US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages

Re:US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages by roywiggins on Friday January 25, 2019 @11:30AM (#18999517)

American shutdowns were invented when someone realized that the Antideficiency Act probably prevents the government spending money if Congress failed to pass a budget. We could, if we wanted, amend that act to provide for an automatic continuance of funding, but we haven't.

Deadlocks like this are definitely a feature of our system that Westminster-style systems resolve differently, but shutdowns are an artifact of an old law more than the constitutional organization.

(ditto the "debt ceiling", which only exists because of a stupid statute)

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Re:US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages by noir_lord on Friday January 25, 2019 @12:20PM (#19000075)

Other countries have a "If we have no functioning democratic government the budget is the same as last year" clause as well as a "In the event the government can't do it's job, the civil service (when it's called that) keeps the lights on"

Continuity of government is kinda the #1 priority of government as everything else they do is subordinate to that.

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Re:US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages by ConceptJunkie on Friday January 25, 2019 @06:02PM (#19003461)

> Continuity of government is kinda the #1 priority of government as everything else they do is subordinate to that.

Well, to be fair, anything that is considered "essential" for the government to do is not, by definition, shut down.

Obviously, there will be differing definitions of "essential", but the continuity is there.

That said, amending the appropriate legislation to prevent this nonsense from being necessary when branches of government are at a stand-off should be the desired goal.

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Re:US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages by jrwoodruff on Friday January 25, 2019 @12:49PM (#19000387)

Yea, and if we did the continuance bit, we'd end up always running on automatic continuance funding, because that means all the politicians can continue to not do the hard work of negotiation and compromise.

I like the 'triggers an election' thing. Puts the right pressure in the right place - if people in place can't get along and come to a reasonable compromise to keep the country working, then the people need a way to make some changes.

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Re:US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages by roywiggins on Friday January 25, 2019 @04:01PM (#19002449)

The government runs on continuing resolutions when they can't decide on a real budget pretty often already. It's not great, but it's way better than parties being able to hold government workers hostage over policy priorities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuing_resolution#List_of_...

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