US government shutdown - Page 44

On October 04 2013 13:27 JumboJohnson wrote:
I tried to e-mail my representatives to ask them to stop this nonsense. (I live in a town that depends on the national parks. They even shut down the boat ramps for fucks sake.) I got a reply back.

"Thank you for contacting me. Due to the government-wide shutdown as a result of a lapse in appropriations, my office is closed and I am unable to respond to email or voice messages. Your message is important to me, and as soon as the federal government reopens, I will respond to your message. I regret any inconvenience this shutdown may cause."

Ain't that a bitch. I can't even tell them I don't support them.

On October 04 2013 13:28 Kaitlin wrote:
Ok, well, let's start with the employer mandate applying to employees with 30 or more hours per week. Is it a good or bad idea ? Can anyone see the "unintended consequence" of this law to be that employers will have incentive to cut employee hours below 30 hours per week to avoid application of this part of the law ?

On October 04 2013 13:28 Kaitlin wrote:
Ok, well, let's start with the employer mandate applying to employees with 30 or more hours per week. Is it a good or bad idea ? Can anyone see the "unintended consequence" of this law to be that employers will have incentive to cut employee hours below 30 hours per week to avoid application of this part of the law ?

On October 04 2013 13:29 Kaitlin wrote:


I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and assume your Congressman is a Democrat ?

On October 04 2013 13:23 Kmatt wrote:


Alright, I'm not one for political "debate", but I'd just like to point out that this chart is horribly made, it starts the Y axis at 950 and caps at 1250. The smallest bar has a Y value of $967 while the largest has $1203. Mathematically, the smallest bar is ~80.4% the size of the largest, while graphically the largest bar is seventeen times it's size. So don't try to form opinions with that information visually.

On October 04 2013 13:33 JumboJohnson wrote:


You guess wrong. I live in Utah, they are the ones who started this bullshit. (Imho)

On October 04 2013 13:33 FallDownMarigold wrote:

Sometimes employers already cut hours below 40/week to avoid overtime and benefits for certain jobs, such as retail jobs (see Walmart, for example). I'm not sure this "what if employers cut hours" is a very strong argument. How many employers are expected to cut how many hours? Is there evidence this is going to be a problem? Just wondering

On October 04 2013 13:32 Atokad wrote:
Considering Republicans are highly (ridiculously) outnumbered it seems on this thread, I will not get into arguments with anyone but rather leave my honest opinion on what is happening.

It's obviously bad for government employees that they can't go to work and blame is to be had on both sides, and yes it can be seen that Republicans are the terrible bad boys for taking a stance and holding their ground, but whether I agree with their points or not, I'm glad it's happening.

This country is based on a dream, freedom. But to be honest, this is all that it will be, a dream. This country is failing, and very hard and very fast. The way we keep doing things needs to be changed somehow, and maybe with this shutdown we'll get something good out of it. Maybe a figure head will grow a pair and say what he/she really thinks and not what his/her political party needs him/her to say to try and rep up their approval rate. The country is failing and it can be seen clear as day that politics is a major reason as to why. I'm in no way saying that politics is bad. No way. I think politics in this day and age are necessary for the chance for freedom to be seen even slightly. What I'm saying is that the way politics are being done is a joke and needs to be changed.

If a party wants something done, they make a bill. They go to the opposing party and ask, what can we do to make you agree to this? After months of deliberation and 10s or 100s of billions of dollars in bargaining money later, we finally have something that can be voted on. This is a joke and it shouldn't happen. Playing with our money like that to try and get something passed that you don't even know if your citizens that voted you into that congressional seat want you to say yay or nay to in the first place is terrible.

These bills that are this big only come around once in a blue moon, so tell me what's so wrong about holding a vote in which all citizens are welcome to vote for, instead of congressmen they elected who are being bought out with your money to vote in a different direction? Don't bother getting me started on qualifications to voting, and how those who don't pay taxes or those who do and expect a full refund shouldn't be able to vote as well as receive social security.

I'm your typical straight out of college republican who gets a majority of his political news from watching "The Five", and sometimes the local newspaper has a political piece (small town). I understand that I'm not seeing both sides of the story most of the time, but on this matter I have done my research and by all means I'm against this. And by saying so my sources for what will happen as a result of this bill will come from fox news, and therefore be shunned upon by this heavy democratic user base that seems to be posting here.

