Be Excellent To Each Other

Clearly taking its lead from the West Wing, the US federal government has failed to agree its own budget for the first time in 16 years, and as such 800,000 federal employees are now officially on unpaid leave as the government shut down yesterday.
What a bizarre state of affairs. You'd think that at very least there would be a contingency to, y'know, carry on paying the people who keep the country running. The country appears to be mostly blaming recalcitrant Republicans at this point, which seems pretty reasonable on the face of it. Fascinating stuff.

Guardian liveblog here (though liveblogging something not happening isn't exactly the most exciting of things) - http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... ollar-live

Yes, it's utterly incredible isn't it? America's politicians are catastrophically letting down their own electorate - and the world too, for that matter.

Fucksticks, huh. Just as things were finally on the up, too...

This ultimately boils down to one thing:

The Republicans are seriously worried that Obamacare will be a success, which could win a future election. As such, they will do literally anything to hamstring it.

But that's just an appalling sentiment though, isn't it?
For me, all very reminiscent of Labour and the McBride revelations (and their pre-election 'scorched earth' public finances policies for that matter, when it was clear they were going to lose). Y'know, fuck running the country and whatever's good for the people you're supposed to be governing.

And unlike most other systems, the Congress can't be dissolved for fresh elections if no budget can be passed. Got to wait until November 2014 before the House and a third of the Senate is up for election again.

Isn't the whole thing just a symptom of the entire set up in the US i.e. that a party wining the election doesn't necessarily empower it to enact it's policies unless they win all the other stuff (House and Senate) as well? As soon as you require two ideologically opposed entities to reach an agreement before your government can function you're creating the possibility of this kind of thing happening. I realise the arguments for this set up but the doesn't change this and other arguments against it.

The problem with any kind of contingency is that the specifics of that contingency could at different times favour one party's agenda over the other thus encouraging them to keep this kind of stalemate going as long as it serves their purposes. At least with the fact that the entire government effectively shuts down there's a massive amount of pressure to actually reach an agreement rather than continue in a stalemate that potentially favours one side.

Do people still want a wholly elected House of Lords then?

I blame the lack of True Blood and the Werewolves addiction to V.

When our upper house last blocked a budget, we changed the constitution to stop them doing it.

And none of the plans I've seen have ever suggested giving a reformed Lords the power back. Primacy of the commons and all that.

Yep, the game of politics. The system works if the possibility exists for people to compromise.

"And yes, I recognize the irony that the very system I oppose affords me the luxury of biting the hand that feeds."

Looks like it's all back "on" again.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... story.html

Crazy merkins.

At least the Republicans seem to have come to terms with the fact that they fucked up.