BAD GOVERNMENT
(A Review on The Federal Government Shutdown)
Visitors check out the newspaper pages at the Newseum as the federal government reopens.
(Photo by Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/10/with-shutdown-over-gop-looks-inward.html
* Special thanks to "USA Today", "Forbes", "Rasmussen Reports, "PBS News Hour"
and all the great political cartoonists!
BLOG POST
by Felicity Blaze Noodleman
Los Angeles, CA
10.25.13
As we look back over those seventeen days of the “Shut Down” we might ask ourselves what was accomplished and did the “Washington Elite” learn anything? Otherwise everything in the world seemed to be unaffected; The Major League Baseball Play Off’s went on as scheduled, Football season is off and running, the Internet continued as usual, “Dancing With The Stars” (and the fall TV schedule) were not interrupted, our Blog Post continued without a hitch, the sky didn’t fall and Congress continued to collect their pay raises!
To answer the above question, the answer appears to be NO! The “Shut Down” seemed to be another installment for the continuing failure of Government, which at this rate will climax with the financial collapse of Washington sometime in the not too distant future!
This week we have selected a few news articles examining the shutdown phenomenon and are also posting some of the best cartoons to illustrate the stories as we continue with our “Noodleman” brand of commentary!
Steve Sack / Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Cagle Cartoons
See more at: http://thecontributor.com/humor/five-cartoons-about-looming-government-shutdown#sthash.SCEjrC1h.dpuf
"USA Today"
October 20, 2013, 12:30 pm
Conflicting Signals From Senate G.O.P. on Another Shutdown
By EMMARIE HUETTEMAN
In the wake of the spending deal last week that reopened the federal government through early 2014, Republicans tried to ease concerns Sunday about the possibility of another shutdown in just a few months.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the chamber’s top Republican who helped broker the agreement, said that although he disliked the new health care law — the sticking point in the latest impasse — there was no use in Republicans’ trying to roll it back while Democrats control the Senate and the presidency.
“There will not be another government shutdown,” he said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.” “You can count on that.”
But Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who was criticized by many in his own party for prolonging the gridlock, called last week’s budget agreement “terrible” and did not rule out another shutdown.
“I would do anything, and I will continue to do anything I can to stop the train wreck that is Obamacare,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Republicans backed away from their push to defund President Obama’s health care law on Wednesday, agreeing to a deal to reopen and finance the government through Jan. 15 and allow the government to continue borrowing money through Feb. 7.
Illuminating the divisions within the Republican Party, Mr. Cruz blamed his fellow Senate Republicans for the defeat. On the CNN program “State of the Union,” he said they could have succeeded if they had united behind their counterparts in the House and called out the Democrats for their unwillingness to compromise.
“What we did have is we had half the Republican conference on TV, not making that point, but instead making President Obama and the Democrats’ point, attacking the House Republicans, attacking those of us trying to stop Obamacare,” Mr. Cruz said.
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, called for civility within his party, apologizing for calling Mr. Cruz and other Tea Party conservatives “wacko birds.”
But Mr. McCain rejected the notion that Mr. Cruz could cause a second shutdown in January.
“I think that he can exercise his rights as a senator, but it will not happen,” he said. “The American people will not stand for another one of these things.”
Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew emphasized the risk of continuing gridlock, saying on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that economic growth took a hit during the 16-day shutdown as the nation approached its borrowing limit.
“We need to make sure that government does not go through another round of brinksmanship,” he said. “This can never happen again.”
"USA Today"
Here We Go Again, Our Government At Work.
With Congress’s approval rating at 10% it’s not surprising that things aren’t getting done in Washington DC. Our Democratic system of Government is designed with checks and balances and the need to compromise and negotiate for the benefit of all citizens in this country. There are three branches of Government, Congress to make the laws of the land, the Judicial to enforce the legality of laws and the Executive branch to provide direction and set policy for the country. When these branches of government can’t get along and talk and negotiate, the system we have fails to work.
So the question of the day is ” Is the Experiment of a Democratic form of Government over? Has it Failed us? “
http://valdinirealestate.com/government-shut-down-debt-ceiling/
Obama's Quarterly Approval Rating Drops To 44.5%
David Jackson, USA TODAY 10:06 a.m. EDT October 21, 2013
(Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images)
President Obama's job approval rating for the past three months averaged 44.5%, a drop of more than three percentage points from the previous quarter, Gallup reports.
It's not the low point for Obama — he hit 41% in the third quarter of 2011 — but it's not a great trend either.
"After a relatively strong fourth year that included several quarters of higher ratings that aided his (2012) re-election, his approval rating has now declined in each of the last three quarters," Gallup reports.
Obama's 44.5% approval rating for the third quarter of 2013 -- running from July 20 to Oct. 19 — put him in the middle of the pack for recent presidents, Gallup notes:
"Three post-World War II presidents — Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, and Bill Clinton — had significantly higher 19th quarter averages, all near 60%, than Obama.
"Two presidents had lower 19th quarter averages than Obama: Richard Nixon, whose 19th quarter came during the Watergate investigations, and Lyndon Johnson, attributable mostly to the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War.
