Impact of the US Shutdown

[BlueTrin]

This must be impractical because it seems too simple:

Canada--Gov't. falls but P.M. goes to Gov. General asking to release funds to pay workers and keep things going until the election and new Parliament. The money is available.

Why Not--
Budget not passed and U.S. Gov't shuts down. Prez goes and gets the money from the tax coffers and pays workers to keep things going. The money obviously is there, because apparently those workers will get all their back pay.

I imagine there are some legal reasons this can't happen. Or political procedure reasons. Perhaps such restrictions should be changed?

If you google around you’ll find plenty of articles on the topic, for example:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.na...overnment-shutdown-constitutional-issues/amp/

Personally I think the US population is generally hostile to any kind of mutualisation of costs and the rhetoric of keeping the government small is popular in the US. The politicians will prefer to keep the power by arguing that such reform would be unconstitutional. This is always a strange argument to say that you cannot change laws and constitutions as a politician.

I bet if I was a large company with lobbyists, they wouldn’t be so bothered about the constitution ...

 

[dmaziuk]

I bet if I was a large company with lobbyists, they wouldn’t be so bothered about the constitution ...

... but you could be bothered about the Supreme Court. Try Pelican Brief (book or movie) sometime for your (as in the large company with lobbyists) next step.

 

[TMHeimer]

If you google around you’ll find plenty of articles on the topic, for example:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.na...overnment-shutdown-constitutional-issues/amp/

Personally I think the US population is generally hostile to any kind of mutualisation of costs and the rhetoric of keeping the government small is popular in the US. The politicians will prefer to keep the power by arguing that such reform would be unconstitutional. This is always a strange argument to say that you cannot change laws and constitutions as a politician.

I bet if I was a large company with lobbyists, they wouldn’t be so bothered about the constitution ...

Yeah, as a former American I can see that. Still hard to explain why all that back pay just sits somewhere and then is all of a sudden available to send to the workers. Wonder if there is interest accruing on that back pay while it sits?

 

[Snoweman]

I breezed through a lot of these posts, so I may have missed it.

What brought down the shutdown was a sick out by air traffic controllers. This would probably have affected the scuba industry world wide more than anything else. I'm glad they brought folks in power.to their senses.