The shutdown has been a real learning experience in ways the pundits have not observed.

One thing it's demonstrated is that the size of the government is now so big that it dictates the state of the country's overall economy.

There are 800,000 federal government employees who've been "furloughed" and now they have as much clout as any lobbying interest.  
It's very evident in our own district.  Because of the shutdown,  many of those civilian employees either aren't getting a paycheck or the paychecks are delayed.
There are so many federal employees in our district that the ones who lost their paychecks impacts on restaurants and retailers and car dealers and all the rest.
That private economy grew artificially ONLY BECAUSE of the growth of federal spending.  
And restoring that spending to continue propping up the local economies is what will motivate congressmen to bring the shutdown to an end.

In the case of our district,  it's Eisenhower's warning about the "military/industrial complex" becoming our reality.
For our district (and many others), the  primary role of the U.S. military budget is to be an economic stimulus.  That is not what it should be.

Sorry Bob but your colorful analysis is colored by your dislike of the Military. Pensacola is a horse of a different color in that all it has is the Navy Base. So you have an exaggerated vision of the rest of the nation. You must forget the blue states and the red states and be colorblind Bob. Perhaps Pensacola can become more color coordinated in the future as not to be seen in economics as black and white distinctly in it's dependence on the military. Speaking of which does the Navy base have a color guard ?

TEOTWAWKI wrote:Sorry Bob but your colorful analysis is colored by your dislike of the Military. Pensacola is a horse of a different color in that all it has is the Navy Base. So you have an exaggerated vision of the rest of the nation. You must forget the blue states and the red states and be colorblind Bob. Perhaps Pensacola can become more color coordinated in the future as not to be seen in economics as black and white distinctly in it's dependence on the military. Speaking of which does the Navy base have a color guard ?

I stand corrected. I didn't realize pensacola nas was the only military installation in this congressional district. lol

I have no dislike for the military. Quite the contrary. I just wish the military was there for military reasons.
As you know, I'm very pro law enforcement where you are not. That's because I value having the police between me and the people who want to hurt me. I value the military for exactly the same reason.
But I wouldn't be so pro law enforcement if the city government was spending bookoodles of tax dollars to put hordes of law enforcement officers in neighborhoods only so that they could buy more doughnuts and prop up the economy. Especially if the city government was getting that money from borrowing it from the chinks so that your grandchildren will have to eventually pay it back. lol

Holy Shit!!! He said "Speaking of which does the Navy base have a color guard ? Damn!!! I am writing a letter.. racist Ass Hat!!!!

That's because I value having the police between me and the people who want to hurt me

If that was true it would be a good deal. It is not.... Depending on where you live, there aint much between Us and Them..............

Bob wrote:One thing it's demonstrated is that the size of the government is now so big that it dictates the state of the country's overall economy.

There are 800,000 federal government employees who've been "furloughed" and now they have as much clout as any lobbying interest.  
It's very evident in our own district.  Because of the shutdown,  many of those civilian employees either aren't getting a paycheck or the paychecks are delayed.
There are so many federal employees in our district that the ones who lost their paychecks impacts on restaurants and retailers and car dealers and all the rest.
That private economy grew artificially ONLY BECAUSE of the growth of federal spending.  
And restoring that spending to continue propping up the local economies is what will motivate congressmen to bring the shutdown to an end.

In the case of our district,  it's Eisenhower's warning about the "military/industrial complex" becoming our reality.
For our district (and many others), the  primary role of the U.S. military budget is to be an economic stimulus.  That is not what it should be.

Gee...800,000...that's not much compared to the damage done by President Barack Hussein Obama in the past five years. Plus, those 800,000 people will get back pay and made whole.

WND EXCLUSIVE

Record 90 million Americans not in labor force

Rise of 10 million since Obama took office
Published: 09/06/2013 at 7:32 PM

NEW YORK – Just after Labor Day, the Bureau of Labor statistics reported more than 90 million Americans age 16 and older were not in the labor force in August, the highest level recorded since the Department of Labor began collecting the data during the Truman administration three years after the end of World War II.

On Friday, the BLS reported that the 90,473,000 Americans not currently in the labor force marked the first time the figure exceeded the 90 million threshold.

In January 2009, when President Obama first took office, there were 80.5 million Americans 16 years and older not in the labor force, meaning the number of Americans not in the labor force has increased 10 million during his presidency.

For men, the BLS reported the labor force participation rate, the percentage of the population working or considered looking for work, was 63.2 percent in August, basically unchanged from 63.5 percent in July. It’s also a record low.

The BLS also reported the unemployment rate dropped 0.1 percent to 7.3 percent in August, but the figure was almost completely driven by negative factors.

[...]

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/09/record-90-million-americans-not-in-labor-force/#Z1IZsXBq8sRURvTo.99

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/01/13/obama-to-merge-6-government-agencies-cut-2000-employees

Obama to Merge 6 Government Agencies, Cut 2,000 Employees
The president asks Congress for permission to cut a sprawling government bureaucracy

By DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN
January 13, 2012 RSS Feed  Print


"In a move that some call too little too late, President Obama today called for the elimination of up to 2,000 government jobs and the consolidation of six agencies into one.