"Obama's 19th quarter approval average is most similar to those of Harry Truman and George W. Bush." Gallup also reports on Obama:
"The legislative battles over the federal budget and the Affordable Care Act, as well as the federal debt limit, took a toll on the president's popularity, with his Gallup daily approval rating falling to 41% at points during the shutdown.
http://youngcons.com/the-best-political-cartoon-of-the-government-shutdown-so-far-business-as-usual/
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
Friday, October 25, 2013
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 52% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Obama's job performance. Forty-seven percent (47%) disapprove (see trends).
The latest figures include 29% of all likely voters who Strongly Approve of the way Obama is performing as president and 38% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -9.
Results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update).
Fifty-one percent (51%) of voters think the Obama administration should delay the individual mandate because of the problems experienced by the government exchange websites set up to provide health insurance. Forty-two percent (42%) agree the government should require every American to buy or obtain health insurance, but 49% oppose that mandate.
Fifty-two percent (52%) worry the government won’t do enough in reacting to the country's current economic problems, and 62% think the best thing government can do is cut spending.
Fifty-four percent (54%) of voters want a federal budget deal that cuts spending, but 64% think Congress is unlikely to reach such a deal in time to avoid another government shutdown in mid-January.
Sixty-six percent (66%) continue to believe that today’s high school graduates lack the necessary skills to go to college or get a job.
Just 17% think the country is heading in the right direction.
(More below)
Only 36% of voters believe the United States and its allies are winning the War on Terror.
Do as I say, not as I do? Just 16% of Americans believe someone who is sick should go to work anyway, but three times as many (47%) say they generally go to work when they are sick.
Forty-five percent (45%) are at least somewhat likely to buy things from a consignment store, including 20% who are Very Likely to do so. Twenty-nine percent (29%) are more likely to shop consignment in recent years due to the struggling economy.
Twenty-six percent (26%) support a complete ban on cell phone use while driving.
(More below)
To get a sense of longer-term job approval trends for the president, Rasmussen Reports compiles our tracking data on a full month-by-month basis.
Rasmussen Reports has been a pioneer in the use of automated telephone polling techniques, but many other firms still utilize their own operator-assisted technology (see methodology).
Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. To reach those who have abandoned traditional landline telephones, Rasmussen Reports uses an online survey tool to interview randomly selected participants from a demographically diverse panel. The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 1,500 Likely Voters is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for full-week results are available for Platinum Members.
There Will Be No $24B Economic Loss From The Government Shutdown
Tourists on 'Segways' are seen on the National Mall before the illuminated Washington Monument on the eve of a possible government shutdown as Congress battles out the budget in Washington, DC, September 30, 2013. In case of a government shutdown most of the tourist attractions in the US capital will be closed to visitors. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)
By Prof. Jeffery Dorfman 10/22/2013 @ 8:00AM
The news has been full of an estimate by Standard & Poor’s that the U.S. economy suffered a loss of $24 billion due to the government shutdown. Interestingly, the reports contain few if any details of where those losses came from and the Standard & Poor’s website does not seem to have any report backing up the figure either. I have found some of the suggested losses and they are all untrue. In reality, there will be no economic loss to the economy from the government shutdown.
Purported losses include lost wages by federal employees and contractors, the value of lost government services, and lost travel spending. Some of these losses did actually happen, but any losses in one part of the economy will be offset by gains somewhere else.
Certainly, some people have suffered losses due to the shutdown, principally those business owners who depend on tourists visiting Washington, D.C. or a federal site that was closed (such as a national park). Federal contractors who could not work and were not paid to work on other projects during the shutdown may suffer losses. However, these losses do not hold in the aggregate because every loss will be offset by a gain.
For all the tourist sites that lost money and visitors during the shutdown, there is a business somewhere that received or will receive more business than normal. People who cancelled trips to D.C., national parks, or other sites may instead have taken a trip somewhere else. Business owners in those substitute locations become winners due to the shutdown. Alternatively, people may have stayed home and spent the money designated for their trip at local restaurants, movie theaters, and shops, creating gains in those businesses.
If a business traveler cancelled a trip, that business will either spend the money on something else or it will end up as profit. Extra profits go to a business owner who will then spend the money. Even if money does not get spent, but is saved instead, those savings become investments which also benefit the economy.
All this lost spending is a perfect example of the famous broken window fallacy, just in reverse from the normal example. In the broken window fallacy, people perceive money spent to fix a broken window as a gain to the economy because they do not realize the money would have been spent somewhere else until it had to be diverted to fixing the window. In the current case money that was not spent somewhere during the shutdown gets shifted someplace else, but it still gets spent.
As to lost wages, federal employees will get back pay completely covering their lost wages during the government shutdown. This means that any spending they did not do during the shutdown, they are busy catching up on right now. Federal contractors may have lost wages during the government shutdown and may not recoup all those losses. However, those unpaid wages should end up as either extra profit for the contractor, savings for the government, or delayed employment for somebody.
