Do you personally have your life or that of someone you know ruined because of the USA shutdown?

Not in the slightest.

@KNOWITALL: About the “lively” or the knowing someone/having your life ruined part?

The USA hasn’t shutdown.
The 116th Congress convened today, and elected Nancy Pelosi speaker.
The door is still open. The US takes about 1 million (legal ) immigrants a year, and a bet the third daily ration entered today.
Any government employee who has been furloughed will get back pay like they always do.
If you are visitor to a national park, you probably are upset that the trash is piling up, or the toilets are full. But I can’t imagine that would ruin your life.

@luigirovatti It doesn’t affect my life or anyone I know’s life.

This is honestly not that unusual and not the longest shut down, maybe we are more used to the political games than you are.

@josie: Of course, but it still isn’t acceptable and obnoxious the fact that federal workers haven’t been paid in 12 days (with the clock ticking on).
@KNOWITALL: I seriously don’t know how you can know whether I’m less used to Trump and his games than any other user in Fluther. After all, the only way you can know a user is if they describe themselves, the questions asked, the answers given and the topics they like (the images don’t usually count). That’s it.

@KNOWITALL: Sorry, you were referring to your friends/family/etc. I misread. It’s quite a bit of an habit, actually.

@luigirovatti I’d rather hear more about why YOU are upset about it. haha

@KNOWITALL: You mean, ANYONE, here on fluther, knows/is someone within the 800,000 people affected? That’s, how do you call it… gross. :-)

No-one

From Wikipedia: “The shutdown prevented the National Transportation Safety Board from assisting the Mexican government’s investigation of the 2018 Puebla helicopter crash that killed a state governor and senator. The shutdown also interfered with the response to the 2018 Sunda Strait tsunami as the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta’s Twitter account was unable to tweet updates, and the United States Geological Survey was unable to provide data on the tsunami.”

My friend’s brother is a support worker (not a fed employee but works for a contractor who maintains stuff in federal buildings, plants I think) and he won’t be working til this is over, and won’t get reimbursed.

The National Parks are a shitty mess and people on food stamps are not getting them. TSA people are working for no money.

@janbb I do hate that. Who does that at a national park? Hope the cameras are rwcording those idiots.

If I work retail, I hope people will want to buy stuff.
If I am an oil worker, I hope people will still want an internal combustion engine.
If I play for the NFL I hope people will want to watch my violent sport.
If I make guns I hope there will always be a second amendment
If I’m a priest, I hope there will be lots of Catholics
If I work for the government I hope politics won’t stop my taxpayer funded check
Everybody worries.

But this question is specifically abut the shutdown, @josie, not general employment worries.

@josie I heard the Dems passed funding but its a wording argument. I need to check for updates. If you call it border security or a wall, just sign the budget already.

@KNOWITALL: The Senate adjourned. Now there hasn’t been results.

No. Inconvenienced but not ruined. How could it ruin someone’s life?

@Dutchess_lll: For paying the rent, hospital treatments for sick relatives, etc.

This isn’t the first shut down. Also schools are still open.for business.
I’m sure that trump.is have a vacation at Mara Largo and is loving every minute of it. He literally doesn’t care about the consequences of the shut down.

The shutdown isn’t two weeks old. Expecting people to be “ruined” is unrealistic.

I have friends who aren’t getting paid, but they are GS-15 employees (attorneys for example) who aren’t living check-to-check.

But I am sure they have co-workers who can’t pay their rent or mortgages this month. The assistants and facilities people are not highly paid.

No. But I don’t understand why they have to be penalized just because the elected officials can’t solve the problem?

It’s trump throwing a temper tantrum @flo. Just like a 2 year old he doesn’t care how it affects other people.

I know a guy who is a career FBI agent and he’s not getting paid. But his life isn’t ruined

I have a niece who lives in DC and she works for one of the departments that is affected by the shutdown.

BUT – her particular department / agency is funded by a different source – not the Department of XXXXX where she works – and so she has been going to work (and is being paid) normally.

But the people down the hall from her office are furloughed.

If your life gets ruined by 2 or 3 weeks of deferred pay you’re living too close to the edge! I have actually been on that edge and it’s a bitch, but I went to work in a factory, through a temp service, until things broke lose then got back to my regular work.

@Dutchess It really does seem bitter for employees to pay for mgmt games.

Nobody I know, but my friends who work for the fed make fairly good salaries, no one is check to check. The people who didn’t have to go into work got the holidays off, some of them probably appreciated it to some extent, except they will come back to a mess of work. For sure some people need the work and the money and it’s very hard on them.

