Good writeup on why mini-funding bills aren't a good idea

[tekkychick]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/ho...ilitary-anyway

Heather Hurlburt – October 1, 2013, 10:00 AM EDT3696
Amid the frenzied posturing of the last 72 hours before the shutdown, a bill claiming to ensure that active-duty military would receive the pay and support they need to continue to provide for our national security zipped rapidly and uncontroversially through both houses and the President's pen. The bill seemed to meet Senator Ted Cruz's call for the House to pass "mini-CRs" [continuing resolutions] to fund aspects of government it liked - Pentagon, FAA, pandacam - while letting the rest close.

This willful blindness about how government actually works - indeed, how large corporations, technology and just about everything functions in our age of complexity - meets its full irresponsibility in understanding what it takes to support the men and women who have volunteered to take a bullet in the name of each of us, our Constitution, and yes, our democratically-elected government, each and every miserable one of them. These are just a few examples:

Combat operations need intelligence to "see": the wonders of technology, and 9/11 Commission recommendations on breaking down firewalls between government agencies, mean that soldiers in Afghanistan depend on real-time intelligence from civilian agencies for planning and targeting, and for their own security. The CIA, however, is being treated like every other civilian agency - some of its staff will be allowed to work, but many more will not, taking away the backstopping that troops depend on. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) described the shutdown as likely to "cripple the intelligence community." Are Congressional Republicans really saying that some large swathe of our intelligence establishment is unnecessary? Look to see whether they follow through on that at budget time. (Oh, and speaking of intelligence: do we really want to shut down the Centers for Disease Control as flu season begins? But I digress.)

A deployed soldier's first concern is family back home: So G.I. Jane gets her few hundred bucks a week of base pay, but the civilians who teach at her kids' base school are furloughed and the school shuts down. When will she get paid - in time to make the mortgage? The VA civilians who process the backlog of disability claims her veteran husband is stuck in? They're non-essential, and not working. And the Pentagon has made it clear that nobody goes anywhere during a shutdown. The unit that was supposed to replace hers? They're not training. Will she be home for Christmas? She doesn't know. The Army doesn't know. Congress can't tell her. Is this what we meant by "serve your country?"

Military operations depend on civilians: Without civilians to process travel orders, soldiers can't get home to their families, or deploy to their units. Without civilians to drive trucks, or load and unload boats and trains, equipment can't move, and units can't train and deploy - which means units in combat must keep sitting where they are. Without civilians to manage relationships with contractors, everything from food services to guard services suffers. Oh, and about those civilians: the Pentagon is not sure where funds to pay uniformed servicemembers will come from if the shutdown continues past Oct. 7.

The world's strongest? U.S. power and influence in the world are based not just on the sheer size and quality of our economy, our military, our innovation, but also the confidence of our friends and foes alike that we will do what we say, play by our own rules, act in our declared self-interest. Now imagine you're the captain who has to explain to his Afghan Army counterparts that the equipment isn't coming, or the intelligence is dated, or the high-level briefing will be conducted via Skype from Washington because... uh, because why again? The most powerful nation, the greatest democracy, what? Or you're the military attaché who must explain to Israelis and Palestinians that the government funded him to show up for work, but not his State Department counterpart? Now imagine you're Vladimir Putin, or an angry twentysomething in an Al Qaeda chat room. The great superpower can't manage to keep its law enforcement, intelligence and diplomacy teams on the job?

So, if you're wearing a uniform for your country Tuesday morning, sure, you're grateful to be getting paid while the civilian in the next cubicle and/or foxhole is not. But are you getting what you need to do your job, and is the episode inculcating the respect for civilian authority on which armed forces in healthy democracies depend? Uh, not so much.

Heather Hurlburt is the Executive Director of the National Security Network; during the 1995 shutdown she was a speechwriter for Secretary of State Warren Christopher, and deemed a non-essential employee.

[Althea]

Mini funding bills aren't a good idea, because they reduce the pain of the austerity approach. Had Obama not removed the furlough for the air traffic controllers, nor lowered the dollar amount of the military cuts, the sequester would be long over.

