Here is a most excellent piece on how the shutdown is affecting average Americans. Just because it isn't happening to you doesn't mean that shutting down the government indefinitely is an OK thing to do. Here is a great example.
John Skoog owns a roofing company in Newport, Wash. He was one step away from having his firm certified as a government vendor when the process came to a standstill on Tuesday. "I don't know what to do now," said Skoog, who has a pitch meeting scheduled with the Army Corp of Engineers on Oct. 22. "I can meet with them, but they won't consider my company if I'm not fully certified." Skoog said he has no revenue coming in right now because he was confident in the government contracts.
The government is an important part of the economy. People's livelihoods are being affected and conservatives don't seem to care. They'd rather continue with their temper tantrum and hysteria about government spending. Personally, I'd like it if they looked John Skoog in the eye and explained their position to him.
2 comments:
I'm not sure how a roofing contractor can put his whole business into nothing but govt contracts. There are certainly lots more private roofs than public.
The government is an important part of the economy.
The government is not a jobs program. If one thinks one must consider the lost jobs if government is cut, then one must also consider increasing government for no other reason than to increase employment. The end result of such thinking is to have the government hire everybody to solve all unemployment.
Notice that the above thought process never noted whether the jobs added or lost were in any manner productive or useful. They could just hire half the people to dig holes in the ground and the other half to fill them in.
That is the thought process of Mark in this case. He doesn't care whether the job is useful. Employment is the only measure. He has claimed before that reducing government employment will hurt the economy due to those employees not spending into the economy. Notice he still didn't care whether that job was useful. Again, according to Mark's thought process the government could hire everyone, have them do nothing, and 'magically' the economy would be booming.
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