Oh yes it’s bitter @KNOW. It sucks. And trump should be ashamed of his temper tantrum.
But I can’t imagine anyone’s life being ruined because of it.

@Dutchess Everyone here thinks he’s sticking to his guns and happy to keep it shut down haha. Part of the MAGA plan.

Let me know when we win! I’m afraid I’ll miss it.

@KNOWITALL National parks are a mess because there is no general maintenance due to the shutdown. Bins are overflowing and there’s no one to tidy up the restrooms.

My brother works for the IRS. He was sent home. I have a cousin who works for the Coast Guard. He’s working without pay.

We know @Stache. @KNOWITALL knows.

Teachers are still working.

@Dutchess_lll Actually the Democrats are the ones who have been on Vacation. Nancy Pelosi has been vacationing in Hawaii until it was time to receive the gavel.

Trump has been in Washington, trying to negotiate.

Thrown projectiles, teargas and chaos has been at the border. But I’m sure you see no consequence.
What’s happening at the border is far more disasterous than the shutdown.

The Democrats want this to fail so that Trump will not be able to fulfil one of his key campaign agendas. For Democrats Hatred of Trump is stronger than the needs for safety of the American people or the border patrol

@Yellowdog https://www.trumpgolfcount.com/

Trying to negotiate what , exactly @Yellowdog? Please clarify.

“Safety.” Get serious.

Have a friend waiting for a passport, that is going to be delayed but, hopefully, she has ordered it far enough in advance that she will get it before she needs it. If not, her vacation may be ruined but her life will go on.

@Yellowdog tends to spout the republican party line no matter how absurd it sounds.

There is no safety issue. This whole shutdown fiasco was an invented crisis to shore up Trump’s presidency after a couple of weeks of bad news.

Lucky for Trump, he has mindless acolytes who repeat his hornswoggle.

Going off topic
1. Trump stayed home to deal with a mess he, and he alone, created.
2. Trump has been in Washington trying to negotiate WITHOUT MAKING ANY ATTEMPT TO CONTACT DEMOCRATS to fix a mess that he, and he alone, created.
3. The border is such a small problem in the overall scheme of things but has been blown up out of proportion to manufacture fear and loathing and fire up those chicken shit conservatives. I cannot stress this enough, THERE IS NO BORDER CRISIS. THERE IS NO BORDER PROBLEM.
4. Trump has already failed. The Democrats are not trying to keep him from keeping a campaign promise. HE ALREADY HAS. He promised Mexico would pay for his wall monument and that is not going to happen. He said, numerous times, “We will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it” Since Mexico is most assuredly not going to provide funding for it, it should not be build.
5.. Trump is the one who refused to finance the government and held himself hostage in the White House trying to force through his monument to Trump wall (sorry). And I am sure we don’t need to replay his publicity stunt in which he both admits that any shut down will be on his shoulders and claims he will NOT blame the Democrats. Do we @Yellowdog ? And, of course, first thing he did was break this promise and blame the Democrats. Yet another broken promise.
There should be absolutely no compromise with Trump on this matter. He should be forced to accept the original proposal and accept that this, like his fake border crisis, is a none starter.

@Yellowdog here is a Cato Institute paper on why we should not build a wall. A Wall Is an Impractical, Expensive, and Ineffective Border Plan. Cato is a prominent right wing think tank.

Key Points from the Cato Institute paper:

1. Walls don’t work. Illegal immigrants have tunneled underneath and/or erected ramps up and down walls to simply drive over them. People find a way. When East Germany erected its wall, it created a military zone, staffed by booted, machine-gun carrying guards ready to shoot to kill. Yet thousands managed to make it to West Germany anyway. More to the point, do we really want to model ourselves after communist East Germany?

2. Most illegal immigrants are “overstayers.” They come to the US legally — for vacations, business, to study, etc. — and then STAY past their visas. By 2012, overstayers accounted for 58% (THE MAJORITY!) of all unauthorized immigrants. A wall is meaningless here!

3. Walls have little impact on drugs being brought in to the US. According to the DEA, almost all drugs come in through legal points of entry, hidden in secret containers and/or among legit goods in tractor-trailers. A wall will have little to no impact on the influx of drugs into our country.

4. It’s environmentally impractical. Walls have a hard time making it through extreme weather. For example, in 2011, a flood in Arizona washed away 40 feet of STEEL fencing. Torrential rains and raging waters do serious damage. Also, conservative sources generally do not address the environmental harm that walls create, but there is plenty of documentation available that show its potential for irreparable damage to both plant and animal life.

