El Presidente has cancelled his visit to Indianapolis. The imminent FedGov shutdown -- will the last useless wanker out please shut off the lights* -- is cited as the reason.
He was going to be visiting yet another vehicle transmission plant, which has been a popular Hoosier pastime for high-level Democrat politicians -- Hillary Clinton did it during the campaign, the President hit a different one last November. It must be hard for them to resist: big UAW-dominated factories, deep in flyover country, close to a major airport: in quick, out quick, leave us rubes dazzled.
But it's not to be; with something akin to Actual Work looming, he's stayin' in town. It was okay to go walkabout while Libya festered and another earthquake rocked Japan, but if the old paycheck-conveyor might stop, for however short a time, whoa, Nellie! Gotta man the Oval Office!
Stand by for bipartisan I-blame-the-other-guys; heck, it's already started.
(I can't say as I mind. My Mom has yet more medical stuff today -- she hasn't been back to her house since January -- and I had to take the day off to help out. This resulted in Great Unhappiness from above: we're already shorthanded, we've got techs out on vacation plus the cold I had is still making the rounds and Presidential visits are extraordinarily busy times at the Skunk-Workings. Yeah, well, tough, I like my job but mothers are not replaceable).
___________________________________________
* Yes, I wrote "useless." Other than DoD -- that's another battle -- and (probably) border control, can you name one essentially-essential service the Federal government performs? Most the governing you and I get is the nibbling of much smaller and closer ducks -- municipal, county, state -- while the Feds loom large in the background, passing out tax-grabbed largess and keeping people from filling in malarial swamps. True, they do employ a lot of people, people who'd likely have jobs just as good if society wasn't being impoverished by the burden of paying for FedGov; mind you, the in-between would just suck. But 'splain me, what is it Uncle Sam does that you don't already get elsewhere and/or couldn't do without?.
There are not many functions that are vital and constitutional, IMO.
ReplyDelete1 Military (although at a fraction of its current size)
2 Post office
3 Courts
4 Border protection
FWBO (those last three standing for Without Benefit of Orgasm, so you can extrapolate the first) every April 15.
ReplyDeleteMetaphorically speaking: I've already filed.
M
I hope everything goes OK with your mom.
ReplyDeleteHope Mom X is doing better. As for the Federales, Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution tells us what the Gooberment is SUPPOSED to do, and those jobs do require staff and money. Everything else, well, where's that Dustbin of History hiding?
ReplyDeleteBarack's just lookin' to have some savings to point to before taking his next boondoggle with his family, staff, minions and clingers-on.
ReplyDeleteDitto, ditto, ditto. Hope your Mom is doing better.
ReplyDeleteLike I said at Tams yesterday, I will actively campaign for the first presidential candidate who runs on a plank of "The Federal Government shouldn't have 'non-essential personnel', and the first test is, we shut down their whole agency when the budget runs out."
Sure, the essential agencies are going to have people that, if they take an extra week off, the agency keeps running, but if the entire agency closes it's doors, it can be handled by the states, or a contractor, or just plain privatized.
Ditto for Mom X
ReplyDeleteGood thoughts your way for Mom X.
ReplyDeleteDo what you have to do, the world can survive without TeeWee. (What blasphemy is this??)
I hope your mom is better soon. As to your question, Divemedic has it. I don't even know what I'd leave for the several states to do, although I grant their police powers tend to be broader than the FedGov's.
ReplyDeleteAt the local level, I'm sorely tempted to try to get by with the county sheriff and the public lending liberry system (the latter for sentimental reasons and because, as far as I can tell, it's awfully good value for money compared to a lot of other things the .gov does).
I take it you're talking about the Allison plant. Would that they still made V-1710s!
ReplyDeleteI have stood behind a Mustang while the guy started up the Merlin, I've stood behind an F4U and heard and felt the Double Wasp cough itself awake, but I've never heard an Allison sing. Sigh!
WV: abacess. An occupational disease of Chinese computers (in the old sense of the word) which happens when they wear out their little fingertips on the beads, and they get all infected and pussy.
(not to be confused with the pussy which is spelled the same but pronounced differently)
P.s. I mind a time when mah kitteh had a bad head wound, when I had a very pussy pussy on my hands.
ReplyDelete