Shutdown « POWIP

5Apr/119

Shutdown

I’ve purposefully avoided discussing the pending government shutdown for one big reason. Such an event would negatively affect me. First off is the uncertainty of my actual job, and the second and more likely problem is that even if I did keep my job I would be working unpaid until the situation is resolved. So, the next time you find yourself rooting for a government shutdown, just make sure you realize how this affects actual people. I know most of you do, but I’m just imploring you not to be so cavalier when it comes to playing games with other peoples’ paychecks.

Don’t get me wrong, I blame the Democrats for their utter incompetence and ignorance. I don’t think a shutdown would be bad for the country in the long run, as long as the right results come out of it. Let’s just acknowledge the difficulties it will cause; as well as the possibility that the right results will not come of it.

In some ways, private sector workers pushing for a shutdown is similar to non-union employees pushing for their union co-workers to strike. It's real easy to play chicken with someone else's paycheck.

Adam Wells

Living life at 84 mph and 7000 feet. All I ask is that you don't block traffic, act like a professional, and don't act all surprised when your actions have consequences. Oh, and don't complain about the refs; trust me, they don't care if your team wins or not.

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Tom Usher
April 5th, 2011 - 20:05

Adam,

I don’t mean what I’m about to say to be callous because it’s not meant to be. And I know that up to a point I’m speaking in bold generalities. Getting laid off or just missing days sucks. I know; I’ve worked in construction all my life where missed days and layoffs are just part of the gig.

Government jobs were always know to be gravy work. It’s sort of like the Holy Grail in the construction business for a carpenter to get a job as a building inspector. Sure, you trade off a really good hourly wage and decent benefits, plus a certain amount of freedom for security. It was always a given that you might make less some years but what the hell, the work was steady and no heavy lifting.

Somehow, someway, all that’s been turned on its head. Government employees get paid because they take the money out of my check to do it. My check keeps shrinking in purchasing power while my taxes continue to creep up. On average, government employees now earn way more than a private industry employee with way better benefits and killer retirement.

So while I hate to see people getting laid off I’m also getting damned tired of working my ass off just to watch the money I make when I can find work, and that I really need to pay my bills, be siphoned off at an ever increasing rate to pay people that work for me, for a much higher salary than I could earn at the same job in the private sector especially when, as a business owner (citizen), I know I could find plenty of people to do it for less money and more efficiently, thus allowing me to shrink the payroll, save money and reduce my taxes.

I know that government workers are people with families and that you need money coming in, too. And I don’t know where else you’ll find a job that pays as much (just like about 20%-30% give or take of the private sector is facing now)when government begins to shrink. But shrink it will, and probably at a much faster rate than most think.

We’re broke; end of story. Whether today, tomorrow or six months from now the gravy train is going to lurch to an abrupt and ugly stop. At some point, and I would think that point will arrive rather soon, the world will stop buying our debt, the ability of the fed to continue to manufacture money out of thin air will cease, the market for our bonds will disappear and the dollar will not be worth the ink it took to print it.

And all the government workers will join the rest of us, clawing and scratching for a piece of bread.

So I’m hoping that everyone that’s had a bullet proof job starts to think about life without income. In the construction business its a given and we live that way. But if you’ve never had to choose between buying groceries or paying the house payment start to imagine how you’ll deal with it.

The times they are’a changin’.

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jefferson101
April 5th, 2011 - 20:35

What Mr. Usher said.

Not to put too sharp of an edge on it, but I get my azz laid off intermittently over the course of two or three months every year. I plan accordingly, and have some cash reserves to cover anything that Unemployment will not.

Which, be it noted, it usually doesn’t cover. I’ve collected about 14 weeks of Unemployment over the past 30 years. When my layoff comprises one or two days a week, I don’t get squat for Unemployment. I have to miss about 20 hours a week to qualify for anything at all.

I feel for you folks. And that’s not sarcasm. I know what it’s like, and I do not wish it on anyone. But those of us who get to pay the bills deal with it all the time, and when you hear it’s a possibility, you start shoving money into a sock or something so you have reserves to deal with it if it happens.

I try to have about a month’s pay stashed back in my slush fund at all times. When it exceeds that, I get to spend some of it. And if another kind of crisis arises, I can use it for that, too.

I’ve been putting $40/week in my Credit Union account, via automatic payroll deduction, since about 1995. When it gets over $3k, I can take anything up to $1k out of it to spend, but I always keep that cushion, just in case.

If we don’t go down much, Christmas is good to the Grandkids, or Grandpa gets a new toy, or whatever else. But I know that it can happen any time, and plan accordingly.

Apologies if any are due, but why should y’all be any different that I am in that regard. Stuff happens, and you deal. I’ve got two 34 ounce coffee cans full of all my pocket change from the last two years, too. That alone will get me through a couple of weeks for groceries and gas.

You folks who work for the .Gov have it too good. Most of the rest of us already know that there is no security this side of the grave, and if we want any at all, we get to make our own.

On that note, my apologies, but yes. Shut the sucker down, and may the Republicans get some ‘nads and make Barry flinch first!

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Adam Wells
April 5th, 2011 - 22:40

The only disagreement I have is that you don’t know the nature of my job or its pay; not all government workers are getting paid astronomic sums. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the ones who are in danger of losing their jobs are more likely to be at the bottom of the totem pole; living paycheck to paycheck just like others of their age, education, and experience. They don’t likely have the discretionary income to build savings as they’d like. Or if they’re like me, it’s simply the discipline they lack. :D No, we’re not making minimum wage, but I’m not making 20% more than I would in the same job in the private sector, either.

My job is not one that you want in the private sector; you’ll just have to trust me as that’s about as much as I should disclose in a public forum. I was about to say it’s beside the point, but it’s not. The point is, in the midst of this budget battle, there are jobs at risk that shouldn’t be.