5. A wall would forces the U.S. government to take land from private citizens in eminent domain battles. Private citizens own much of the land slated for the wall. The costs of the government snatching private land — and the legal battles that would ensue — are incalculable.

6. Border patrol agents don’t like concrete or steel walls because they block surveillance capabilities. In other words, they can’t mobilize correctly to meet challenges. So in many ways, a wall makes their job more difficult.

7. Border patrol agents say, “Walls are meaningless without agents and technology to back them up.” Are we prepared to pour countless billions annually — after the wall is built — to create a nearly 2,000 mile, militarized 24-hour surveillance border operation? Because according to patrol agents, that’s the only way a wall would work. Again, are we really, going to use East Germany, a brutal communist state, as our model here?
Are we seriously going to model ourselves on East Germany and their wall? A 1979 celebration in E. Berlin.

8. Where walls have been built, there was “no discernable impact on the influx of unauthorized aliens.” In other words, they came in elsewhere, primarily where natural barriers such as water or mountainous regions precluded a wall.

9. An unintended consequence is that a wall blocks farmworkers from EXITING when their invaluable seasonal work is done. Farmers are against the wall because it makes getting cheap seasonal labor almost impossible as few American citizens want or can even do those jobs. And if seasonal worker do get in, a wall makes it harder for them to leave! A wall traps migrant farm laborers in our country.

10. Trump’s $5 billion is a laughable drop in the bucket for what would ACTUALLY be needed. For example, according to the Cato Institute: An estimate for a border wall area that only covered 700 miles was originally 1.2 billion. How much did it REALLY cost? SEVEN BILLION. And that’s only for 700 miles. Whatever we think it’s going to cost, experience shows us we have to multiply it by more than 500%.

11. According to MIT engineers, the wall would cost $31.2 billion. Homeland Security estimates it at $22 billion. Given the pattern of spending mentioned in number 10 (plus Murphy’s Law), that means we’re really talking about pouring endless billions into something that doesn’t even work. And, of course, we taxpayers will be footing the bill, not Mexico. Given all the drawbacks, is that REALLY the best use of our taxes?

Evidently even conservatives think the idea is stupid, useless and a complete waste of time and money.and that is why Democrats should NOT compromise with Trump to give him his monument to fear and ignorance.

NOTE: I did not write the bullet points, it came from This article by Vickie Shecter.

During one of the govt. shutdowns a few years ago, my daughter was in her 8th grade’s Washington DC trip. Most of the locales were closed when they got there. :( The planners had to send the students on museums and sites that were not operated by the govt. One of the teachers even demonstrated civil disobedience by opening the fencing around the WWII Memorial to let the students in. The police tried to stop them, but the teachers assured the police that the students would behave, so they let them in.

I’ll correct @rojo a little. Cato is a libertarian think tank, not a right wing one. They are very different than, say National Review which is a right wing magazine.

Examples of views Cato has consistently held over the years that wouldn’t be considered right wing; open borders, legalized drugs, gay marriage, pro choice, free trade.

Even though the Cato Institute has been a valued resource for conservative ideals and beliefs over the years, I concede that they tend to lean more libertarian than institutions such as the Heritage Foundation, I stand corrected

Listening, or at least trying to, to Trump and it is hard. He speaks like a {Squirrel!!} person who has serious ADHD difficulties and {Squirrel!} cannot keep his mind focused long enough to present a complete sentence, let alone a {Squirrel!} complete thought.

And making shit up (any time he says something about how many people have said to him you know he is lying…. but not even gonna go there.

Motherfucker has never, never been out to the desert. All that bullshit about driving through them. I HAVE been out in them and if you do not have a road, your vehicle is not going very far. Just for grins, look up Lecheguilla. I dare you, I double dare you to try driving across the Chihuahuan Desert without following a road. That shit will pierce your tires with little to no effort. Hell, go try and even find a road.

Stupid motherfucker.

I’ll let you know when and if my expected tax refund is late.

Well that seemed to be the most compelling, logical argument against a wall I’ve ever heard @rojo. Thanks.

If nothing else I hope @yellowdog saw this:

”5. A wall would forces the U.S. government to take land from private citizens in eminent domain battles. Private citizens own much of the land slated for the wall. The costs of the government snatching private land — and the legal battles that would ensue — are incalculable.”

I just heard from a friend of mine who has a small business leading workshops for night photography at National Parks. His business may not survive this, and even if it does the losses to him will be crippling.