But....making those minor changes gave the GOP an acceptable/less painful outcome, so they stood pat on the sequester.


Nobody gets to pick and choose which programs are more important. You either shut down the govt., or you don't.

[anatta]

DNI chief Clapper was claiming this shutdown is seriouslty degrading the ability to collect new INTEL -not so much analysis of "imminent threats" but more lack of ability to collect/analyze more.(furloughs of about 70% in various INTEL) calling it "serious damage" ( and echoing Feinstein)

So for the Security Hawks out there - would you want the CIA fully funded? How about NIH for the sick kids???? hmm???

I'd prefer to see this end, but sometimes a piecemeal approach is better then nothing..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv...716_video.html

[canceled.2021.1]

DNI chief Clapper was claiming this shutdown is seriouslty degrading the ability to collect new INTEL -not so much analysis of "imminent threats" but more lack of ability to collect/analyze more.(furloughs of about 70% in various INTEL) calling it "serious damage" ( and echoing Feinstein)

So for the Security Hawks out there - would you want the CIA fully funded? How about NIH for the sick kids???? hmm???

I'd prefer to see this end, but sometimes a piecemeal approach is better then nothing..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv...716_video.html

I'm good wit it.

Burn the mutha fucka down

[anatta]

^ ya well.
I'm not all that thrilled with our "perpetual war" on "radical Islam" given the fact we just killed a bunch of civilians and kids in Afganistan (yet again)
http://www.justplainpolitics.com/sho...ke-(yet-again)

still there are legitimaet threats, and at least collecting and analzing them is not necessarily the same as WARRING against them..

So it's a bit odd to see the "mini appropriations" bills not be funded; but i get the idea this is ALL politically driven.

[canceled.2021.1]

^ ya well.
I'm not all that thrilled with our "perpetual war" on "radical Islam" given the fact we just killed a bunch of civilians and kids in Afganistan (yet again)
http://www.justplainpolitics.com/sho...ke-(yet-again)

still there are legitimaet threats, and at least collecting and analzing them is not necessarily the same as WARRING against them..

So it's a bit odd to see the "mini appropriations" bills not be funded; but i get the idea this is ALL politically driven.

I am good wit killin muslimes. Get them first.

[anatta]

I am good wit killin muslimes. Get them first.

not addressing the insanity of that idea, but even to your 'point' it's impossible to kill all Muslims.

[Don Quixote]

DNI chief Clapper was claiming this shutdown is seriouslty degrading the ability to collect new INTEL -not so much analysis of "imminent threats" but more lack of ability to collect/analyze more.(furloughs of about 70% in various INTEL) calling it "serious damage" ( and echoing Feinstein)

So for the Security Hawks out there - would you want the CIA fully funded? How about NIH for the sick kids???? hmm???

I'd prefer to see this end, but sometimes a piecemeal approach is better then nothing..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv...716_video.html

i guess that you do not get the fact that the rupugs with 'safe' districts do not care how much damage they do, in fact the more the better, after all they have to show how powerful they are

their rather insane goal is the destruction of the federal government because they do not like some of the things that the federal government does.

[Don Quixote]

not addressing the insanity of that idea, but even to your 'point' it's impossible to kill all Muslims.

ila is insane and i keep him on ignore

[Althea]

^ ya well.
I'm not all that thrilled with our "perpetual war" on "radical Islam" given the fact we just killed a bunch of civilians and kids in Afganistan (yet again)
http://www.justplainpolitics.com/sho...ke-(yet-again)

still there are legitimaet threats, and at least collecting and analzing them is not necessarily the same as WARRING against them..

So it's a bit odd to see the "mini appropriations" bills not be funded; but i get the idea this is ALL politically driven.

Why is it odd? Why should democrats take the sting out of the teabag policy?

If they did, we'd see these antics every 3 months.

You have a teabag governor. You should know that there's only one way to deal with them....get rid of them.

