How (and when) will the Government Shutdown end?

@coldjoint,

coldjoint wrote:

Quote:
"National Emergency".

Sovereignty. It does not look like you or the Democrats care about it. It is how a country stays a country. Terrorists and M13 are getting in. Americans are dying. That makes it an emergency.

This is a thread about political strategy... whether or not you think it is valid for Trump to invoke a National Emergency is irrelevant.

I predict that if he does, it will be a political disaster for him. It will be brutally mocked and rejected by most Americans and will add more pressure to the poor Republican senators who still have to pretend they agree with him.

Unless a deal is worked out quickly, I think you are going to see the Trump administration losing control badly. The only possible deal I see involves a couple billion dollars in return for the Dream Act (to fix the DACA kids).

I predict that if that deal doesn't happen, you are going to start seeing more prominent Republicans publicly speak out against Trump as political pressure mounts on them.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

you are going to start seeing more prominent Republicans publicly speak out against Trump as political pressure mounts on them.

Trump will deal with that likes he has dealt with everything else, he will take the show on the road. Something he does damn well.

1 Reply

@coldjoint,

coldjoint wrote:

Quote:
you are going to start seeing more prominent Republicans publicly speak out against Trump as political pressure mounts on them.

Trump will deal with that likes he has dealt with everything else, he will take the show on the road. Something he does damn well.

I agree with you about this. How well it will work this time... we will see.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

AS pinky said:

Quote:

Trump will deal with that likes he has dealt with everything else, he will take the show on the road. Something he does damn well.

He has to recall that Congress members are already "on that road". They will gain the support or suffer the disdain of their constituencies.It looks like groups of Congressmen will be the ones who have to deal with this as the shut down affects more workers and citizens.

Were he a little bit smarter , Trump could have turned this into a win win, but his petulant childlike intelligence will fail him yet again.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

I think the Democratic position of "let's just get the government open again and take the wall debate to the floor as a separate discussion" is a pretty good argument. Trump is making his wall argument, but why does it have to be solved in January of 2019? That is something I don't think he can answer.

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@maxdancona,

Good to know. So it's only a very partial shutdown.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Good to know. So it's only a very partial shutdown.

Well, one that lets over 800,000 and many more contractors go unpaid.

Oh, and for some reason the Coast Guard doesn't count as a branch of the military so they're not getting paid either.

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@Olivier5,

Don't let the word "partial" fool you. It is a big deal. If it happens much longer it will disrupt air travel and impact agriculture and trade.

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@maporsche,

Not saying it's unimportant or trivial, but the term "government shutdown" seems a bit misleading to me here.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Not saying it's unimportant or trivial, but the term "government shutdown" seems a bit misleading to me here.

The nature of the US federal government is a tad overly complicated. Too many oniony layers and it probably makes quantum physics seem like a preschool day lesson.

The USPS is basically financially/autonomously self-propelling as they're not effected by the shutdown.

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@maxdancona,

I think there should be a work action of some sort, perhaps a strike by TSA agents. If they aren't being paid, they shouldn't have to work and I can't see a court saying that they do.

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@engineer,

engineer wrote:

I think there should be a work action of some sort, perhaps a strike by TSA agents. If they aren't being paid, they shouldn't have to work and I can't see a court saying that they do.

I'm pretty sure they literally are forbidden to strike.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/02/tsa-workers-can-unionize-cant-strike/70804/

1 Reply

@engineer,

My understanding is that any organized work action is specifically probibited by federal law. The union is being very careful to say that they have nothing to do with the number of TSA agents calling in sick.

I suspect that the number of sick agents will continue to rise to endemic levels, but that no one will claim anything organized.

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@tsarstepan,

If they are not being paid, it cannot be a strike, merely a rejection of slavery.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

If they are not being paid, it cannot be a strike, merely a rejection of slavery.

Nice touch but not legally sound (despite good intentions). It's not my mind that you need to change. A strike is still legally a strike. And a TSA strike will technically still be an illegal one. Trump does have the authority to fire all striking TSA agents and replace them all like Reagan's firing [of] 11,359 air-traffic controllers striking in violation of his order for them to return to work. And that would just be terrible and terrifying in so many ways.

Should they be able to strike these conditions? Yes. Will they be allowed? Regretfully not.

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@tsarstepan,

Are you saying that the government can actually force them to work for no pay?

Realistically speaking, how long can they do that before the concerned people find themselves another job? One month, two perhaps.

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@tsarstepan,

But the Fair Labor Practices law forbids wage theft and a court found the government liable for damages for the 2013 shutdown, so if I refuse to work without pay, I think I would have a legal recourse against being fired. It would be an interesting case.

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@Olivier5,

The government employees involved have already been assured they will collect their lost pay when funding is restored. Most are security seeking bureaucrats and will be reluctant to leave their protected nests. If some do go we will, in the main, be better off for it.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

when funding is restored.

You can play this game for a couple of months but beyond that, people are going to look for jobs that actually pay.

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@engineer,

It's a legal tightrope. The TSA will likely get in a lawsuit against the government and get some kind of injunction* but that's not the same as being allowed to strike.

And you're likely correct. The TSA has the upper hand and the weight of precedence in their favor which will likely piss Trump off insanely.

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How (and when) will the Government Shutdown end?

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