Skip to main content

Government Shutdowns

Some things are fundamentally different now than during the first half of my life. Much of what I learned about the structure of our federal government seems no longer to be useful.

One thing that I knew was that Congress had the power of the purse-strings. While the Executive Branch could spend the revenue, it was Congress who passed the budget, and the President signed it. Checks and balances, fights over priorities, compromises. It was one of the major tasks of the government, to fund itself and consequently fund the services it provides to the country and its citizens, and they took it seriously and acted promptly.

I think we can thank Newt Gingrich for changing that. He is a point on a trajectory but I've learned to never underestimate the power of leaders to get large numbers of people to do evil things. He came to power as Speaker of the House by encouraging new legislators to speak of their opponents as traitors, distributing lists of phrases to use when speaking of the Democrats.  Since then there has been a thriving section of the Republican party that can not be seen to compromise publicly, and we have had serious government shutdowns ever since.

Democrats have their own evil history in their support of segregation pre-LBJ, but they've done enough to atone for that past that most folk don't go there, just their enemies. They have not thrived politically by saying that they would be happy to shut down the government if their demands aren't met; only Republicans seem to be doing that.

We have the recent (past decade) with Trump breaking the will of the leaders of the Republican party; now he is advocating that the government must shut down to impede the prosecution of the 91 crimes he has been indicted for. I don't know enough to be able to gauge how well that would work. It's a brave new world.

I do know with absolute certainty that the government is what stands between us and people who would endanger our lives if it increased their profits, whether it be what we eat, the medicines we take, the products we buy, the fuels we consume. When the rich and powerful wholeheartedly support shutting down the government they support weakening our defenses against such monsters, of whom Trump, the rapist and thief, is one of the loudest and neediest. God save our republic.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Holiday Break

I have been teaching for 37 years now, and I go through many of the same things at the end of the Fall semester each year. There is relief at the completion of a significant task (teaching each of my classes) but there is a good deal of physical and mental weariness and aches. I could sleep for several days straight if not for my sleep disorder. By and large my mind is not very sharp and as an introvert I try to be pleasant with loved ones but am not outgoing at all. With age the feeling of being drained deepens in more and more ways. Of course this is when we have, almost every year, taken a road trip to visit birth families in the Northeast, a full day of driving each way, often involving winter weather far worse than what we are accustomed to in NC. I love my birth family members as well but as with my created family I am weary and not very outgoing. The conversation is rarely about me and my day-to-day life but rather about younger family members and family friends that I do not kn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Accountability

Mathematics as a discipline teaches accountability. Every claim, whether it be a computation result or a statement (theorem) about how things work is accountable. We teach this accountability developmentally, with lower expectations at the beginning, and sometimes folk who study mathematics casually don't understand this. In my multivariable calculus classes, which I teach most frequently, I usually phrase my expectations as "give me a reason to believe your answer", citing my time working at an investment bank where my recommendations had financial repercussions and my supervisor never took my word for anything. In higher-level mathematics classes such as Abstract Algebra or Analysis I can be more explicit: these are the things we all agree to assume, these are the proof techniques which we understand; can you make an argument that convinces the community who have accepted those axioms and rules of inference that what you claim is true? We work hard to remove the ego fro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Contents of Most Recent Email to NC Senators

 Sent to Senators Tillis and Budd of NC this morning: My uncle was a police detective in Philadelphia before he retired. He showed his face and his badge to all he talked to on the job; he gave his name and business card to the public he served. This is what law enforcement officials have done in this country as policy until now; what if anything has changed?   The violent thugs serving in ICE are not law enforcement. They do not protect and serve; they attack and refuse to identify themselves. They are a paramilitary force responsible only to President Trump and his minions, who reflexively desecrate the memory of their victims. All dishonor themselves daily, all lack integrity. Immigration is a serious issue. Using brutal thugs to deal with it is like using a chainsaw to remove an appendix. The appendix may need to come out but using a chainsaw is a silly solution that kills people. It is painful to think of all the children incarcerated by ICE. It is unthinkable to all...
Post a Comment
Read more