Initial cuts at the Commerce Department and five related agencies will save the Treasury as much as $3 billion over the next 10 years, the White House says. To carry out these and future cuts, Obama is asking Congress for a type of "consolidation authority" that would allow him to propose ways to streamline federal agencies..

"Right now, there are six departments and agencies focused primarily on business and trade in the federal government. ... It's redundant and inefficient," Obama said..."

--------------------
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/04/us-usa-obama-pay-idUSBRE93213G20130404

WASHINGTON | Wed Apr 3, 2013 11:34pm EDT

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama plans to give back 5 percent of his pay in a gesture of solidarity with government workers who must take unpaid leave as a result of deep spending cuts that went into effect last month.

The president's self-imposed pay cut would be effective from March 1, when the spending cuts began, and would last through the end of December, an administration official said on Wednesday.

Obama earns $400,000 a year. The official said the president decided on the 5-percent reduction, which would total $20,000, because it would be similar to the level of cuts to non-defense government agencies.

Defense and non-defense discretionary spending has shrunk across the board as a result of reductions under a process known as sequestration..."



Now contrast that with:

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/news_detail.asp?newsID=31

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 24, 2004

Under Bush, Federal Spending Increases at Fastest Rate in 30 Years



Since 2001, even with record low inflation, U.S. federal spending has increased by a massive 28.8% (19.7% in real dollars)—with non-defense discretionary growth of 35.7% (25.3% in real dollars)—the highest rate of federal government growth since the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson. This increase has resulted in the largest budget deficits in U.S. history, an estimated $520 billion in fiscal year 2004 alone. Furthermore, the projected spending for 2005 is a conservative estimate, since it doesn’t include at least $50 billion for the 2005 cost of the Iraq occupation.

As predicted by Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs, author of such key books as Crisis and Leviathan and the new Against Leviathan, this explosion of government power would only have been possible in the aftermath of 9/11. Times of crisis present the easiest opportunities for politicians to take advantage of a frightened American public.

President George W. Bush is now on his way to becoming the first full-term president since John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) to not veto a single bill. The result is a congress that has been completely unconstrained in satiating its appetite for pork and corporate welfare. In response, Democratic challenger John Kerry has maligned alleged spending cuts and called for even higher taxes and spending. The consequence is that we now have two parties competing to see which can grow government faster.

From the massive increases in agricultural subsidies in the farm bill of 2002, to the new Medicare prescription drug entitlement of 2003; from the 47% increase in the defense budget, to the 80% increase in education spending, George W. Bush has demonstrated that “limited government” is not part of his political vocabulary.





SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 2013
Ten Worst Things George W. Bush Did

"Because on April 25 this smug, self-serving man had a smug, self-serving library dedicated to his memory, he's been in the news of late. Friends and foes alike have struggled, sometimes with awkward results, to find nice things to say about him. Others have made it clear that, given the immense damage he inflicted on our body politic, they will have none of it.

You can find attempts to describe the wreckage from Alternet and ThinkProgress.  You can find some indignant snark from Mother Jones and Daily Kos. One blogger produced a commentary-free list of both positive and negative accomplishments that turned out to be pretty damning in its dispassionate way.

I wanted to take some time to do what I did with Bill Clinton: write up Top Ten lists for the Best Things and the Worst Things he did. This difference here is that while Clinton had plenty of contenders for both lists, with W it's a challenge to pad the former and winnow down for the latter. In order to get a grip on the dystopic torrent of catastrophe that was the Bush presidency, I've combined several of the nastiest offenses into more general categories. This list isn't ranked; you can choose for yourself what you think hurt the most. But I have to start with this one:

1. It's the Sociopathy, Stupid

I'm not just glibly tossing around pejorative rhetoric when I suggest that Bush may be a sociopath. It's an idea that Kurt Vonnegut explained coherently, based on clinical studies of this particular personality disorder - the notion that many of our leaders simply lack a normal conscience. One study shows that as much as 4% of the population may have the disorder, and many of them have attained positions of great power and responsibility: "Because sociopaths are ruthless and will squash their rivals and burn institutions to the ground in order to reach their goals – but great at pretending that they care about people – they are incredibly destructive." That fits our fratboy president to a T. But more than most, he pulled the curtain aside to reveal his abhorrent moral character with remarks that illustrate his sadistic sense of humor. I'm thinking here of moments like the mocking of a death-row prisoner pleading for her life. Or the fist-pump he gave as a kiss-off to fellow world leaders at his final G8 summit, as he celebrated his achievements in quashing action to combat climate change, announcing "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter." Or how, one year before the invasion of Iraq, while his aides were ostensibly discussing a peaceful resolution to the non-existent problem of WMDs, Bush poked his head in the door and quipped "Fuck Saddam! We're taking him out!" Which is much cuter than the WMD "comedy" video he showed at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, long after the falsehoods of his casus belli had led to needless death and destruction. And even though it wasn't meant as a joke, it's just as instructive to recall the infamous push poll question he used against John McCain: "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"Whether such despicable behavior makes Bush a sociopath or not is beside the point: in every case, the cruelty of his remarks prefigures the cruelty of his policies..."

http://www.markzepezauer.com/2013/04/ten-worst-things-george-w-bush-did.html