The Empty Threat of a Government Shutdown Means a Cut in Services for Taxpayers (But Without a Tax Holiday) and Paid Time Off (Retroactively) for Federal Workers

Gary Allen, in The Rockefeller File, states that the CFR is behind the many regional government plans, which would abolish city, county, and state lines, leaving us at the mercy of federal bureaucrats; and that the CFR is behind the push for "land use" controls. They want "federal control of everything since they intend to control the federal government." The goal of regional or metropolitan government is to eventually merge the U.S. into the "New World Order" (NWO): a one-world totalitarian goverment under the United Nations (UN). The global elite's agenda is nothing less than the complete revolutionizing of the very foundations of not only America but the entire world. Such a plan calls for the total restructuring of planetary civilization into an enlightened one world federation in which national boundaries and sovereignty are secondary and "planetary citizenship" in the "global village" is the order of the day.

White House: Federal Workers Should Be Reimbursed

If there is a temporary shutdown, federal employees will be ordered to stay home (unless they are 'essential' personnel) but they will be paid for their time off retroactively. So a government shutdown means a cut in services for the taxpayers, but without a tax holiday, and time off with pay for the federal workers.

April 7, 2011

AP – The White House says it would support reimbursing the pay of employees who are furloughed as a result of a potential government shutdown.

It is up to Congress to decide whether to make a retroactive payment for government workers who must take a leave during a shutdown. Congress has authorized such payments in past government stoppages.

Jeffrey Zients of the Office of Management and Budget said the Obama administration would encourage Congress to make those reimbursements. He said a shutdown could affect 800,000 federal workers.

President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were meeting to break an impasse in negotiations over a budget that would pay for government operations through the end of September. They face a Friday midnight deadline to avert a government shutdown.

The Obama administration is telling federal agencies to give employees detailed information about contingency plans if the government shuts down.

Jeffrey Zients says administration officials held a conference call with agency heads Thursday morning. He says officials instructed agencies to tell their employees which services will remain open and which employees will be furloughed.

Midnight Friday is the deadline for lawmakers to reach an agreement to keep funding the government at full levels to avoid a partial shutdown.

Zients says the impact on the economy of even a short shutdown could be "relatively significant."

U.S. Shutdown Could Have Broad Impact

The problem with the U.S. is that 60% or more of Americans are so so dependent on the federal government that they can't survive a shutdown, even if it is temporary. The States should never have given up their sovereignty to the beast.

April 6, 2011

AFP - A US government shutdown would likely halt paychecks for hundreds of thousands of federal employees and impact thousands more businesses with federal contracts.

US agencies were scrambling Wednesday to determine how to respond if Congress fails to authorize spending, resulting in a partial shutdown that would be the first since the politically charged budget battles in the administration of Bill Clinton in 1995-96.

According to a Congressional Research Service report, a five-day shutdown in November 1995 led to temporary layoffs for 800,000 public employees.

A second shutdown -- the longest in history at 21 full days between December 15, 1995 and January 6, 1996 -- put 284,000 government employees out of work while another 475,000 worked without pay.

A senior administration said Wednesday the number affected is likely to be "in the same vicinity of the 800,000" in 1995 despite the different structure of government.

Other services affected, according to officials:

• loans and guarantees from the Small Business Administration would stop
• national parks and monuments and Smithsonian museums would close
• many tax refunds would be delayed, but tax collections would continue
• visa and passport services are likely to be delayed
• mortgage guarantees from the Federal Housing Administration would cease, possibly delaying home sales
• the National Institutes of Health would be unable to start new clinical trials or accept new patients for research
• the Cherry Blossom Festival parade set for Washington this weekend would be canceled.

Services considered "essential" would continue including operations of the military, border security, air traffic control and federal prisons.

US soldiers, including more than 140,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan, "will continue to earn money during this period of time but given that we don't have any money they will not receive paychecks until Congress appropriates... they will be paid once we have money to pay them," the senior official said.

Many federal contractors and their employees also will likely be affected, as was the case in prior shutdowns.

The technology industry group TechAmerica has warned that suspending payments to government contractors "has the potential to impact thousands of companies and place 7.6 million jobs at risk."

The government's Office of Personnel Management, in guidance issued late Tuesday, said each agency would have to have contingency plans in place if Congress fails to pass a spending measure by midnight Friday.

"Employees whose salaries are funded through annual appropriations will not be able to work and will be furloughed, unless their duties qualify under the law as 'excepted' to continue to work during periods of lapsed appropriations," an OPM statement said.

"During a shutdown, non-excepted employees are not permitted to work as unpaid volunteers for the government."

The "excepted employees" are mostly those "performing emergency work involving the safety of human life or the protection of property," and those involved in activities related to an "orderly" shutdown.

Just days ahead of the deadline, many details of the potential shutdown remained unclear.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employees union, filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking details on agencies' shutdown plans.

"It's not something that should be cavalierly handled. If a shutdown goes on, there will be federal employees who are going to be hurt financially," said AFGE national president John Gage.

"They should know before the eve of a shutdown what is happening and it should be done orderly and not in a last-minute rush."

Representative Ed Markey said the shutdown could stop oil rig inspections, threatening safety.

Markey said the Interior Department has about 500 people involved in inspections and safety decisions for offshore drilling and that during the shutdown in 1995, only six people could be retained for this purpose.

"Eleven rig workers died in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and now the number of inspectors looking after the safety of America's rigs could be fewer than that under this potential Republican government shutdown," he said.

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The welfare state, however good its intentions of creating material equality, can't help but make us dependent. That changes the psychology of society. According to the Tax Foundation, 60 percent of the population now gets more in government benefits than it pays in taxes. What does it say about a society in which more than half the people live at the expense of the rest? Worse, the dependent class is growing. The 60 percent will soon be 70 percent... If government relieves us of the responsibility of living by bailing us out, character will atrophy. - John Stossel, Do We Want a Culture of Takers or Makers?, February 10, 2010

In 2010, before any of Obama's major policy initiatives—such as health care reform, cap and trade, and tax rate increases-are enacted, the bottom 60 percent of American families will as a group receive more in government spending than they pay in taxes. The lowest-income families will be targeted for $10.44 in spending for every dollar they pay in taxes. Remarkably, families in the middle-income group—who are the target of many Obama policies—already receive $1.15 for every dollar they pay in taxes. By contrast, the top 40 percent of families pay more in taxes as a group than they receive in government spending benefits... Obama's tax and spending policies will, as advertised, further shift the tax burden toward upper-income families and spending policies to lower- and middle-income families. Surprisingly, Obama's policies will increase the number of families who are net "receivers" of government spending (those who get more back than they pay in taxes). As a group, the bottom 70 percent of families will be net receivers of government spending under Obama policies, up from the 60 percent who are collectively net receivers under today's policies. Of course this means that the number of "givers" will collectively shrink from the top 40 percent of families to the top 30 percent. - Scott A. Hodge, Accounting for What Families Pay in Taxes and What They Receive in Government Spending, Tax Foundation, September 21, 2009

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