So the Government shut down today because Congress couldn't decide on a budget plan in time. Basically, The House wanted to destroy Obamacare, so they decided to use the budget as leverage. The Senate kept denying the budget because they wanted to see Obamacare succeed. All the while, the deadline was approaching. So it was like a game of chicken, and they crashed right into each other. Now many Government departments are shut down because there is no budget to pay for them, and apparently the US Government is approaching a default on its debt.

This republican/democrat polarization bull is destroying America. The American people don't seem to be their top priority anymore. They just care about winning and making the other side look bad.

#Pindar4Congress

Welcome to the problem with making gerrymandering illegal for the Senate, but not for the House.

And allowing Congress to decide it's own pay, which it approved to continue while the government was shut down.

And not having the common sense to make each law stand alone in passage so that actual debate can happen on the content of the law and not result in a bottleneck because of unwanted clauses jammed into the law.

And promoting a society that supports sociopathic behavior above all else.

And believing that America could succeed when the maintenance of an educated society was placed on the backburner in favor of military might.

And for believing that anything would ever get accomplished ever with this hopeless debacle.


And eventually it will get passed, and everything will return to normal, except debt will be incurred because of the costs racked up by the government shutting down. Which will then be used as fuel for the next blame game.



Welcome to "democracy". Enjoy your citizenship :/

As long as I keep getting paid, it's all good. Lol!

Yeah, it's true only super powers only last so long. Greater the man, Greater the fall.

Also, imagine the movies where they had America in the future, but America ceases exist in the next 20-30 years.

Well I guess it explains itself. If people want to have a functional democracy, they'll have to take their political responsabilities and quit thinking "It's all good as long as I'm paid". And when I say taking responsabilities I mean thinking, debating, considering solutions and applying them locally... not just voting every 4/5 years for some big fucked up political party because their leader haz a cool smile and he looks nice.

People have to rewrite their constitution. They have to make it so the "democracy" applies, defending themselves against power abuse and law exploit, they'll have to destroy the republican/democrate (left/right) absurdity. Actual voting system is retarded anyway, better pick governments randomly instead of electing careerist fucks.

Political parties are profit-making entities, they're not here to save the world and its people. They're here to pay themselves, when one of them hits the president chair it's jackpot, but there's objectively nothing he can do for you, for us. For them it's just a game, none of them will starve to death or sleep outside, for them "it's okay as long as they get paid". They don't give a shit about you or your family, just like most people don't give a shit about the dude living in the next street.

What the word "democracy" means, it's that the power, decision making, has to come from the people, anyone and everyone. Or else it's just not a democracy.

I heard that the armed forces salaries and pensions are going to be suspended until the budget is resolved. Whether or not that is true, I'm not sure. Just saying.

With the way our congress has been the last ~10 years who can honestly be that surprised. However, congratulations for congress on hitting a historically low approval rating at... a staggering 10%!

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...oll-97590.html

I think one of the biggest problems is the party system. Each elected official is supposed to be a representative of their electorate, but instead are just a proxy vote for their party. Then when they get to the floor they all vote as a party and throw around their weight instead of independently thinking.

Well, USA has a lot of huge problems, it won't be fixed with a few small changes.

US democracy is pretty much a prime example how it should not be done.
The current German system is pretty good imo.
People have two votes in an election. One goes to a party which then gets seats in the parliament depending on how many votes they get, the other one is a direct vote for a person in your electorate who, if he wins in that electorate, will get a seat in the parliament as well.
That's how it should be done in the US as well.

To be honest, I have no idea what exactly is going on in the USA atm, nor how exactly budget works. Would you mind explaining it shortly?

Basically, the government has an annual budget it sets for itself to fund their activities. However, the U.S. government has failed to set an annual budget for quite a while now, pushing forward shorter spending periods as a way to buy time to make an actual annual budget. In addition, the government is approaching it's debt limit, or the proverbial "debt ceiling". Because of this, the government can either increase the limit, which maintains the debt and allows the government to repay it back because they don't default from borrowing over their limit, or they maintain it, and the U.S. defaults on their loans.

What's happening right now is basically party gridlock. One side, the Republicans, have control of the House of Representatives (which is heavily gerrymandered (regions that each representative represents are divided in dishonest ways to give one political party more clout than another party (something which is illegal for every level of government except federal)), so no shit they have control of it) and Democrats have control of the Senate and the White House. It's the House's responsibility to create the spending bills for Congress by the Constitution, and instead of making a clean spending bill (no frills attached), Republicans insisted on putting clauses in the bill that would defund the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. A law which has already been passed through Congress, and has already been deemed Constitutional by a Supreme Court that is historically right-leaning, and is never going to be defunded during the next few years barring catastrophic failure, even IF the Senate approved the clauses because they don't have the votes in the House necessary to force it through when the President vetoes it. Which he would, because the Affordable Care Act is his landmark achievement.



So ya, idiocy abounds, mainly from one side.