If we ignore the slight loss from the delay in spending in a few of the above examples, I hope the above shows that there is no economic damage to the economy from lost wages or cancelled travel due to the shutdown. In the wider view of the whole economy, the money just ended up in different cash registers.
The final item in the supposed $24 billion in losses to the economy due to the government shutdown is the value of lost government services. It is true that many government services not performed during the government shutdown will never be replaced, as government workers will not all be able to make up the lost productivity. However, national income accounts value government services at their cost since there is no other way to value them (given the common absence of a price to provide a market value). Because the government workers are being paid for the days they did not work, the cost of government services will not decline and, therefore, neither will the government contribution to GDP. Citizens will get less for our tax payments, but the official economic value of government will be the same.
Hopefully, this column has provided a clear explanation that the economy will suffer no loss from the government shutdown, let alone a purported $24 billion. Some people suffered indisputable losses because of the shutdown and we can all feel sympathy for those unlucky people. However, the money lost by those people does not disappear as if in a magic trick; it ends up being spent somewhere else and providing an unexpected gain in a different part of the economy.
Many of the losses reported in the news are visible and easy for the media to find. The offsetting gains are harder to find but exist nonetheless. People reporting these stories may not understand economics or they may not wish to acknowledge that government does not grow the economy. Whatever the reason, the reality is that while the shutdown may not have accomplished anything other than disrupting many people’s lives, it did not cause damage to the national economy. That usually happens when the government is open for business.
I am a professor of economics at The University of Georgia and consultant on economic issues to a variety of corporations and local governments. Taking a generally free market, libertarian perspective, I use economics as the lens to analyze government policies from the local to the international level. I have a particular focus on government policies that strive to redistribute income or wealth either openly or in indirect ways. A lot of those thoughts are collected in my e-book, Ending the Era of the Free Lunch.
The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.
People, according to the latest poles, are clearly dissatisfied with all the parties in Washington. No one is receiving a bump in the latest polls and that includes the President’s ratings which have slump even lower. As Democrats try to dismiss, ridicule and ignore the "Tea Party" movement in Washington the evidence is very clear: the country is wanting a move to safer ground; a way from any kind of "Fiscal Cliff" and another shutdown. This is why Democrats seem to be out of step with the times!
Now that the Government “Shut Down” has come and gone, we have avoided another one of the Federal Governments follies! We use the term “Federal Government” to avoid writing about either of the political parties involved or their respective responsibilities in the Washington credit crunch just played out on Capitol Hill. Personally, myself, “Candy Crunch” is more interesting and much more rewarding. At any rate, don’t expect to see Champagne to be flowing anywhere in the Capitol City. This was not a battle about winning, only degrees of losing for both parties and the public at large.
Now that the Government “Shut Down” has come and gone, we have avoided another one of the Federal Governments follies! We use the term “Federal Government” to avoid writing about either of the political parties involved or their respective responsibilities in the Washington credit crunch just played out on Capitol Hill. Personally, myself, “Candy Crunch” is more interesting and much more rewarding. At any rate, don’t expect to see Champagne to be flowing anywhere in the Capitol City. This was not a battle about winning, only degrees of losing for both parties and the public at large.
http://www.thoughtsfromaconservativemom.com/tag/approval-ratings/
Well; with all the
bickering and back biting in Washington over the last year which brought us to
the point of the unthinkable shutdown, should we compile the “Noodleman” awards
list for all the major players involved explaining their roles in the Capitol
DC failure? We think we must! May we have the envelope please?
For the best portrayal of “Dr. Strange Love” in the Senate
the award goes to Sen. Harry Reid, Sr. Democratic Majority Conference Chair,
Majority Leader. His lack of attention
to the problem at hand and unwillingness to repair the budget deficit were
truly short sighted.
(Photo caption – “Tell it to the hand.”)
For the best Play Writers Award, "Noodleman" recognizes Speaker
of The House, Rep. John Boehner for “All Roads Lead To NO”. His dedication to balancing the budget were
wasted on deaf ears.
(Photo caption – “Tell
it to the hammer.”)
For the best “Drama Queen” in Washington, the award goes to
President Barack Obama. “It’s Everybody Else’s Fault But Mine”.
(Photo caption – Tell it
to somebody who cares!)
AND FINALLY . . . !
For the best impersonation of the Media the award goes to
all the "Networks and Printed Page Mongers" in the Washington Press Core.
They stole the show with their adaptation of “All The President’s Men” as they reported a skewed version of the disaster unfolding and continually "punctuated" the Democrat's position.
(Photo caption – Unavailable for comment.)
In conclusion; the recent shutdown is just a preview of what
could very possibly happen if Washington can’t get together and balance the
budget. That’s when we will see a real
melt down. Until the Democrats are able cut spending and produce a balanced budget the welfare of the country hangs in the counterbalance and on the brink of total collapse. They will continue to experience falling approval ratings in the polls and future elections losses in the future. I’m Felicity writing for the
“Noodleman Group”.
http://mikesright.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/so-whos-really-obamas-ruling-regent-anyway/government-shutdown-cartoon-heller1-495x341/
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