I had a much longer post typed up for this but deleted it due to it not applying to the OP, so I'll leave with what I hope comes out of this.

I hope the way that things are done gets revisited by the supreme court. At least take a look at it. This is a failing country who is only around because we have a dominant military force. If we didn't you can bet China and others we owe money to would come collecting.

I hope all congressmen and women would start actually asking their voters what they want as opposed to being bought out by amendment #254 of this bill which gives X town 10 million dollars for a new sporting arena (or something stupid like that, which has happened in the past.)

So go ahead, and fire away, I won't be posting here again as I see how harshly republican views get attacked around here because you all think this is solely the Republican's fault and fail to see that the president delayed this how many other times up until this point, and now that he's finally ready to go we don't like the changes that have been made since the last time it was delayed? Sounds great. For me personally, I would have to pay more money for health insurance (the amount taken out of my paycheck would be much higher) and I can't keep my family doctor who I've known for 10+ years because my company's health plan doesn't work with her office under this bill.

On October 04 2013 12:59 Kaitlin wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
Seriously, that's your best intellectual attempt to understand the Republican position ? Look at your very first sentence, what I have bolded. Here's a tip: Try to understand the "why" behind that statement. Why do Republicans want to stop Obamacare ? GIve it your best objective, fair, intellectual attempt. Everything you can muster up, intellectually. Maybe we can start there.

On October 04 2013 13:08 Kaitlin wrote:


That's what I'm doing. But it's not going to be me explaining everything. It's going to be an exercise in people seeking to understand others by using their own thoughts. It's really an important ability to develop. I can provide prompts to focus thought, but if I spell it out, then people will a) reject it as usual, and b) not develop the ability to try to understand people who disagree with them. People around here just assume anyone with a different viewpoint is full of shit and wrong and disregard them. "Debate" with these people is a waste of time.

edit: So, what I'm looking for here, is honest attempts by people to post their thoughts on "why" they think Conservatives are against Obamacare.

On October 04 2013 13:08 Kaitlin wrote:


That's what I'm doing. But it's not going to be me explaining everything. It's going to be an exercise in people seeking to understand others by using their own thoughts. It's really an important ability to develop. I can provide prompts to focus thought, but if I spell it out, then people will a) reject it as usual, and b) not develop the ability to try to understand people who disagree with them. People around here just assume anyone with a different viewpoint is full of shit and wrong and disregard them. "Debate" with these people is a waste of time.

edit: So, what I'm looking for here, is honest attempts by people to post their thoughts on "why" they think Conservatives are against Obamacare.

On October 04 2013 13:44 Mercy13 wrote:
What I strongly object to is how a minority of the Republican party has hijacked the political process to force a shut down that no one wants, in order to accomplish a goal that is impossible to achieve in this manner. If they had worked with Obama in the first place when the ACA was being drafted Obamacare probably would include fewer flaws then it does and we wouldn't be dealing with these problems now.

Also, try not to be so depressed about the direction our country is going : ) It really is quite a nice place to live, and by many objective measures we are currently doing better than any other time in our history.

On October 04 2013 13:41 Kaitlin wrote:


http://news.investors.com/politics-obamacare/093013-669013-obamacare-employer-mandate-a-list-of-cuts-to-work-hours-jobs.htm?fromcampaign=1

Here's a list, but even before it happened, is it that terribly difficult to put yourself in the mind of a business owner trying to make ends meet that cutting hours below 30 saves them significant money, even perhaps the different between losing money and not losing money ?

On October 04 2013 13:49 JumboJohnson wrote:

Edit: Plus isn't it only like $150 on your taxes not to have the individual mandate?

On October 04 2013 13:41 Kaitlin wrote:


http://news.investors.com/politics-obamacare/093013-669013-obamacare-employer-mandate-a-list-of-cuts-to-work-hours-jobs.htm?fromcampaign=1

Here's a list, but even before it happened, is it that terribly difficult to put yourself in the mind of a business owner trying to make ends meet that cutting hours below 30 saves them significant money, even perhaps the different between losing money and not losing money ?