@rojo Just as a “for example” this Cato executive summary just came out. It calls for increasing legal immigration, legalizing marijuana and how the border wall makes zero sense.
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa-860-revised.pdf

Is it kind of slavery if people don’t get paid indefinitely? Who came up with the idea?

Not exactly @flo. They have the option of quitting and looking for a non-federal job. Slaves don’t have that option.

@Caravanfan that was great. I didn’t make it through the full report, but through enough to say “wow.” Perfect.

Straw man argument as usual.

…just to make noise.

I had breakfast this morning with a woman whose daughter recently opened a small coffee shop in DC. If it goes on much longer she’ll have to close.

@Dutchess_lll Knowitall knows? It doesn’t appear so. It appears she thinks hooligans are making a mess of National parks according to the response she made to @janbb.

If you think a person is not responsible for not having money in the bank to support themselves and their family for several months you have no clue about the reality for millions of people. It is not their fault.

Well, this is pretty personal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/experts-warn-of-safety-and-security-risks-from-government-shutdown/2019/01/08/855472e4-1362-11e9-90a8-136fa44b80ba_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.7c1448820679

@Stache That was like two weeks ago and you were right the first time. All I said is who litters at national parks, it’s gross. You said they were a mess because Trump shut the govt down. OBVIOUSLY I know, so Dutchess was right.

I know you just wanted an excuse to rag on Trump, fine, but leave me out of your little rants.

^Excuse me for not being here every day to respond to @‘s at me in a timely manner. I have a life. I didn’t realize we couldn’t respond to old questions. No rant here. I only responded to someone who tagged me. You are the one who seems to have an issue. Maybe take a break from the internet and not get all uptight when someone disagrees with you?

@Stache I don’t care what you do. (yawn) If you think littering at national parks is cool, that’s ignorant. Maybe as ignorant as Trump.

How you got the conclusion that I think it’s okay to litter is beyond me. You need reading comprehension lessons. You are acting like a child.

@Stache Dude, do I need to copy and paste for you? You said I ‘think hooligans are making a mess”....someone is, you said hooligans, I just said it was a shame. It doesn’t magically appear. Childish? I said you were right above, but here we are, still in some kind of idiotic circle jerk about who said who was littering. Geesh.

(regarding litter)
”@janbb I do hate that. Who does that at a national park? Hope the cameras are recording those idiots.”

”@KNOWITALL National parks are a mess because there is no general maintenance due to the shutdown. Bins are overflowing and there’s no one to tidy up the restrooms.”

(Dutchess said we know)

”@Dutchess_lll Knowitall knows? It doesn’t appear so. It appears she thinks hooligans are making a mess of National parks according to the response she made to @janbb.”

Again, you’re right, I’ll be wrong and let’s move on. You can pick the next fight with me on another thread, you always do.

Here’s an article about the effects of the shutdown from NPR.

I personally do not plan to book my next trip to see my granddaughter until the furloughs are over.

Wow, today I learned how the company my husband works for is being affected by the shutdown and this question just showed up at the bottom of my screen as an older question.

My husband is supposed to work overtime tomorrow but many of the guys aren’t showing up because they don’t have the parts needed to make the equipment they make. This is a global company that receives parts from overseas. These parts can’t get approval to be sent due to the shutdown. They have tons of orders for equipment and now they can’t be made. Our life isn’t ruined but it doesn’t sound good if this were to last as long as Trump is willing to let it go on.

This shutdown isn’t only affecting government workers.

@janbb I just read your article after I wrote this. It’s scary.

First month passed. First months without paychecks.

On a personal note, my Medicare application is “delayed” in processing because of this.
I can weather this OK, because I am extremely fortunate. But there are a boatload of seniors born in my year that are going to be seriously screwed because of this.

And I live in a state with a heavy Coast Guard presence. The good news is that there is a big push my so many organizations to help out our Coasties and their families. Banks, restaurants, supermarkets, all coming together to help them weather this.

Shutdown finally terminated! Trump threatens a 2nd, but who knows…

Trump will probably go another route with the wall. I SERIOUSLY doubt there will be another shutdown.

The problem is, Trump was offering a lot for DACA and other non-citizens and a lot the Democrats (and I suspect many of the rest of us) wanted, which are now off the table

I mean, if Trump already has the money for the wall, why doesn’t he build it?

@Yellowdog: just google “supreme court data” to understand that threats and/or promises he makes about DACA at this time are meaningless.

Crap. I meant “Supreme Court daca”. Damn you, autocorrect.