[anatta]

i guess that you do not get the fact that the rupugs with 'safe' districts do not care how much damage they do, in fact the more the better, after all they have to show how powerful they are

their rather insane goal is the destruction of the federal government because they do not like some of the things that the federal government does.

hyperbolic nonscense- i agree on their obstructionist agenda, but not the hyperpartisan rhetoric.

[anatta]

Why is it odd? Why should democrats take the sting out of the teabag policy?

If they did, we'd see these antics every 3 months.

You have a teabag governor. You should know that there's only one way to deal with them....get rid of them.

i notice you didn't address Clapper's remarks....
If Manning so damaged the nation's security, that put him in jail forever -or whatever the sentiments - why not consider Clappers testimony as damning to the countrys 'security'?

By now you especially should know i am NOT INTERESTED in politics -it is stupifyingly dense, with build it "obstructionism".
and we'd all be better off not playing their games.

But we still must put everything in the partisan prism? I get the idea DC is rife with hyperpartisanship, but we are not DC.
Think above such mundane patterns of thought is the idea here..

If we do - doesn't it make sense to fully fund the INTEL?? I mean for the securty hawks, whom are constantly crying "beware?"

Also: why can't we actually pass a budget ? Governing by CR? More stupid partisanship - and I do agree with you the REpubs are out to obstruct -
still the gridlock is manifest on both sides here, when essential security is compromised..(in Clapper's view)

[Althea]

i notice you didn't address Clapper's remarks....
If Manning so damaged the nation's security, that put him in jail forever -or whatever the sentiments - why not consider Clappers testimony as damning to the countrys 'security'?

By now you especially should know i am NOT INTERESTED in politics -it is stupifyingly dense, with build it "obstructionism".
and we'd all be better off not playing their games.

But we still must put everything in the partisan prism? I get the idea DC is rife with hyperpartisanship, but we are not DC.
Think above such mundane patterns of thought is the idea here..

If we do - doesn't it make sense to fully fund the INTEL?? I mean for the securty hawks, whom are constantly crying "beware?"

Also: why can't we actually pass a budget ? Governing by CR? More stupid partisanship - and I do agree with you the REpubs are out to obstruct -
still the gridlock is manifest on both sides here, when essential security is compromised..(in Clapper's view)

If the GOP knowingly puts this nation in danger due to unfunded security, then they'll suffer the consequences should anything happen.

This is about spending. Not Keystone, not ACA. Dems have already agreed to vote on Ryan's budget figure. What more compromise is necessary to pass a spending bill? It's about half of what Obama wanted.

[anatta]

If the GOP knowingly puts this nation in danger due to unfunded security, then they'll suffer the consequences should anything happen.

This is about spending. Not Keystone, not ACA. Dems have already agreed to vote on Ryan's budget figure. What more compromise is necessary to pass a spending bill? It's about half of what Obama wanted.

Looking at this is strickly political terms, do you not think Obama would get the blame for anything happening?

How many are going to go to Clapper's testimony, and nuance that to the point of a future threat (as the current imminent ones are still being tasked) goes to GOP lack of funding?

I'm not particurally advocating a political position here, and TY for the analysis -what I am saying is small appropriations might be better then none.

It is my understanding that Obamacare (s.i.c.) is already funded? Perhaps you know? (asking).

There still has to be a resolution on Appropriations/another CR - it seems we are not going to go past the debt ceiling ( per Boehner).

So why not just pass NIH/INTEL, and other 'essentials' ' that are not essential, and piecemeal this gov't lurching down the road for another few weeks/months?
There is nothing sacred about a "clean debt ceiling" -anymore then there is about inherent obstructionism.

[Don Quixote]

If the GOP knowingly puts this nation in danger due to unfunded security, then they'll suffer the consequences should anything happen.

This is about spending. Not Keystone, not ACA. Dems have already agreed to vote on Ryan's budget figure. What more compromise is necessary to pass a spending bill? It's about half of what Obama wanted.

it is all about demonstrating their power to their constituents even if they do not know what they will do with it