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202 points akersten | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.672s | source
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johncolanduoni ◴[] No.45767803[source]
The things that are and aren’t considered essential enough to fund during a government shutdown are insane. Is this enshrined in a statute somewhere? Feels like adding air traffic controllers to that list should be a no-brainer (and broadly politically popular).
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crm9125 ◴[] No.45767847[source]
Meh, flying is a luxury. We can all stay put until the government pulls its head out of its ass.
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1. johncolanduoni ◴[] No.45767890[source]
Not if you want the economy to keep functioning. A lot of people doing real work (e.g. engineers flying out to fix medical devices) rely on air travel.
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2. crm9125 ◴[] No.45767991[source]
More people will die if the democrats capitulate, than those from malfunctioning medicals devices (or other reasons). I think you should do more research to understand the true cause and effect of the decisions in the current situation the U.S. finds itself in.
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3. johncolanduoni ◴[] No.45768044[source]
I’m not arguing they should capitulate - I’m arguing that we should fund ATC (and some other things) like we do Congress’s salaries. Or just authorize current spending levels by default if Congress shits the bed and simply not have this insane brinksmanship.

I happen to agree on the object level issue of maintaining the Medicaid funding. Thanks for talking down to me, though.

4. ssl-3 ◴[] No.45768278[source]
Capitulate? That sounds like rhetoric that somehow blames democrats for the state of this mess, but the truth is that there aren't enough democrats in congress for them to matter.

There's enough republicans in the House of Representatives for a vote amongst party lines to pass a budget there. That's not a problem for them

There's also enough republicans in the Senate to make it happen with a simple majority, which they posess. They surely know this.

Republicans can end the debate and vote on a bill -- including one that can temporarily get things moving -- any time they want to. They've got the numbers to do that.

It's not a theory. There's precedent. They've made that shift previously[1] in the not-so-distant past.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option