I would rather have those jobs, programs, and agencies reviewed for cutting than to have this across the board axe. But you’re right, we’ve (taxpayers) been put into a position where drastic measures are being taken. I just don’t like the us vs them mentality I keep seeing; as if every government job is an unnecessary drain on society that ought to be purged.

I’m not asking for pity, per se, either, and I think I may have come across a little on that side. You’re right, we’ve had time to make arrangements, and I’m sure I’ll be fine. The most likely scenario for me is I will be working, temporarily, without pay (my understanding is that will be the position the military faces as well); I would receive retroactive pay later. My biggest concern is that I won’t be able to visit my niece for her graduation in San Diego this summer.

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fourbits
April 6th, 2011 - 02:01

Furlough or not, I’ll be at work. As a federal employee, I hold no loyalty to our “Panderer-In-Chief”. I will not be a part of his shutdown strike. I have no union to answer to. I can survive for a while without pay. My place is to remain on the job to continue the service I provide to my community. I refuse to be a pawn in the great political game.
So where are we? Congress has obviously become so corrupted that they are hopelessly deadlocked. They should all be fired. The country is bankrupt. Our leaders are hucksters buying votes. The media is drunk in a continuous feeding-frenzy of shallow sensationalism. Our greed has hollowed us out. Stand Up Americans! Do what is right no matter how the chips fall!

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- Adam Wells
  April 6th, 2011 - 10:50
  
  Sorry, but it has nothing to do with loyalty to Obama; and calling it a strike is so far off the mark it’s comical. I’m not union, and wouldn’t strike even if I was.
  I won’t, however, spend $13 a day in gas for a job that isn’t paying me a dime. If my commander tells me to keep working, I trust I’ll get paid; but that’s different than being told we have no funding and my job is being put on hold.
  FTR, I’m full time National Guard, and our budget is very much in jeapordy with what’s going on.
  Personally, I think this should have all been dealt with when attrition would account for most cuts, but realize that ship has sailed.
  
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  - Tom Usher
    April 6th, 2011 - 11:46
    
    This is a strike. You may not be in the union; in fact, as a member of the military you barely qualify as an “average” government employee. That being said, you will be forced out by strikers.
    
    Think of it this way; the people are the employers and we know that we can’t afford to stay in business any longer without massive cuts in cost. The government, all the workers and special interest groups, are our employees. They want to see business as usual and at least some minor increase in wages (government spending). For all intents and purposes the budget proposed by Rep. Ryan is the offer put on the table by us and the government (union) has submitted a proposal in the Senate.
    
    Both sides are dug in and refusing to budge.
    
    Now add in a President that is, first and foremost a community organizer that has repeatedly and publicly sworn fealty to the unions and promised to back them as they’ve backed him. Further, union bosses Andy Stern and Richard Trumka have been the most frequent visitors to the White House since Obama’s election, further highlighting the unions’s special relationship with him.
    
    Then add the union’s relationship with the Democrat Party as a whole. Throw in the recent public employee problems stirring the pot and getting the rank and file all excited. Not to mention that the modus operandi of the left is to use boycotts and strikes anytime they don’t get their way.
    
    The purpose of a strike is to cause so much damage to a company that it acquiesces to the union demand. This is precisely what the Democrats are planning to do with this strike. Because there’s been no real leadership on the right, no organization to prepare the people for the battle ahead, and because we have a media in this country that will be more than happy to frame the argument in a way that benefits the union, the union (Democrats) has a really good chance of winning.
    
    In most strikes you would try to get people to cross the lines to keep the company working. In a federal government shutdown it seems to me that the logical thing to do would be to shift responsibility away from the fed and to the states, effectively crossing the lines and keeping things limping along, taking a bunch of the bargaining power away from the union. However, and this is why the current problems with the public employees unions is so important, if we try to do this we’ll see the strike spread to local government, too.
    
    Yep, this is a strike alright and a really well planned one, too. The only question I have is why the “leaders” on the conservative side can’t ever seem to see this stuff coming and get ready for it.
    
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Adam Wells
April 6th, 2011 - 12:06

Tom,
That’s a good analogy. It only breaks down when you factor that in a real strike, the actual strikers get to vote on whether or not to strike. Here, the union bosses get to make the call, and they are making it for union and non-union workers alike.

I consider it more of a lockout, but that analogy isn’t perfectly apt, either.

I forgot to note earlier, your comment didn’t come across as callous. I wouldn’t have posted if I couldn’t handle the responses I was expecting.

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- Tom Usher
  April 6th, 2011 - 12:21
  
  I agree with your point about who is exercising the power, though I would point out, having been in a union years ago, in the end, if the bosses want a strike they’ll get it. Regardless of rank and file sentiment.
  
  I guess the main thing that I fear is that this is something larger than a simple budget argument. There seems to be forces at work here that are manipulating the entire system to gain power, wealth or something. I have a bunch of buddies that are in the union and most of them would be disinclined to support the things that are happening, just as I suspect many unionized government employees would. But, like you alluded to, the thoughts and wishes of the rank and file don’t have any bearing on what’s about to happen.
  
  And the involvement of the banking industry and the money they’ve siphoned out of the system by being “too big to fail” really makes me wonder about just how serious the old school Republicans are about getting the problem solved, too. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that this strike isn’t worrying them too much, either.
  
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  - Adam Wells
    April 6th, 2011 - 13:56
    
    My concern is that none of them, including the new Republicans, really care.
    
    If there was a picket line, I’d cross it because I’d get paid. It does make me glad to be able to say I’ve never been part of a union; although a part of me hopes my Dad doesn’t read that statement. :)
    
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