup is stupid, due to a chain of constitutional oddities. There's no distinction between budget votes and other kinds of votes. Most other systems, Westminster-style or otherwise, have a process which results in either a budget being passed or a fresh election being held which should result in a majority capable of passing one.

The US system has elevated a denial of service attack (filibuster) to the status of important democratic ritual. This doesn't help either.

("Funding continues as-is" may be rendered impossible by external factors, as in the Greek budget crisis.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_supply

[kasey_junk]

To be fair, the US system does have a special class of vote for budgetary issues that defangs the filibuster:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_State...

[mikeash]

Yep, and the majority party decided to waste their chance on unpopular tax cuts rather than use it to keep the lights on.

[ars]

The tax cuts are actually very popular. And I don't think anyone expected the Democrats to actually shut down the government over illegal immigrants.

[walshemj]

If I was a salaried civil servant I would be leaving early every Friday until I had worked off my TOIL :-)

[bsimpson]

This is the thing that blew my mind last time:

The shoreline of San Francisco is a national park (donated when the military base here closed). There's a restaurant on the shore called Cliff House, whose landlord is the US government.

During the shutdown, the government forced the restaurant, a private establishment, to close. The owners and the kitchen staff were not allowed to make a living. And because they aren't government employees, they don't get any restitution when the government is funded again.

[mch82]

Private companies also behave this way. It’s not unique to government.

If a mall shuts down, the stores don’t get to stay open. If a restaurant closes early, the waitstaff doesn’t get paid for missed hours. If budget gets tied up in other projects, competing projects get cancelled or deferred. If customer payments are late, new work & paychecks can’t be released to employees.

Edit: Also important to list the high percentage of startups that fail and layoff employees, often employees who worked under market value in exchange for equity.

[Dylan16807]

> If a mall shuts down, the stores don’t get to stay open.

Good luck blocking access while they're still renting. I can't even plausibly imagine that happening in a strip mall, where the entrance to the store is outside. Which is the best analogy to a park.

Everything else you mentioned was about employees, which is very different from renters.

[zeveb]

During the last shutdown, the executive branch deliberately tried to make it as painful as possible, whether or not it actually needed to be, as a political ploy. I recall in another instance it spent resources to block access to something which people could have just walked across.

I'm sincerely curious if the executive branch this time is pulling the same sort of shenanigans.

[mcv]

Why would a lack of funding for the government suspend a rent agreement? That's actually money flowing into the government. Why does that need to be shut down?

[bonesss]

Without knowing the specifics: renting land from the feds inside a national park is not entirely the same as renting land from a private person in a commercial zone.

From a park-management perspective services offered inside a national park close when the park closes. The park-restaurant doesn't get to reopen that park or its services any more than the hotdog vendors force Wrigley Field to open on the weekdays...

Just like a mall closing for safety reasons: even though there is a buck to be made there are also liabilities and requirements. If the park isn't offering its rangers/personnel/management/responsibility then they don't want to be simultaneously advertising to the public that they're open for food sales. They're not open, they're closed.

[bsimpson]

The weird part is that there's not exactly a toll plaza - it's totally integrated into the city.

I presume they made some argument about rangers not being available or something, but there was really no reason it needed to close. It's on a public street, and in a city with emergency services.

[refurb]

My guess is politics. If you want voters to push to end the shutdown, make it hurt regardless if the shutdown requires it.

This also happened with national parks. They actually chained up the entrances during the shutdown as if people can't access a park if the gov't is shutdown.

[askvictor]

I'm curious: who actually checked on whether they were closed?

[logfromblammo]

"I said powerless to help you, not punish you." --Chief Wiggum

Maybe ensuring that the economic hostages of a shutdown will actually suffer is an essential government function?

It wouldn't surprise me if there were a few people trespassing on closed national parklands right now, without incidents. And a few of them might even be furloughed employees.

[alkonaut]

The way I understood things is that if you are lucky (e.g. if you are military) you get paid when government is funded. If you are less lucky, you are simply furloughed and NOT paid for the time the government was shut down. For example: civilian employees in the military.

(The fact that the dysfunction alone of US government needs a whole dictionary is amusing: gerrymander, filibuster, furlough, ....)

[dzhiurgis]

Ohhh Cliff House was one of my key xp when visiting San Francisco!

If US is owner and they shut down the restaurant place, don't they loose money by not making rent?! How is that making sense?

[StudentStuff]

The upside here is that you can visit national parks for free while the shutdown is ongoing, without the threat of a ranger fining or detaining you! While I don't roll with the A team, I do appreciate some of the philosophy.

[codingdave]

But also without the safety net of having rangers around to know you are out in the backcountry, and come looking for you if you get hurt and don't make it back to the main areas. Personally, I carry emergency beacons when I'm out in the wilderness, but that is something the average tourist exploring the parks doesn't have.

[jtokoph]

It's more of a shutdown on non critical departments, and lots of times there are still skeleton crews for some of them. For example, the postal service is still running.

Here is a decent article explaining what is still up and running: https://www.npr.org/2018/01/19/578985305/open-or-closed-here...

[toomanybeersies]

The USPS isn't a government department though, it's an independent agency, that generates its own funds separate from the federal budget.

[ryanmarsh]

I had no idea the USPS was a GSE (Government Sponsored Entity) like Fannie Mae (which many believe is a government agency)

[dragonwriter]

It's a shutdown in almost all distribution of funds that consequently includes a prohibition on work by non-essential personnel; “department” in the federal government is a very large organization, and a much higher level of organization than the one at which the non-essential vs. essential distinction is made at.

[toomanybeersies]

The vast majority of police in the USA are not federal police, only federal government workers, not state government workers, are affected by this.

Essential workers, such as military, are still required to turn up to work, they just don't get paid. It's not the US Government would stop wars just because they can't pay their bills.

Congress, funnily enough, is actually except from the shutdown and members of congress still get paid, which is a bit perverse in my eyes.

As for things like electricity, I assume they just put it all on credit, it's not like the government isn't going to pay the power companies when they finally approve the budget. I usually have a month after my power bill comes in to pay it.

[chrisper]

It's mostly federal services that will close. Like national park etc.

[pmorici]

Most police are funded at the local or state government level. The police employed by the federal government still stay on the job they just won’t be paid until the situation is resolved.

[robert_foss]

I think some groups are exempt. Like congress men. Separately I think that the police aren't on the federal level, the FBI is but they may also be exempt.